The complaints I hear most from business owners and their teams about marketing are:
We don't know what to say to describe what we do for our clients
It takes too long!
We don't really know what to do to market our business on social media
This time wasting guesswork, not to mention the self doubt, lead to content procrastination, or posting generic content that doesn't help you standout at all.
Here's what you need to do, whether you are posting your content yourself, or outsourcing that part to someone else.
Implement the FAST Marketing Method
You'll accelerate your visibility, attract your ideal clients and achieve your business goals.
The FAST Marketing Method
1. FOCUS on your people
Focus on your ideal client and the problems you solve for them. Take this beyond the demographics.
Here's why.
Everyone loves to feel understood.
Here's some questions to answer for this step:
What does it FEEL like to have this problem?
What do you know about them and how they feel? What frustrates them, challenges them, what mistakes to they make?
What is my promise to them in solving this problem?
It makes us feel seen and normal, or at least like someone can help us. And completing this step will help you show you have EMPATHY for you ideal client. Another tick on the way to attracting your ideal clients because they trust you.
I use a mind map like this one to add my ideal client to the middle, then brainstorm as many things I know about them and how they feel, challenges, frustrations, questions, mistakes they make and you'll gain loads of clarity:
You can grab a copy of my One Page Plan here
It will help you get your thoughts out visually and help you make decisions about how your clients are feeling about the problem they have the you are about to help them solve.
2. ADVERTISE your authority
Advertise your authority to solve that problem for that ideal client. This might include:
Google reviews
other testimonials
video testimonials
before and after photos
case studies and stories
qualifications
awards
certificates and lincenses
selfies with clients
So long as the authority you advertise in your marketing is proof of the problem you solve for your ideal clients? Then it gets the big tick of approval!
Example: Emerald Wealth CEO Danielle Bloodworth wanted help with their messaging across all their online platforms but worried she just wasn't a 'word person' and didn't feel the current copy just didn't tell the right story
And she was right. We did the FAST model together and created a statement that is her promise for her ideal clients:
'Giving you peace of mind, choices and confidence to make life's big decisions'
So what authority could she share to prove that?
results she has helped people achieve
big life decisions she's helped people with such as retirement, investing and more
her qualifications and licenses to be able to give this advice
3. SHOWCASE Your Personality
This is where you show your potential client why to choose YOU. Another step along the path of helping people 'know, like and trust' you! Just for being YOU.
Things that show your brand personality:
Branding, your tone of voice, your stories
What you wear and how you show up - photos for example
Social media VIDEOS and livestream - body language, tone, facial expressions
You with clients
Photos of you doing what you do best - for example if one of the problems I solve for people looking for energetic and engaging speakers is offer this FAST Marketing Method as my workshop or keynote, then I'm sharing photos or video of me speaking to groups of business folk.
4. TELL Stories
Some marketers try to complicate this, but these are YOUR stories. All you need to do is identify stories you have that PROVE that you can solve the problem you identified in step 1.
This might help you work out how to plan them:
As an example:
My accountant client Think Accountants, helps trades business owners who've dug themselves into a financial hole and can't get out. One story was about a young man who had a very successful business he'd grown to 10 employees and multi six figures but hadn't done his tax or BAS for 10 years. Yikes
Key takeaways:
It's never too late to take back control of your finances and tax obligations,
we have your back and will represent you to the ATO to find a way out,
we made an arrangement on his behalf with the ATO and he sleeps soundly at night knowing we dug him out of that hole
The FAST content we can create here is sharing the clients google review, but also finding ways to share simple graphics like these with some dot points:
Here's some other ways to create content with that story and it's key takeaways:
create a blog of this story and the steps they took to find a solution for the client
create a short video about the story to share on LinkedIn with the call to action - if you feel like you've dug yourself into a hole and can't get out? Call us today, let us help you
show empathy for losing sleep over this big problem in a post
use this example in presentations or webinars they include in their marketing
Then What?
So now you are clearer about what to post about because you followed the steps above, how do you ENERGISE your content creation, so it doesn't take for-ever to get done and take over too much of your time? Plus it's refelcting the right stuff that you have just identified.
Then you might need to REVIEW your platforms to make sure you're profiles, website, Google Business Profile are set up the right way so you can be found in searches and when people are referred to you.
The last piece of the FAST model makes it event FASTER and you can see more about that in future blogs here: https://talkingdigital.com.au/blog
Over to YOU
Go through each of the steps above, watch the video if you like so you can listen to me talking about the FAST Marketing Method, and take action!
If you're still scratching your head about your marketing and want individualised support to implement the FAST marketing method you can book a free 25 min audit and action call with me here to get you started: https://links.talkingdigital.com.au/Miniauditandaction