So you’ve developed a great product or service. You’re excited to market it to people, to improve their lives, and to share your genius. However, when marketing without a marketing team means showcasing your product becomes a one man job, it can be hard to know where to begin.
In today’s culture, technology develops at the blink of an eye and marketing changes with it. It can be difficult to keep up with all the trends and algorithms.
In fact, according to research by the Economist Intelligence Unit, communicating ineffectively is costing companies thousands yearly.
But fear not, there are some simple steps to develop effective communication for your organization when you don’t have a team to rely on.
Communication becomes more difficult if you yourself do not know what you are trying to communicate. First things first, develop a tagline, logo, organization goal, and mission statement. This will help you streamline the rest of your branding and make it simpler for yourself throughout the process. Ask yourself a few key questions to decide where exactly you want to go and how to achieve those goals.
You may be tempted to jump straight into posting or writing about your product or service, but we guarantee that will be a waste of time. Just like brainstorming a thesis before writing an essay, streamline your marketing process by sitting down for an hour or so to decide what you want to communicate first.
Choose a target audience. This is key to developing a brand. In order to make a mission statement and goal, you need to know who you are catering to.
A book written for a philosopher will be written in a completely different tone than a children’s fairy tale. In the same way, a web page designed for, say, a mid-20s adventurous soul who is looking for an elopement photographer varies from a web page designed to sell an innovative car seat product to new parents.
Consider this when designing your marketing strategy in order to cater to your audience.
For something to be marketable, it must be appealing, solve a problem, and come from a credible provider. It does not matter if, say, an organization has the best liquid solution for dirty laundry ever created if buyers do not trust the person selling the product.
Build trust. Often this looks like small steps:
Marketing without a marketing team requires building your in-person and online community. Community grows through clear communication and honesty. You cannot have a relationship without trust, and as cheesy as that may sound, it applies to marketing as well.
Your marketing strategy should showcase you and your product in a clear, straightforward, and trustworthy manner.
One of the biggest mistakes that organizations make is trying to jump on every method of advertising in order to accomplish marketing without a marketing team. However, communication is incredibly time-consuming, so the more practical strategy is sticking with the communication method that complements your product or service.
For instance, for artists and photographers, Instagram is a great source of marketing. Creatives can utilize hashtags, SEO, the emphasis on photo and video, and the age demographic of under 35 years old to specifically market to their desired audience. However, there are many methods of communication:
Each of these platforms appeals to different groups of people in different ways and has different strengths and weaknesses. For more specifics, these two pieces by the London School of Economics and Business News Daily map out the demographics and strengths and weaknesses of various digital media platforms.
Your communication strategy needs to focus on the platform that addresses your target audience and allocates your resources well. For some examples of different digital marketing strategies, check out this article from our very own Teresa Cooper!
When you are just beginning to develop your communication strategy, consider putting a little information out in each of these markets and seeing which gives you the best feedback. If an Instagram post leads to several bookings as a photographer whereas a newspaper ad produces no results, then focus your energy on Instagram.
On your website, when people inquire or purchase a product, give them the option to check off how they came across your product or service so you can learn which communication strategy is the most effective, and keep developing it.
Momentum can be easy right when you get started in marketing, but somewhere along the line you’re going to get tired of pushing constant communication.
In order to keep the ball rolling, make a clear marketing schedule and sales goals and stick with them. Goals can be as simple as increasing email subscribers or followers to a set amount, growing your sales by a certain percentage, or updating a section of your website.
When a goal is accomplished, set another practical step to keep communication interesting and developing.
So you’ve settled on the platforms you want to focus on. Now, simplify as much as possible. Use free services like Facebook Meta Business Suite to link, plan, and streamline your digital media presence. Many online services offer advertisement options where you can boost your online presence for a fee. Determine how much of your budget you can dedicate to online marketing and track the effectiveness of paid digital advertising.
Develop a clear and easy schedule that helps you stay on top of communication. Marketing can easily take over your schedule if you let it, so set clear personal standards and goals for how much you want to advertise based on its effectiveness and results.
For instance, with digital marketing, decide you are going to post three times a week on all platforms: Once about your product, once about yourself, and once showcasing part of your process.
In a digital age, marketing can sometimes be the only way to reach your audience and marketing without a team can be overwhelming. Just remember, you are your brand. Imagine digital marketing as selling to individuals who walked through the door into your store. At its root, it is built on trust formed through personal branding and clear communication. Still not sure where to begin? We’re happy to help. Contact Amenable to talk about how we can support your marketing without a marketing team.
