The first thing you need is trust in your own marketing foundation and your supporting marketing activities. The second thing you need is patience, which comes a lot more easily when you trust that your marketing works.

Understand that you should plan on building trust over time. There are ways you can start off on the right foot but it doesn’t end there – it’s a journey of many steps and each one builds on the last.

Your website is an incredible way to start building trust by providing rich, informative and helpful content to your visitors. Your About Us page, Testimonials, Case Studies – all critical pieces of the puzzle. But where are you likely to build the most trust over time? Helpful information that addresses your prospects’ needs:

• Articles,
• Reports,
• Blogs,
• White Papers,
• Audio or Video reports, and
• Newsletters/eZines

If you take the time to carefully prepare information that your target market needs – information that will enlighten them and help them – you’re on the road to establishing and building trust before they ever get to meet you. They will learn firsthand the type of company or person they’re dealing with. They will learn over time that you’re here to help them, you’re here to stay and if your content is interesting, engaging and full of personality, they may even grow to like you!

The answer is in a carefully crafted Marketing Message: it’s more than a Value Proposition or USP – it’s the message you need to continually and consistently communicate to your prospects and clients. The marketing message consists of four specific parts:

• Who you serve (who are your ideal clients/customers) – PROSPECT
• Why they need your product or service – PROBLEM/CHALLENGE
• What results they can expect – SOLUTION/BENEFITS
• Examples of Past Success – PROOF

When you tailor a rich but succinct marketing message that contains the elements above, you’ll attract and sustain the interest of the prospects who need what you can do for them. They’ll be engaged and more open to learning more. Though you’ve spent much time preparing your marketing message and foundation, from your prospect’s point of view, this is where things start. Make it count!

Part 2 of What Marketing is All About concerns the most important part of the marketing equation – your customers & potential customers. By isolating, defining and understanding your customer base or target market or niche in deep & rich detail, you can build a marketing foundation that will support your business. You must make every effort to know who they are:

• What drives them?
• What are their needs?
• What do they want? (this is different from need)
• Uncover their hidden psychological motivators and;
• Learn WHY DO THEY BUY?

One of the best ways to find these answers is simply to ask them. But don’t take their initial answers at face value. People will give you all the logical rational reasons why they buy (or pay for services) and they’ll leave out the real, underlying psychological reasons that propelled them to buy. Much of the time they’re not even fully aware of it but you should do your best to understand them more than they know themselves.

Knowing your niche gives you a lot of power. I’m not saying to use this power to manipulate or irreverently persuade them to buy your products or services. Quite the contrary. I’m saying this so you can become the company they’ve been waiting for. The company they feel great about doing business with. The company that makes them feel they made a smart choice.

How? By understanding and responding to their needs and how they really want to be treated, you can build your business to the highest level of excellence. You can create products they’ll devour. You can provide services and do it in ways that they’ll rave about. It’s a win-win.

And if you keep asking them what they want you’ll realize it’s worth it to find ways to give it to them and then you’ll have what every business owner wants – a sustainable and growing business filled with your ideal customers and clients.

We build relationships in life and in business in similar ways – on the basis of attraction, likeability, trust, mutual desire and mutual satisfaction. As time goes by, we repeat this cycle, starting with small steps, and gradually increasing the intensity of each of these factors. That’s why it’s easier to sell to an existing customer than a new one. They already know, like and trust you and if you have what they want, they’d rather buy it from you. They prefer it that way. If you offer a great product/service and make every effort to ensure your customer is satisfied and you continually create products or services around their needs and desires, you will have customers for life.

You first need to understand what good marketing is all about – to embrace it and then you can begin to profit from it. By building your own solid foundation and  confidently knowing: ‘who we are’, ‘what we do’, ‘what our customers really want’, ‘who we serve’, ‘why we do it’, and ‘why we are unique’ (in the minds of your customers), all your future efforts will be a lot easier.

Once you fully grasp the basics and work through the process of creating and builidng your own finely tuned marketing foundation, you can move forward and begin developing a custom tailored marketing strategy and plan for your business.

More on this soon….

Are you a seasoned internet marketer? Or are you brand new to marketing online? Either way this blog will become a source of information, knowledge and wisdom you can trust to take you to the next level of success in your business.

For this first post, I want to ask all of you one question:

What Questions Do You Need Answered?

Feel free to submit your questions comments and we’ll get this thing started!