We’re now on the second part of this 5-part Marketing Mindset Shift series where we’ll power key marketing components. But before that, you might also want to read the first part “Let go and Embrace the Mess”.

What’s the point of all this digital marketing stuff anyway?

First, if you have a business, you already have an online reputation whether you like it or not. So by opting out of online marketing, you ARE leaving a lot of money and opportunity on the table. It’s absolutely vital to embrace your reputation, own it and empower yourself with the knowledge to elevate your brand within the digital space.

By having a presence and leveraging some of the components to you see on the right, you’re able to:

• Increase the reach of your message and mission
• Position yourself and your business as an authority within your industry
• Ignite interesting and helpful conversation-–which is a great way to conduct some market research, btw. Try having meaningful conversations with your customers and ask them about their pain points. Come right out and ask how you might serve them better.
• Allows you to build your email list. By capturing these emails, you are receiving permission to talk to and market to these individuals in the future. That’s incredibly powerful.
• Perhaps most important of all: these efforts allow you to send people back to your website. If built properly, your website can be gathering leads and collecting valuable data while you sleep

I would also like to add that these digital assets (the helpful content that you’re creating) has an incredibly long shelf life—much longer than traditional advertising. This content– which takes many forms (like video, podcasts and blog) can continue to attract attention and help to build your audience for years to come. The trick is to create a marketing secret sauce, set up a schedule and stick to it!

Now, let’s take a closer look at what you’re doing right now.

Who is your audience?

Who are you speaking to specifically? Where are they located? What’s their gender, age range and outside interests? What do they read, listen to, how do they consume their content? What do they do for fun?

It’s important to get a very clear vision of this person. Give them a name, decide what they look like. In fact, there’s a good chance you know this person already! Think about a client or customer that you would happily clone over and over again and speak directly to them.

Customer Avatar

Ok, so using the flower shop as an example, I’d like to introduce you to Flowers Fran! Isn’t she lovely?

First, this right here is an example of a customer avatar, and illustrates the level of detail that can be helpful when creating content and social campaigns.

So as an observer of the flower shop happenings (I work right above one), I can tell you that the majority of flower shop customers are middle-aged women. They are well-educated, shop locally, can afford high-end arrangements and are avid Facebook users. They are also familiar with Instagram because their kids turned them on to it 😉

Now that you have a real, live person in your mind, let’s start thinking about your business goals.

Stay tuned for next week’s blogpost where we’ll address “Setting Reasonable goals”. We’ll be helping you define success and build a bit more clarity around goal setting. Make sure to follow this 5-part series because we will be giving not one, but TWO FREE worksheets at the end! These documents will serve as valuable roadmaps to your marketing plan. Woohoo!