The Best Parts of Marketing

Want to be an expert, effective, and dynamic marketer?

Start by tossing out everything you know about selling.

When people sense you’re pushing something on them, they run away and they run fast.  They’ll avoid you like the plague!

Marketing is a softer, gentler, more palatable strategy for getting you, your business, and your products and services in front of the eyes and in the minds of your potential clients and customers.

Communication and relationship-building, in person or online, is what marketing is all about.

You need to “talk” to your prospects.

Begin from a place of generosity and a belief that what you have to offer will change peoples’ lives for the better.

Keep the lines of communication with your target audience open with the distribution of valuable FREE content through:

  • Articles
  • Blog Posts
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Ezines/Newsletters
  • Teleseminars
  • Webinars
  • Emails
  • Surveys
  • Contests
  • Social Media
  • Postcards/Greeting Cards

Strive to brand yourself as an authority by implementing marketing strategies that engage, enrich, educate, and entertain your target audience.

The best parts of marketing will keep your prospects’ (selling) defenses down!

  • Aloha Melanie, I enjoyed your post and like your verbiage in how you have a soft touch to your approach. Thanks for sharing! Lanikee.com

    Ps..come by and visit me and leave me a sweet comment. The benefits are sharing is caring. Mahalo!

    • Nice to meet you, Lani, and thanks for knocking on my door!

      Mind mapping sounds like an intriguing niche. I think I’ll take a stroll on over to your blog and see what you’re up to. 🙂

      I emphatically, vehemently, and vociferously believe that marketing is the softest and most comfortable approach to building your personal brand and building your business. It’s totally non-threatening and it works!

  • Melanie – I love the new comment box! I can see it!!!

    I also loved how you ended your post – “The best parts of marketing will keep your prospects’ defenses down!”

    At first I thought . . . “what??” And then it hit me – this is absolutely true and I know you mean it in the nicest possible way. But good marketing is like a warm blanket on a cold evening. It helps you be comfortable. If you think of marketing as a way to make your prospects comfortable with you, your offering and buying from you – then you’re doing everything right! Great post – as always, Ms. Melanie. 🙂

    • Thank you, Lis, and as far as my silly comment box goes … sometimes it shows up and sometimes it doesn’t. Go figure. I’m starting to think my WordPress theme suffers from mood swings and needs to be put on some kind of hormone replacement therapy. 🙂

      I’ll be frank. I love marketing and I don’t love advertising or selling. Marketing, to me, IS like a soothing warm blanket on a cold night, as you mentioned. Working to build community and giving people the chance to get to know me is really the only marketing plan I need.

      As an aside …

      I thoroughly enjoyed your Article Marketing Success Weekend course! You’ve got one happy camper here who won’t hesitate to spread the word.

  • The gentle side of marketing is an interesting concept. Yes, you want to enrich your readers and give them value. But does it work with out a strong call to action?

    If you believe in your products, your readers deserve to be directed to those products and the value they will ad to their lives and business.

    I do know what you mean about those who are just pushing something on me. And I do avoid them like the plague. They are the first to get deleted from my emails. For exactly the reason you say… they have not communicated with me.

    • Right on, Sheila!

      There’s an “edge” to you I’ve always enjoyed, appreciated, and respected since we first connected online. And I’m getting better and better at seeing through some of these unprofessional, pushy “in-your-face” marketers and taking the initiative to hit my DELETE button.

      You’re absolutely right about including a “call to action” – that sounds like a great topic for another blog post. 🙂

  • Wow, this post is spot on. Marketing is definitely not selling, and not advertising. And when defining your marketing plan, and what steps you will achieve to reach your marketing goals, all of your suggestions should be included.

    Nothing can stop the social media and web 2.0 evolution. So the only choice a business must make is to participate and engage the discussions, or ignore the fact they are taking place. It’s surprising which one a lot of businesses are choosing.

    • It’s no secret, Fiona, that you are, undeniably, one of the finest marketers around – a true professional with the knowledge it takes to do marketing the right way!

      To tell you the truth, it wouldn’t surprise me to find out the massive number of businesses that AREN’T jumping on the social media bandwagon. Too bad. They’re resistance is going to cost them more than they realize and in more ways than they can imagine.

      Thanks so much for your insights!

  • Melanie:

    This post hits home. As a sales expert, the last thing one want to do with a prospect is to be aggressive and pushy. The prospect will run and hide from you the next time they see you. Alway provide useful information that will help your prospect, in return they become your customers. Do not expect to close the deal or even the second on the first meeting. You got to hustle and work it baby! It’s all about servicing your customer and not about you!

    Do not mean to be egotistical when I wrote sales expert. Here is my reason why for the past 8 years I have sold one product to the same customers growing the business every year and making $25 Million dollars.

    Melanie you provide value added services in every blog post and I will come again and again. You sold me a long time. To your great success.

    Regards,
    Jane 🙂

    • Knowing of your background and expertise, Jane, I really appreciate the thumbs up on this post. Of all the wonderful entrepreneurs in my circle, YOU understand the psychology of sales and what it takes to close a deal. Therefore, I think you should make for one fantastic marketer!! 🙂

      Always love to have a visit from you, Jane. Have an outstanding week!

  • You touched on a great topic, Melanie. When getting started online it is so hard to grasp that marketing is not selling. It doesn’t make any sense at first, at least it didn’t to me.

    In the online world marketing means something totally different than offline. It’s more about giving and less about the convincing that goes on in the offline world of postcards, newspaper ads, etc.

    • Absolutely true, Angie!

      When I first started online, I had a dickens of a time figuring out the difference between marketing and advertising. I honestly thought they were one in the same. Nope! Since then, I think of marketing as the “opposite” of advertising and it really helps me to communicate better with my audience.

      Thanks for knocking on my door!