The event started by asking ‘what the hell marketing is anyway?’ which was explained by McKenzie as “promoting or selling goods, services and brand loyalty via communications” making “great marketing” a way to help direct your customer to make an action based on your business marketing goals. This could cover any of the below:

• Buying your product
• Signing up to your service
• Engaging with your content
• Following your accounts

Great marketing helps to initiate a feeling with your target customer or audience, whether that’s educating them, showing how valuable your content/service is to them, and inspire them to connect, engage, and want to follow you.

Marketing tactics

The type of tactics you use in your business will depend on the product or service you are offering. Some of these tactics could be any of the below:

• PR
• In-person events
• Facebook live stream
• Social media campaign
• Competition
• Trend report
• Influencer collaborations
• Influencer gifting
• SEO

There are so many ways to market yourself and your business, but you don’t have to be applying them all at the same time as the ones you should be using will all depend on the goals you are working towards, the type of resources you have and the budget you are working with.

McKenzie noted that as much as you may not be using all of them, you should be aware of what companies and people in your industry are using so you can see what is working well and implement some of their tactics into your own business.

She also explained how marketing in general is ever changing, even the tactics. Using the example of social media and how it has changed over the last five-six years, she says how it used to be enough for a brand to put out a graphic post and that was their marketing campaign – but that no longer works, which is the same with any tactics in marketing. McKenzie gave insight into how she is seeing more companies using trend reports to get their name out there and engage with their customers. Not every marketing strategy is going to work forever, and you should be aware of what is going on in the industry and world around you.

McKenzie then went on to talk about whenever you’re doing any marketing for yourself or your business, you need to know what you are marketing. Are you marketing yourself and your ideas? Are you positioning yourself as a thought leader? A freelancer? Or are you marketing your business? Are you marketing a singular product/service? Or a range of product/services? All these questions were asked as McKenzie talked about how you need the answers to these very clear in your mind before you start marketing because its sometimes easy to forget and presume your audience knows everything about you and your business – maybe some people don’t know what your business is or what services you provide, so it’s important to be very clear with who and what you’re marketing.

McKenzie then spoke about how, with any type of marketing plan, it is good to know it inside out. Starting with the basics, you’ve got to know exactly what you’re offering. So, once you’re clear on the ‘what’, spend time pulling apart and understanding the ‘whys’. Such as, what is you USP? What are the benefits and value you bring to your customers?

She then moved on to say, “can you explain it in one sentence?” saying how marketing is such a wide range of things that it’s easy to get swept up in it all, for example adding beautiful words and giving it a marketing tone of voice. Where marketing works best is when you know exactly what the product or service is, and you can explain it in just one sentence. She says if you try to explain it in two or three, you’re going to lose the attention of your audience, so the shorter the better.

Another point she mentioned is whether your product solves a customer problem or gives them a new experience as this is very important to how you market and the tactics you use. “How will this product or service make your customers life better?”

• It saves them time
• It saves them money
• It gives them more of a premium service
• It gives you an edge on competitors

These are just a few points McKenzie mentions when it comes to your product and how it can help your customer.

Understanding your audience

The next part of the event was all about your audience – understanding your audience and how they  will help with the messaging you are putting out.

McKenzie said how, when you create a business, you always have a persona in mind and how it is important to ask; what does your target audience look like? What is their age? Gender? Where are they based? This will help you to really get a sense of their lifestyle because you want to make sure your marketing is speaking to them at the right times and reaching them on their journey.

She then spoke about how they might use or value your product and how you should think about having a couple of personas, a primary and secondary, because you may need to adjust your marketing language and tactics when reaching the different audience types you may have on different channels.

McKenzie then spoke about the different platforms your target audience may be on, so you can find the best avenue to reach them. When the question “where do you find out which platform your audience is on” was asked, McKenzie spoke about how you need to think about their interests. Who are they? What do they look like? What do they do offline? What time would they be using platforms? What kind of accounts would they be following? She then went on to say how surveys are a good way to help you find out more about your audience, especially if the information isn’t out there for you.

“Really good marketing relies on your knowing your customer inside out,” said McKenzie.

Brand messaging

Your brand messaging is how you communicate with your audience. It helps to share your brand’s personality strategically and concisely to make you stand out from competitors. Your brand messaging can include:

• Taglines
• Slogans
• Your positioning statements
• Tone of voice

McKenzie then spoke about how you should really think about what you want to convey when you’re out in public, as there is a big difference between internal and external communication. She said how your external communication should really give your audience an idea of the personality of your brand and what your brand does.

Creating your strategy

McKenzie explained how people think strategies are these long things, that live in existence but that’s not the case. Strategies can run for a week, six weeks or two quarters. She says how you should have an ‘always on’ element, whether that is posting on socials, updating your blog or making sure all the links on your website work every day.

She speaks about how if you want to reach people for your new course or retarget the audience you have, creating a marketing plan can really help as it can keep you aligned to your goals and actions going forward.

Step one: Choosing your objectives

What do you want to gain from this marketing? Strategically what do you want out of this campaign?

Step two: Strategy

The strategy is what you are going to do to reach these objectives. How are you going to bring that information to your audience that is enticing?

Step three: Choosing your tactics

Choose the tactic that feels right for this campaign or audience you are trying to reach. For example, social media, newsletter/email campaign, or a trend report.

Step four: Resources

Look at the resources you have to help with this campaign. How much time or money do you have to spend on it?

Step five: Duration

Plan the duration of the campaign. Are you planning to make it a one-week campaign or run it for three months and see at the end if you should extend it.

McKenzie noted when creating a marketing campaign make sure to look at the world around you, as it is ever changing, and you may have been working on a marketing campaign for a couple of months, but something happens globally or in your city which now makes it the wrong time to put this campaign out or push that product. So, when you’re looking to land something, keep checking in on what is happening in the world and your industry.

The event then ended with some free ways to market your business as well as tools.

Free way to market your business:

• Social media
• Networking groups
• SEO
• Newsletter campaigns
• Linkedin commentary
• Whatsapp broadcast lists

Free tools to help you market your business:

• Canva
• Unsplash
• Notion
• Google analytics
• Google drive tools
• Hootsuite/buffer