How to Reach Your Market in 4 Letters

There’s certainly no shortage of marketing education pontiffs and gurus.  You probably have as many references on your bookshelf as I do.  Each message skillfully tailored to appeal to a target niche.  One thing they all share is a particular vocabulary and list of ‘buzz words’.  It comes as no surprise that 4-letter words are conspicuously missing.  This is business, after all, not stand up comedy.

What most marketing gurus seem to miss,  stand-up comics have learned to exploit.  The secret is not only the choice of a 4-letter vocabulary, it’s how you use it to define your character or your method of operation.  When used properly, a 4-letter word springboards your celebrity and drives audiences to your act.  Such raving fans become loyal customers or top producing team members.

4-letter Marketing

Contrary to popular belief, skillful application of one 4-letter word will IMPROVE the character of your marketing and your customer’s perception of you.  So, at potential risk of losing my readers, the 4-letter word with all this power is  one that starts with the letter “L”.  It’s time we break censure, take the gloves off, damn the torpedoes and L-E-A-P into marketing.

You’re probably thinking, “This must be an acronym,” and you’re right.  Whether you are in direct sales, education, a service industry, MLM, or a brick and mortar business, incorporating L.E.A.P into your marketing significantly impacts your effectiveness at resonating with customers and your ability to inspire team members.

Make the L.E.A.P to Effective Marketing

Today’s marketing, especially Social Media, is more transparent than ever before.  Given the number of choices available and the ease of access to your competition, customers are more perceptive, critical and savvy.  If they smell a rat or sense any pretense or sham in your marketing, you’ve lost more than just a sale.

Market leaders know that building a business is simple math:  retain existing customers and continuously add new customers.

1. The best way to retain customers is to demonstrate leadership and deliver more than your competition.
2. The best way to generate new customers is to turn existing customers into raving fans.

L-E-A-P is the formula for doing both.

• Love
• Energy
• Audacity
• Proof

Love what you do and for whom you do it.

Love bolsters passion.

OK, you know me better than to think that I’m writing some sappy article about the Golden Rule, but did you think you could escape the “L” word entirely?

It is imperative that you truly enjoy what you’re doing and your customers believe that you genuinely care about them.

For real success, love reaches deeper than just your business operations.  It applies to WHY you choose to be an entrepreneur.  We’re not talking about reasons like autonomy, monetary gain, or sense of accomplishment.  The ‘why’ gets to the root of your passion.  What drives your desire to be successful?  It’s that love which fuels your passion.  As a leader, carry this passion at the forefront of YOUR character and your method of operation. (This is a topic for a whole other article.)

Generate Energy:  (E=mc²)

Leaders create energy and energize their teams.

Just ask Einstein, energy drives everything.  His famous equation applies even to marketing.  The amount of energy in your business is “m” times “c²”.  The non-physics definition is marketing times customers (who multiply themselves).

m: Your marketing message must focus on building and maintaining relationships.  You’ve read it before, it costs more to find a customer than to keep one.  It’s easy to catch their eye with flashy ads and slogans, but to build loyalty it’s more important to win their heart.

c²: Customers who are raving fans of your business share their story with others, which provides über-valuable social proof.  Certainly your product has to cut the mustard, but the more your customers identify with you and your brand, the more likely they are to becoming a raving fan.

Inspire with Audacity

Leaders are bold.

Be dauntless, venturesome, fearless and courageous in your approach to building your business.  These are leadership characteristics which galvanize a team and incite action.

Become the example of what you want in your team members.  People are drawn to those whom they admire or identify with.  If you wish to attract leaders, you must be a leader.  If you want develop top producers, you must become one.  To be inspired by your team, you must be inspiring.

Offer Proof with Humility

Credibility is the foundation of Leadership.

With all the media hype and claims of internet riches, it’s rare to find the genuine article.  You can’t manufacture better proof than your own success story.  However, nobody likes a braggart.   Render your story with humble confidence.  You know that your success comes from the efforts of many, after all.

Lend your experience and mentoring to those who aspire to follow in your footsteps. Whether you blazed the path or re-marked the trail of others, your customers/team will respond to sincere direction.

Begin applying the LEAP model to your marketing and watch the response.  Reach out to your customers and team members.  Listen to their reaction and respond in kind.  By remaining focused on your customer/team and meeting their needs, you guarantee your own continued success.

—
Limited time offer:

Discover 5 techniques for dominating search engine ranking with video. Learn why old video practices will fail and how a newbie can steal your market overnight.

Subscribe to this blog (enter name and email in right margin) and receive:

1. A PDF document with details of the Top 5 video for search ranking strategies
2. Bonus: How to correct the 3 most common ‘home’ video mistakes
—

Your best is yet to come!

Robert

P.S. This blog is intended to spark dialogue — COMMENT and SHARE at will.

P.P.S. Tweet my blog by clicking “retweet” in the upper right corner of this post.

=========================================================
Content Sharing:
Copying, use, or display of content from this site, in whole or part, is conditionally permitted. (see our Content Sharing and Resource Info requirements)

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.