Today’s blog is all about marketing yourself, and the difference between being a guest and a pest!

So often I hear from small business owners that they don’t want to email TOO OFTEN, or POST too often, or do TOO MUCH marketing, because they don’t want to be a pest in their potential client’s inbox or social app.

You see though, the reality is we live in a VERY competitive and busy marketplace and it does take a lot of be a PEST.

But there is definitely a line.  A line between being a welcome guest in someone’s inbox or on someone’s screen and being an unwelcome pest.

And with the busyness of social media – I have to say that if you’re talking about a subject over and over again, and you are starting to think “Oh My Goodness! People must be SO sick of hearing about this from me” – then and only then are people probably starting to see it and absorb it! Purely because the world of social media, and our email inboxes are just SO busy.

With what I teach my clients (and apply to my own marketing) is that the line isn’t as thin as you think it is.  Especially if you know what information to send or give your potential clients!

Because I don’t think the fear of most business owners is that they will overwhelm their clients, it’s more that they have trouble getting their messaging and marketing customer centric – making it about the customer, and not about them.

Absolutely, if you are sending or posting all about you and what you do and how long you’ve done it for and how good you are constantly, then 100% you are going to get unsubscribes and stop having their eyes on your socials.

Just a side note on that above point here. When I say “making it all about you” I am not talking about telling your story or using your experience and expertise to help or to share with your audience. That is definitely a great marketing strategy, but that is completely different to just banging on about yourself!

You know the difference – think about it.  Think of the socials you’ve unfollowed or the emails you’ve unsubscribed from because they were constantly telling you how good they are.

Oh, second side note – About Pages on people’s websites are the WORST at this.  Seriously, go count how many times on your website or About page you say the word “I” – the more “I”s the less it’s about your customer.

Nobody cares who you are, where you are or what you do but they do care about how you can help them solve their problems, what tips, tricks and advice you can share and if you can show them a better way – enter the story telling element of marketing!

People don’t like to be pitched to, or feel like they are being sold to.

They just want to be HEARD.

Understood.

So, if you’re getting lots of unsubscribes or feeling like you’re a pest, take a good look at the quality of information you are offering.

Is it about YOU or about THEM?

Everyone’s favourite subject is themselves, so we need our marketing to be about our customers – using customer centric language.

Use pronouns in your marketing such as “you, your and yours” and NOT “I, us, my, me, we, our, mine”.

So, your task today is to go and have a look at your last 3 emails to customers, your last 5 social posts and your website and count the number of times you have written “I, us, my me, we, our, mine” – and try and change up the language to make it more customer centric – more about the reader and less about you.

Of course, the exception is if you are story telling – and the story is going to provide value or be insightful for your reader, with a call to action for them as well.

Imagine if my blogs, social media posts and podcast was just full of me talking about me … you’d never listen again!  But it’s about you – providing tips, tricks, actions for you to help you make your marketing a priority and to help make your business life simpler.

If you are providing valuable information, ideas, advice and tips that your TARGET AUDIENCE will find helpful, insightful and useful – I guarantee you that you’ll NEVER be a pest and always a welcome guest!

So perhaps you’re not so worried about being a pest to someone as you are worried about not knowing what the strategy behind the marketing is and what to say, when.

See, everything about making business simpler, keeps coming back to strategy – having a solid strategy will stop you from being a pest and will make your life so much better and simpler.

So, what does your marketing strategy look like?

Perhaps if you just belly laughed because you don’t have one or just raising your eyebrows in curiosity or something in between, it’s time for us to chat.

Schedule a free discovery chat with me and let’s talk about how I can help you with your business and marketing strategy.

Book a call here: https://calendly.com/jenn-smm/discovery

If you have any queries or questions, I’d love to hear from you in the Like Minded Business Owners Facebook group – if you haven’t joined yet, please do! It’s a community of amazing small business owners who are all kinds of vulnerable and share their knowledge and journey with everyone. Or, please DM me on Instagram or shoot me an email jenn@jenndonovan.com.au

ABOUT THE AUTHOR!

Jenn Donovan is a marketing strategist and social media extraordinaire, coach and mentor to savvy business owners. Owner and Founder of Social Media & Marketing Australia.

With a passion for making business simple, because it’s isn’t easy but it should be simple or at least simpler, she’s built a reputation for helping other small business owners simplify their marketing and businesses so they can reach their goals, be more profitable and live the dream (finding the freedom they set out to achieve when they started … the illusive small business owner freedom dream …!)

Jenn believes in giving before asking and that’s why she’s the host of the popular Small Business Made Simple Podcast.