Thread by @alexhillman

Here’s the thing: marketing right now...isn’t that hard.

The problems your customers (or future customers) have and need help with are RIGHT in front of you.

*whispers* try helping them

https://twitter.com/alexhillman/status/1248402748237737987

The problem is that so many folks are frozen in the mode of "marketing = promote my product"

Bzzzzzt. Nah.

You have to stop starting at the product you can’t sell right now long enough to shift your gaze entirely on your *customer* and helping them even if they cannot buy rn.

If marketing feels hard now it's because you don't know who your customer is or what they're actually going through right now.

So instead of trying to squeeze nickels and make sure they NEVER wanna come back to you, try meeting them where they are.

Help them ANY way you reasonably can. It doesn't have to do anything with your product or service.

Just show up for them when and where they really need it.

Earn their trust and their business for when the money is flowing again.

Don't know what they're actually struggling with? Try this:

1) find somewhere they gather online. could be a LinkedIn or Facebook group, a forum, an email list, slack, whatever.

2) do not sell or promote yourself or your service or even your company. Just read. Read it all.

3) don’t just skim it, take notes. don’t just read stuff that’s interesting to you, read every post and every comment.

4) close the notes. Go to sleep. Come back again with a highlighter. See what shows up as patterns. Ask yourself “why are they talking about this?”

If you wanna get really good at this faster, you can use the formal process that @amyhoy teaches in “Sales Safari 101” Not gonna link it rn but you can find it w/ google.

But even without the formal process to practice, doing this for 15 mins a day will make a BIG difference.

Now is the time to invest in your future customers. They will remember that you did when the time is right.

If you understand what they are thinking and feeling, you can invest confidently are than carelessly. Eg not “plan your return to the office” during indefinite lockdown 🙄

If you literally can’t sell your product or service right now, it’s the perfect time to figure this stuff out and adapt cuz it’s SO much easier (and more effective!) than trying to shoehorn mediocre marketing for a product they can’t buy now anyway.

Plus it’s way less stressful and time consuming in a sisyphusian way, which gives you more time and energy to:

A) help more people and/or

B) try to enjoy time with loved ones (from a distance of course)

Everybody wins.

Great examples of this in action right now:
- @nathanbarry and @convertkit
- @wilreynolds and @SeerInteractive
- @KarinCopeland_ and @CreateXChange_