The 20 Minute Business Marketing Work Out
The 20 minute Business Marketing Work Out is a list of exercises and thoughts to help you 'work out' your marketing muscles. The work out is designed to be done while reading the accompanying blog post, but you can do these in any order! It doesn't matter if it's a few minutes or hours at a time - the exercise will be beneficial no matter how much time you spend doing it.
A quick disclaimer that this is not meant as an exhaustive list and all of these principles should apply to any business marketing activity. They are simply some ideas that I have used in the past in an attempt to streamline my marketing efforts. The 'work out' is not meant to be a complete list of every marketing principle and strategy, but rather as a starting point for people who are looking to improve their marketing efforts.
1) Brands are human beings (and can be killed).
Example: When I was about eighteen years old, I bought a Rolex watch for school. It cost me about $75 dollars and was made from pure platinum. It was super expensive and I had no problem splurging on something that expensive on a whim during college. Fast forward two years. I get a job at a local mattress store where I am paid $5.50 an hour during the summer and $6.20 during the school year. I decide to buy a new watch to replace my Rolex, but they don't have any in stock and it will take at least another month before they can order one in. I call my dad to see if he has any suggestions for me. He tells me that he might have a few watches from some friends that he could sell him for cheap, so I call them up and arrange to pick them up later that week.
That week, my dad (who works as a manager in the same place I work) gets made redundant. The company he works for decides to sell off everything in the store and he signs over his inventory of watches for next to nothing. He hands me a watch that has been in his collection for years (along with about $10 in cash) and tells me that he wants me to take care of it.
My dad is an awesome guy, but his parting shot was "nobody will ever steal your watch because it's worth more than that man's entire collection. Just keep it locked up securely".
I had no clue what he was on about, so I bought a lock for my watch case and kept it locked up in my bedroom.
It's been three years since then, and I've worn that damn watch less than twenty times. It is now worth at least $1000, but you wouldn't know to see me wearing it. I thought wearing out a $75 dollar watch would be nice to do just because it was expensive, but now I realize what true taste is and how much of an affront to the memory of my dad this little wrist-rubber has caused.
2) Every brand is a human being (and can be killed). That human being is made up of three main parts:
· The emotional – the feelings and associations a person has with the brand.
· The intellectual – the information that people have regarding the company or brand.
· The physical – the look and feel of a company's marketing material, website, logos, and trademarks.
3) Each part of your brand can be compared to parts of human anatomy.
· Your emotional aspect is like your heart or mind; this is where you care about people and other living things. It's where your compassion comes from and whether or not you are considered a philanthropist or humanitarian (literally a lover of all things).
· Your intellectual aspect is like your stomach or muscles; this is where your ideas and thoughts come from. This is where you build relationships with people. It's where your loyalty lies.
· Your physical aspect is like your skin, bones, and blood; it describes how you look to others, whereas the emotional and intellectual aspects are more a reflection of who you are on the inside. The physical aspect describes how you are perceived by others.
4) Each part of a brand is affected by the other parts (just like the human body).
· Your physical aspect affects your intellectual and emotional aspects when you look bad or unprofessional it reflects poorly on your brand. Or when a company doesn't have a catchy slogan or memorable logo, they are saying that they don't care about their customers.
· Your intellectual aspect affects your emotional and physical aspects. When your company has an awesome product they are telling people that they care about the world, themselves, and their customers. When people have prosocial praise for a product that tells other consumers that it's worth getting behind, thus boosting the sales of said product.
5) Your emotional and intellectual aspects are not mutually exclusive.
6) When your company, brand, product or service looks like it's worth getting behind, this is what you should be communicating to people through your advertising and marketing.
7) If you are looking for information, then the information needs to answer a question.
8) If you don't know what that question is, then it's probably not something worth looking at or researching.
9) It's impossible to know what someone else wants without asking them. So get out there and make some connections!
10) Passion drives success (and neither is more important than the other).
11) Drive, motivation, and ambition can only come from passion.
12) Social Medias' main function is to function as a social backdrop for real life.
13) Social media is not real life and you are not famous.
14) Do not use social media as a tool for self-promotion (unless everyone else does it, in which case you should as well).
15) Customers want your company or brand to be successful. They want you to do well; this way they can do well too.
16) People fail because they try too hard, so don't try hard enough. Just try (sometimes).
17) Try new things on, but never wear them out.
18) Be patient.
19) Be grateful.
20) Give back to your community.
21) Believe in yourself and everyone will believe in you too.
22) Look at social media as an opportunity for people to get to know you, not a way for you to get more followers, likes or shares.
23) Take time out every day (or week if you're feeling busy). This is a GREAT way to find your passion and ultimately be able to share it with the world (and make money at the same time).
Conclusion:
If you are reading this, then I really hope that you enjoyed it and found it useful. This book is a very early work in progress so if you have any comments, suggestions or even better contributions to make then please do get in touch.
I am actively looking for a publisher for this book (and if you can help me with that then that would be amazing). If you want to contact me directly about publishing or anything else, my email address is listed below:
josh@thebrandthief.com .
I also run a blog called The Brand Thief Blog which talks about branding, marketing and entrepreneurship at https://www.thebrandthiefblog.com/ .