Marketing is about connecting with people. That’s it.

It sounds more complicated than that, doesn’t it? It seems like there are a million and one courses and books and videos out there on how you need to do all of these different things to market your business.

You definitely get to a point where you need outside help to market your business. If you didn’t, we wouldn’t exist! Like many valuable things, the basic concept of Marketing is simple, but results don’t come easy.

The act of creating marketing content that works comes back to one basic action item though, and that action item is – Connect.

So how do you connect with your audience? As with most things, you have to get specific.

What’s Their Why?

Why does your market need you? What need of theirs are you fulfilling? What problem do you solve? What do they need and why do they need it, and what is keeping them from getting it?

If you can write a paragraph about this, then a sentence about it, then three words that describe what your market needs and why, you’ll start having a pretty good idea of how best to connect with them.
If you have an idea, voice memo it on your phone, put it in your notes, email it to yourself – anything to make sure that you can find it later and use it as inspiration for content.

How Can You Help?

There may be multiple ways that you can help solve a problem for your market, but how can you distill this into one specific reason that they can’t live without you? Asking yourself this question will not only help you to figure out what makes your audience tick, but you will also start niching down and specifying your offerings. Which brings us to…

What Makes You Different?

When you apply for certification for government or public service certification programs, one important part of the Capabilities Statement that you must specify is your Differentiators. Larger entities want to know, how is your business different than the other businesses that do that same thing? Why should we hire you specifically?

Just like in life, you gotta be yourself, because everyone else is taken. So lean into the things that make your business different from the others in your field. These differentiators are your biggest marketing points.