[social_warfare]
SHOW NOTES
The best marketing strategies consider their audience above all else.
If you want marketing that “works,” your audience has to become your top priority! (This sounds simple, but lots of people don’t dig deep enough.)
For example…
Let’s say you serve an audience that doesn’t have a lot of time (maybe a busy solopreneur or a parent with three kids).
Number 1, don’t create a content-heavy course!
Number 2, don’t advertise your course as “jam-packed” with material!
Otherwise your people won’t buy (or worse, they’ll be disappointed when they do).
The not-so-secret KEY to marketing that works is this –
“Connect both what you create + how you promote it with what your audience actually wants + how they want it.”
In this episode, I’ll breakdown why and share a few examples of how this plays out in real-life, plus…
- How Team Hirsh uses this technique to successfully market IGNITE (with our evergreen webinar!)
- How to position your offer with the objection of “not enough time!”
- And how to think like your ICA
If you love this episode, please send me a quick DM on Instagram (@emilyhirsh) – your thoughts and comments help me determine what to talk about next!
And if you’re ready to change your life+business for the better, to positively impact the people your business serves – head to HirshIgnite.com to grab your copy of my NEW book, Ignite Your Impact!
Key Points:
[3:07] Here’s an example of what NOT to do (and this happens a lot)
[5:12] You have to consider how you position your offer (not just what the offer is)
[7:47] Here’s how this plays out in our marketing for IGNITE
[9:11] P.S. Does your audience *know* already that they have the problem you’re solving for them? (That’s important.)
[11:15] My advice? Take a step back and become your audience
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Episode Transcripts:
Emily Hirsh:
Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today’s episode is inspired by Team Hirsh. Sometimes my team comes to me in our huddle or our ads team meeting that I’m on once a week and asks me to do podcast episodes, usually because it’s conversations they’ve had a few different times with the different clients, and so they know it’s very needed in the industry. They also like to use these episodes to actually send to our clients, to kind of get my voice and my expertise across to them.
So I love it when that happens, because usually if we’re seeing this trend with a couple of clients and having these conversations with a couple of clients, then… it means that other people need help with that. So today we’re going to talk about connecting your offer with your audience. What I mean by “connecting your offer with your audience” is very much in alignment with The Hirsh Process and the way that we do ads…
…and the way that we look at marketing, which is, there is no cookie cutter strategy. There is no strategy out there that is like, “This is the best way to do it, everyone should do it this way,” because the best strategies are the ones that really take into consideration who your audience is, and who they are, what type of [content they prefer], how they like to consume content, how they like to consume things they buy, and the problems that they have, and just really considering them in the process.
And I think that gets lost. I was actually talking to an IGNITE student on one of our support calls, too, and same thing. This same exact [mindset] that I’m going to talk about was in this student as well, which is, we get this idea like, “Okay, we have to do this, because I either saw it somewhere, or we just think it’s a great idea, it’s the best idea ever!” And I’ve done this so many times myself, it’s like, “This is the best idea!”
And you’re so close to it that you actually can’t see from high up anymore that it’s maybe not the best idea, or maybe it’s out of alignment with your audience. And so the examples that I’ve seen with this is where somebody creates an offer, usually because they think it would be fun to deliver that offer, they have a good way of putting their content together in that type of an offer, they’ve seen somebody else do it.
[Or] maybe somebody told them they should do it, and they’re like, “Oh, that’s a good idea,” and then they just get stuck on it. They just get [in], “That is the way that I should do it.” So an example would be, let’s say that you have an audience who’s super busy, and they don’t have a lot of time to consume content. But you decide to create an offer that’s going to require your audience to spend a lot of time on it.
So let’s say it’s a challenge or it’s a course that’s very hands-on, and they have to show up five hours a week and spend all this time on it. But your audience is a very busy audience. It’s an audience of moms or really busy entrepreneurs, people who don’t have a lot of time. There’s going to be a disconnect between your offer and your audience, and you have to be able to see that and understand that and really, not only create offers and actually sell things that will be right for your audience, but also position it so it’s right.
Because think about this, if you had an audience who was really busy and they didn’t have any time, really, to consume content, and you’re fighting against that objection of time… then if you go out there and position your offer as, “We have all this content, and you get to go through it, and it’s a 30-day intensive,” and that might sound cool, because it might feel like, “Oh, we’re delivering a ton, because we’re delivering a ton of content.” But what your audience is going to hear is, “Time.”
Your audience is going to hear, “Oh no, I do not have the time to put into this. And so, therefore, I cannot buy.” Because it might sound like a lot of great content, but it’s not actually… “I don’t have time for it, and I’m not going to consume it.”
And so there’s this disconnect, because the content might be good, but the delivery of the content is not. And I had the same kind of conversation with an IGNITE student, where they were really set on how they were going to deliver this product. But when you got into it, and you started talking to them about who their client is, you realized that their client is not somebody who’s going to necessarily want that offer. And so, not only in what you create… so, “Should I create a course or should I create a challenge?”
But [also in] how it’s positioned, it’s so important that it takes into consideration your audience. Some of the biggest things to take into consideration are how they’d want the content delivered… Sometimes we think, “Well everybody would want live support calls,” or, “Everybody would want a live event or a Facebook group or 100 hours of video content.” But everybody doesn’t want that. Your audience wants, probably, very specific things.
I know my audience is super busy, so for example, we really push in our marketing how much time we save an entrepreneur, especially by having our creative team and having our team who takes away all of that responsibility and puts the entrepreneur in a place of content creation and connecting with their audience, and we do all the implementation. And so when I’m, not only delivering my offer, because my offer is truly that, it is where we do all of the strategy and the implementation and the creative pieces of their ads in their marketing…
But it’s also how I talk about it, right? So my sales team, when they’re on a call with a client, when I’m talking about my services in a conversation, or when I speak, or in a webinar, I’m focused on that pain point, because I know that connects to my audience. Also in my course, I know that most of the people coming in are business owners who are busy, they don’t have a team. Some have a team, which means they’re even busier, and their team’s going through it.
So instead of creating very long videos and in-depth trainings, we break it out into a lot of short trainings, and I focus on that when I deliver the offer, which is very much, very short, actionable trainings, and […] they have a student pathway checklist, and they have a very clear guide and a path of what they need, and they only need a couple hours a week to go through the course.
And we talk about all of this. I talk about it on my webinar, sales emails… And so I’m positioning the offer with my audience in mind. And so, some of the biggest objections that you’ll get are either time… I think time is one of the biggest ones. Did you create and position an offer that your audience is going to really feel like they want to go through that offer, they want to buy that offer, and they have the time for it?
Because sometimes, we have a disconnect of like, “Oh […] I think it would be so great to do a 30-day challenge,” but if your audience doesn’t want that, then it’s never going to work, right? Even if it’s the best content in the whole world, and it solves all their problems, if they are not going to stick around for it because they’re busy, then it won’t work, right? It won’t convert.
So time is a huge one. And then positioning. So sometimes, here’s the mistake people make is, they think that their audience has ‘this’ problem, but the audience may not even know they have that problem, and so how they position it is, they’re talking at the next level [v the level their audience is at now]. So let me give you an example.
An IGNITE student on a call was talking about how he delivers a product that teaches people how to be great on video. And he actually wasn’t asking me a question about messaging, but he [said], “I have a course that teaches people how to be great on video.” And he was assuming that people had already gotten to the place where they think, “I need to be great on video.” And so I challenged him, and I said, “Well, why do people need to be great on video? Why does your audience want to be great on video?”
And he had to think through it, and he’s like, “Well, ultimately, because they want to grow their business.” And I said, “Right. So if you go out and you sell this product or you even pitch your webinar, and it’s about ‘be great on video,’ nobody’s going to care, because they’re not sitting around saying, ‘I need to be great on video.’ They’re sitting around saying, ‘I want to grow my business, and in order to do that, maybe I need video?’ But you’re going to have to convince me of that, you’re going to have to make that connection for me as the brand.”
And so he was going to go out with this, “How To Be Great On Video,” webinar, but the problem is, there was a disconnect with his audience. And then, same with his course, it was going to be “How To Be Great On Video,” but it’s like, “You think everybody already knows, because you’re an expert. So you think everybody already knows, ‘Oh I need to be really great on video.’ But they don’t, they don’t see that as the problem. And so you could talk about…” I gave them a bunch of angles so that he could [move] on, talking about how to pitch on video or how to represent your brand on video or how to speak to your audience on video… so that you can grow your business. Right?
So there was that connection. And so, you have to connect your offer and your messaging with your audience. And this is something that I think I see missed so many times, even though, it might sound obvious when I’m saying it, but when you really think about it, you have to almost see it from a higher level. You have to almost remove yourself from where you’re at and your thinking [of], “This is the best idea, and I have to fit it into this box,” almost.
And then remove yourself and see yourself as the audience, and almost try to poke holes in what you’re doing. Ask yourself, “Would my audience really want this? Would they really consume this? How could I make this better? How could I make this more clear? How could I speak to their problems in a clearer way.”
And go deeper with that. But most importantly, throw away the cookie cutter strategies, throw away the things that you think work, even throw away your own ideas of, “This is how it has to be,” and getting stuck on that, and just think about your audience. Take your audience into consideration, because that’s why we’re doing it, always, right? To attract our audience, to sell to our audience.
And so they are the most important people, and you have to make sure you’re listening to them, and you’re listening not only directly… if they’re telling you these things directly, that makes it easier! But indirectly, looking at, how are they consuming content? What type of messaging are they responding to? What are they saying? What language are they using? All of those components and pieces that are so important in the success of your marketing.
If you want help with your marketing and you want to work with Team Hirsh, we are so good at this. Like I said, this episode was inspired by my team who told me, “Emily, we’ve had this conversation a couple of times with new clients coming on, just to make sure we were on the same page. Can you please do an episode on it?” And I said, “Yes, of course.”
Because it is so aligned with our process, which is anti-cookie cutter strategies, customizing your strategy for your audience, for your product, for your offer, and making sure that your offers also connect with your audience, and that you’re creating something, but… creating but also positioning what you have to offer, so that it sells.
If you want to work with Team Hirsh, you can go to HelpMyStrategy.com to apply to work with us. We only take on people we know we can help and we know we can partner with. So you go through that application process, and we will tell you if we can help you or not, for sure. We do turn away like, 80% of the people that come through, because we’re so intentional with who we take on, to maintain that amazing [client retention rate]. We have over 90% client retention rate every single month. So thanks so much for listening, guys. I’ll catch you all next time.