Want to market like a pro? Here's how

Patricia Mbatia is the co-founder and CEO at Game Changer Marketing. The experiential marketing agency creates face-to-face events and activations for corporates and other clients.

Patricia shares tips on how you can market your products or services for optimum value.

1. Marketing gets you the customer

People think that if they create an amazing product, then the customers will automatically come. But consumers have so many things clamouring for their attention.

Marketing gets you customers. The first thing you need to figure out is who your customer is and how you can get them. No marketing works unless you know your audience.

Research is king. Talk to people, invite them to experience your offering, measure their feedback against your dream. Try to spend a day in their life to fully know them.  

2. Start with one

Start with one customer and make them so happy that they become your advocate.

In today’s world, we listen more to the people that are close to us. Instead of trying to think a thousand steps ahead, especially if you’re a small business owner just starting out, think about the one closest customer you can reach.

And then get that person down the funnel to brand love. First create awareness, followed by interest, trial, conversion, and finally brand love, where someone feels they can’t live without your product or service. If they’re happy, they’ll be your broadcast station.

3. Speak to people’s emotions

People don’t always buy functional. Consider this: if you were to buy a functional car, it would probably be a cheap one that doesn’t use too much fuel and that’s easy to park. But that isn’t your dream car, is it?

Human beings are drawn to things that connect deeply with their senses. You want that feeling of something sleek and luxurious, and that’s far away from a little car that doesn’t guzzle fuel.

So as marketers, we try to paint the picture that connects with the consumer’s spirit.

People love themselves more than they love your brand. They only choose your brand because it fulfils something for them – does it make them feel cleverer, more beautiful? Find that emotional aspect and convey it to people.

4. Branding is essential

You’ll buy a Mercedes Benz because when you mention that name, or when you see the logo, a certain lifestyle instantly comes to mind. That’s the power of branding.

It’s critical because it is easier to market a branded product. An unbranded product doesn’t come with any lifestyle cues.

Think about the name, the logo, the promise you’re making to your customer, and then consistently deliver on it.

5. Be creatively courageous

Don’t shy away from pushing the envelope. If you’re doing something safe, it means you’re going to be boring and that means you’re going to have to work harder to get people’s attention.

6. If you want instant impact, do it face to face

Experiential marketing is a superior form of marketing because it allows your brand to come face to face with an audience. If you want instant impact, I recommend experiential marketing.

It allows you to look your consumer in the eye and receive their feedback. If they love it, then they love it; if they hate it, they tell you why and you can fix it. And it doesn’t have to be expensive.

If I were selling clothes online, for instance, I’d have great pictures that will make the consumer add them to cart. Then I would participate in a pop-up market where I’d set up this great online experience that I have curated.

Alternatively, depending on my budget, I’d host a few influencers to a mini-fashion high-tea where they would wear the amazing clothes that I sell and have lots of fun and take plenty of pictures.

They would then talk about the experience and share the pictures with their followers. Sometimes you just need to be creative within your means.

7. Hire the right people

You might not achieve your objectives if you get the marketing right, but when the customers call or show up at your premises, they meet bored or rude staff. Find people with the same values that you hold.

8. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver

Marketing is about building trust. It’s never going to work if you tell somebody you will do something and then don’t.

If you’re selling a product on social media and say it has certain features or feels a certain way and it doesn’t, a customer will feel conned.

Marketing is about convincing, engaging, exciting and creating a relationship, and a relationship cannot be based on lies and unmet expectations.

How you make me feel is how I will talk about you. If you make me feel amazing or make me feel bad, then that’s what I’ll talk about.

9. Create interesting conversations

Use social media to create interesting conversations because people like stories.

In my world of experiential marketing, we introduce a product or a service face to face to a customer, create a conversation and start generating interest and excitement around it.

So why not combine this live experience with these free broadcast opportunities? Again, you could do this on a shoestring budget and still be able to achieve your objective.

You want to be interesting and memorable enough for people to want to share what you’re saying with the next person.