A True Beginner’s Guide to Marketing

This story is only for true beginnersCredits : xkcd

A few years ago, I was struggling to get people use my sports app. It didn’t work like in the movies! you know? Like you build something, share and you go viral. That’s when system 1 or system 2 (I don’t remember) of my mind suggested the word ‘marketing’. Observing what others did on social media, I thought it was a piece of cake. You post a bunch of photos, videos, you get likes, you go viral, etc. I was all excited, I set up the FB page, asked people to like, and started posting stuff. Nothing happened. I kept on refreshing the page. An hour later, I got one like. It was from my dad’s account.

“God, What am I doing wrong? this is not supposed to go this way”, I panicked. I started reading online posts about marketing and bought some books also. Even after reading those things, I still have no clue where to start. Later, I understood that I bought the wrong books and read the wrong posts. After some research, I heard about Seth Godin and Simon Sinek. I started reading their books. Those opened my eyes and I realised my stupidity. I applied their principles, started seeing results. Last month, we(me & my church team) used the same strategies to attract a massive crowd to our church’s carol singing competition. In this story, I will help you kick-start your campaigns from zero reach. And, yes without spending a dime.

Credits : xkcd

Once you understand the underlying principles, you will be able to reach a decent crowd. This will gain you confidence to go bigger. I hope you have a product or a cause or something you want to attract people towards. If not ideate a hypothetical one(believable, ok?). You need to remember one thing, this rule according to me is the most important. Read the following sentence and meditate on it for a few minutes.

Rule #1: People are irrational, don’t talk facts instead tell stories.

What is this “irrational” thing?

Think of the resolutions people took last new year. How many of them took it forward? It would be less than 10%. Let us think about the important decisions in one’s life, eg. Marriage. Don’t they do it because they fall in love? (There are some exceptional cases). Isn’t the whole “love” thing irrational? Only in a perfect world, people would be rational. Most people act on how they feel about things. Even experts are prone to make irrational decisions.

Let me tell you a story. Unless you are a sad person, the last sentence gave you some feeling or enthusiasm or a boost in energy to read this one (Am sorry about the story thing, but you get the idea). Hmmm, So what stories do I tell? Every product or organisation stands for a higher purpose. Simon Sinek refers it to as the “Why”. Have a look at the following video.

https://medium.com/media/eec8aa53a214e0347d7731e363661ee6/href

In a rational world, it makes no sense to make such a video. They could have spent the same money on bragging about specifications of their products. Why did they do that? The Second thing is they made the video for a specific group of people. The crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. I could relate to this video, that’s the reason I am using a MacBook Air to write this story. Let’s get practical. You need to find two things. The “Why” and the “Who”.

To-Do #1: Write down the larger purpose of your organisation?

To-Do #2: Find a specific group of people for your product?

These answers are not easy. I failed in my initial attempts. It’s ok, no one has ever walked without falling. This is a trial and error process. Once you answers these questions, you need to make stories they can relate to or want to believe. Apple’s video was something I could relate to, I did feel I was a rebel. I also want to believe I will change the world someday (Though the chances are unlikely). If you are marketing on Facebook, I would suggest videos. Since videos have the highest engagement rate. You don’t need to spend on these. You can take them with a phone camera. Here are some videos we made for the carol competition.

https://medium.com/media/eb96530bf0ed050fd2b06479f21f1174/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/8ca9c37df8bef1b9d99e3f913dabd6d2/hrefhttps://medium.com/media/ee85c0e6c3d63bc02335a2c01d859075/href

The purpose of the carol competition was togetherness. The age group we targeted majorly were 18–24 and 25–34. Once you know the “Why” and the “Who” you will get clarity on “What” to make and “Where” to share. You can try different things and find what clicks. For the initial traction on Facebook, share it on groups where your target audiences are present.

To-Do #3: Make videos which express the purpose of your organisation for a specific age group.

To-Do #4: Find the groups where your target age group is present, share your content there.

As I said earlier, this is a trial and error process. If you fail, repeat the steps. Eventually, you will start seeing results.

Follow ArtPlusMarketing and me (Febin John James) for more stories. I am working on tools and stories to help out beginners. You can be the first to try and read, signup here. I also recommend one book with every story I write. For this story, it’s Unleashing the Ideavirus: Stop Marketing AT People! Turn Your Ideas into Epidemics by Helping Your Customers Do the Marketing thing for You. Reading is invaluable. (If you don’t have time for reading checkout Mentorbox).

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