So much has been said out there about which one is the best strategy, the perfect recipe on how to gain more customers, more visibility online, get heard from the masses, etc.
Living in a noisy and crowded world, bombarded every minute by information, our business, our products or services are easily submerged.
There are consultants who suggest Facebook ads. There are those who tell you that the only way to survive is through a chatbot. There are those who say that you need to go live every day. Everyone has their strategy, but of course, these strategies do not work for everyone.
Many persons invest a lot of money into strategies and then they are not having the results that they expect, because these are generic strategies and are not tailored to the specific business.
So what is effective?
What I have found out that works all the time with my clients and that I started to suggest them because it worked for me very well in the first place, is to get back to the connection with what I like and what brings me joy.
In the end, I see that the effectiveness of a post, of a promotion, of whatever I do is proportional to the amount of joy that I feel while I put it out there. What I have also found is that if I have to publish a post or an article or something on social media that is not completely aligned to what I’m feeling at that moment, it is not working.
The other super important aspect for me is to behave as a human that is connecting with another human, using a virtual platform. The only difference is the platform, but it’s not that I am changing my behaviors or my attitudes or my way of treating people because I am not meeting this person live. I imagine myself as if I am in a networking event with real people, (hint: they ARE real people), so I connect in the exact way as I do when I meet someone in person.
I don’t go to a networking event and the second phrase that I tell a person that I meet for the first time there is, “Do you want to buy my product? Do you want to buy my service? Do you need anything? What is your number one struggle that does not make you sleep at night?”
I introduce myself. I feel genuinely interested in knowing what the other person does, and then if I see that there is the opportunity that this person needs what I am offering, then and only then I suggest they cooperate with me. Otherwise, there is no way that I push them into buying my product or my service or my offer because it is a wonderful way to let them not buy my service.
The third strategy that I suggest, especially if your business has come beyond the startup phase and is willing to scale or consolidate, is to define the business’s values. Working on values is one of the foundational parts of every healthy business. It is super important to have clarity of values in business because these will be the elements that will resonate with the ideal audience, even more, there will be clarity on defining the ideal client.
All my offerings, all my communication, everything will generate from the values. This is, in my opinion, the number one point that needs to be discussed and needs to be clear even before I start a business.
Right after I have defined my purpose (you can do it downloading this workbook here), I need to define my values. In this way, I will have a clear foundation and I will know what I will be sharing with my audience.
Another fundamental aspect of defining your values is that by defining them, you will be also clear about what sets you apart from your competitors. If you and your competitor have the same niche, most likely you will not have the same values that you put into your offerings, because you and he or she are two different people. You can see how this immediately sets competition into a different perspective and a different approach.
This will be also what will arise from all your messages, from all your communications, from all your marketing. Which kind of voice will you have that will validate your values?