Craft Your Marketing Archives

210: Fit it all together: Your marketing plan

Emails. Instagram. YouTube. Facebook. How can you possibly do all the marketing stuff you “should” do? And how can you be sure it's going to be worth your time?

The key is to make it all work together – today I'm going to teach you how to think about your marketing so you can make it time effective and increase your sales.

Links I mentioned

Craft Your Marketing

#ExploreYourEnthusiasm episode all about fitting together the various parts of marketing.

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How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

How to focus on your Right People, to make more sales and create more effective marketing (free worksheet included)

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Get more buyers by focusing on the RIGHT people.

This is the heart of effective marketing – speak directly to the person who is going to love (and want) what you sell. Remember, you’re not trying to convince anyone, you’re giving (compelling!) info to interested people.

But how do you figure out who that person is? Are you limiting yourself by just focusing in on one set of Right People? And how do you find out where they are?

In this episode we’ll discuss

Why focusing on your Right People IS scary (and why you need to do it anyway)
How to find the people + be where they are.
5 questions to get closer to your people

Want to focus on YOUR Right People? Apply what you learned in today’s episode with a free worksheet (and today's transcript!).Grab it here.

How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

How to make time for marketing

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You're busy making products, photographing, listing, and (hopefully) shipping orders – how do you find the time to also do marketing? In today's episode, we tackle the problem of never having time for marketing.

We cover:

How you know if you're doing “enough” marketing
How a plan saves time
Batching your tasks
Using what you already have

Links mentioned:

Who has time for marketing? Making a plan will save you tons of time.

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How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

Sign up below to get a FREE e-course on making your marketing more effective! No matter how much time you have for marketing, it's important to focus on improving its effectiveness.

How to stop feeling weird talking about your work

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How do I describe what it is I do? How do I talk about my work?

This is the question we nearly all have. (If you've figured this out and feel 100% confident talking about your work, email me immediately and tell me your secret sauce).

Even though I've been doing this for 6 years (and have been running my own business for over 10 years!), I struggle with how to talk about my work every day. In every sales page I write, in every conversation I have, and in every byline I submit to a magazine or book.

I don't know that this question ever goes away, but you certainly can get better at talking about your work. In this episode we'll cover what you need to do to talk about your work effectively AND the key to feeling more comfortable.

Learn to talk about your work sans awkwardness w/ a FREE worksheet from @TaraSwiger:

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How to listen

You can subscribe to it on iTunes (If you do, leave a review!)
You can listen to it using the player above or download it.
Subscribe or listen via Stitcher (or subscribe in whatever you use for podcasts – just search “Explore Your Enthusiasm” and it should pop up!).

Find all the podcast episodes here.

To apply this to your own business, fill out this worksheet and stop feeling weird talking about your work today!

What I’ve learned about marketing since writing the book

I’ll be honest with you, this week I am deep in writing content for the new class, and I can think of very little else…so that’s what I’m going to tell you about.
(The class is a kind of read-along + deeper dive into my book. Learn more + join the class right here.)

To write the lessons, I'm reading through the book that I wrote 3 years ago and well, to be honest, it's awesome. I am thoroughly enjoying myself (I crack myself up) and am totally inspired to say a million more things, deeper and more specific things about it (which is good, because that’s what the class is!).
Luckily (well, it wasn't luck, I planned it!) the book doesn't dive too deep into any particular tool (because I knew they'd become outdated) and instead focuses on foundations of an effective marketing plan. But there's so MUCH I've learned in the intervening three years. I have worked with hundreds more small businesses. I have seen some Captains' businesses quintuple in size, and others (even ones I used as examples!) blink out of existence, because the makers burned out or just found something they wanted to do more (which is great!).

Here are the additional lessons I’ve learned about marketing:

New content is king. No, everyone doesn't need a blog, but everyone does need to give their people something new to share – whether that's new images, new posts, new events, or new products. You can systematize this so it doesn't drive you crazy, but you can't ignore it.
Ignore everyone else. I think I say a version of this about 100 times throughout the book, but you know what? Working with more students has taught me that you need to hear it another 100 times before it sinks in. IGNORE EVERYONE ELSE. Their success, failure, decisions have nothing to do with what's going to work for you.
You stand out from the competition by not only focusing on your sparkle and your people (which we cover!) but also by building a business YOU want. Because, you see, you're going to want a different kind of business than everyone else. So you'll make different decisions, use different tools, show up in a different way. By doing this, you're going to have a business that looks and feels different. I've seen Karen do this beautifully with Gentle Clothing. She got clear about her North Star, and then built it right into the business and she ended up with something totally new and fresh.
It's all about feelings. (Really!) How do you want your buyer to feel? How will your product make her feel? Take THAT and infuse it everywhere – your website, your descriptions, your photos, your emails, the way you write your contact page! The book actually has a worksheet about this in Chapter 4, but over the last three years I've become 100x more addicted to this idea, as I've seen it work over and over for clients (and my own business)!
The more you can strip away your I-don't-want-to-fail or I-don’t-want-to-look-stupid, the faster you’ll do work that matters and that stands out (and that sells). This is just a fact of life and it’s true in every arena.

If you’re feeling stuck or confuzzled or not sure where to start, start here. Start with what you want from your business, how you want people to feel, and keep giving your people new things to share and talk about (uh, and then share and talk about them!).

And if you'd like to get a better handle on your own marketing and create a plan that works for YOU, sign up for Craft Your Marketing right here.

A plan for sharing your work (+ a peek at my first marketing plan)

Last week we talked about how to sell something:

Identify the person who will love it and buy it (I call this your Right Person).
Figure out what she cares about and why she buys your product (in the beginning you’re guessing; as you get more sales, you’ll ask her directly).
Explain how awesome your thing is, in terms she understands.
Go where she already is and talk to her there.

I heard back from lots of you that you KNOW you should be doing this, but it just feels overwhelming and like a lot to keep track of.

But it doesn't have to be. In fact, all these pieces can fit together into one plan, that you implement day in and day out, without worrying too much about it.

Yes, it takes time, energy, and commitment to set it up, but once you have it… it just works. You know what to do, every day. You'll continue to test it, improve it, and work it… but first you have to have it.

This knowing what to do thing feels AWESOME. It helps alleviate so much of the doubt and second-guessing you've been struggling with. It focuses your working time. It allows you to be consistent, which builds trust with your people, expands your reach, and – yes – leads to more sales.

A marketing plan helps alleviate the doubt and second-guessing you've been struggling with.

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This plan for reaching people is called….a Marketing Plan! (Imagine that!) Remember: Marketing = any communication you have with your people. So this is just a plan for reaching your people on the regular.

My first marketing plan was scribbled in my day job office, on a post-it note I kept hidden under my keyboard, circa 2007. It said:

Post one new picture to Flickr each day + add to groups (the days before Instagram!)
Tweet picture (ask for help naming?)
Reply to 3 new people (Flickr, Twitter, knitting blogs)
One new Etsy listing/day
Blog 1x/week
Email list every month (new yarns)

You see, your marketing plan can be as big or small as you need it to be. I added new stuff to the list all the time to see what might work, but knowing the absolute minimum kept me focused when things got busy. What you can't see from the list is the time I spent finding my possible customers (knitters who knit with handspun yarn…which was harder before Ravelry!) and figuring out what groups or tags would help my yarn be found by more people. But once I did that … I just followed the plan.

To make your own marketing plan (that actually works, and isn't a waste of your time), you need to:

Know what makes you and your thing sparkle (stand out from everything else).
Identify who some of your people are, what they care about, and where they hang out.
Choose the methods you'll use to reach them.
Put it all together in a plan that you implement, day in and day out.

If you'd like guidance and a clear path for making your own plan, check out Craft Your Marketing. In this 6 week e-course you will identify your sparkle, find your people, choose your tools and then make a simple, post-it worthy marketing plan that will bring you more fans and more sales. You don’t have to do this alone. I’m here to help with audio lessons (and enhanced transcripts!), worksheets, and FUN.

If you don’t know what you’re doing TODAY to connect with your people (or who they are or what to say), I hope you’ll join me in class: https://taraswiger.com/craft-marketing/.