In marketing and sales the ability to adapt with the "times" is key to long term relevance. Take any HUGE brand. They form identities that are general and change-proof. Nike and Under armor focus on the greatness of athletes. Wayfair, Crate and Barrel and Joanne Fabrics focus on decor trends from different angles. All seeking to stay top-dawg in their space and are changing their brand messaging, but not their core belief.
WAIT! Didn’t I just say they are change-proof but then I said they change their messaging? YES. The markets, cultures and subcultures of people are always changing. The core message of what these companies stand for does not change. Simply put, again, what Brands stand for doesn’t change but their messaging changes automatically with the shifting culture.
So what does that mean for you? How does that apply to your side hustle, your small business, your startup, or your plans to get started? How do you dominate a space, eat your competitors lunch and change effortlessly?
Big brands all started with these Overlooked Secrets and you should too.
Overlooked SECRET #1: You need to understand what value you offer the world better than anyone else on this planet!
Ask yourself, WHAT do I do and who does it better than me? Who crushes me in this space? Who owns the lions share of the market right now? Knowing this will give you the correct perspective on your value, and what kind of value is the market demanding. This process is hard, depressing and painful. PRO TIP: learn to love this process and repeat it often to make sure your aware of the game in your space.
Overlooked SECRET #2: You need to know exactly WHO (one avatar) must have the value you offer. Do not confuse this with niching down. Niches are more demographics and psychographics. The avatar is literally one person – one persona. Is can be a woman in her 50s who just sent off her last child to college and is now looking to get into interior decorating. Or it could be a man, husband, in his 30s with a middle class house, 4 kids and 2 cars seeking to go from corporate job to successful entrepreneur. PRO TIP: This is a skill! Unlocking your creative juices to ID different avatars will put you in the top 10% of marketers worldwide.
Knowing WHO you serve, the exact one person, you can create messaging that they will respond to no matter what. Because the messaging is linked to their persona. ITS THEIR LANGUAGE they personally speak.
Overlooked SECRET #3: Bridge the gap between your avatar and your value. IS there a laser straight line between you and your avatar? Does your avatar actively seek the value you offer? The idea is to match your value and avatar so well they beat your door off its hinges to buy from you! And this is a real concept for content marketers. Content = the messaging that your avatar needs to hear to seek you out. PRO TIP: payed ads are the opposite, meaning your actively seeking the avatar. Content marketing is fishing in hopes they are looking for content/value.
If your product or service is so unique that your avatar doesn’t know it exists or the pains that it solves then you may have found the golden untapped opportunity that nobody else found yet.
Overlooked SECRET #4: Your messaging is now creating itself. By now its fairly obvious what your value offer is, who your avatar is and how they both connect together. Go find people in your space already doing this and/or doing this better than you. Take what works and either pivot to another angle or just make your value offer stronger. PRO TIP: this is now where you start developing a niche. Make your niche at least 9 generations down to match your avatar. Example: Men, age 25-35, first time stock investors, invest purpose retirement, goal of 5MM+ by 65, income $67k/y, married with kids, home owner, conservative politics, large savings account, live in the midwest region of USA, low debt-income ratio.
BONUS SECRET: The deeper the niche the higher you charge. The higher you charge the less sales you need monthly. Once your business is stable and growing you follow your niche backwards and add value laterally instead of deeply. Maybe I’ll write an article on this concept.
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All this to say, NOW your finally ready to content market. The value offer is set, the avatar must have it, the bridge to connect them is ready to cross and all you have to do is get the messaging to them. You don’t need to worry about endless content ideas or new ideas because in this case you are hammering on what already works. Can you see??? value offer + your brand + personality + humor + emotion and passion = UVP (unique value proposition). UVPs beat the big brands all day long.
Action: Go write outlines of your new content and post it for us to read. Your here to learn, aren't you? Content outlines only, no video scripts or formatting.