Marketing

What Romain Virgo and The Mitchell can teach you about marketing.

There are a couple of jamaican artist I find interesting online. Romain Virgo and Tami and Wayne Mitchell.

I got introduce to them through my wife. She is a fan of their content on YouTube. The interesting thing about it is that she binge watch videos and the new ones that comes out.

The Mitchell’s vlog is Tami Chin and her husband Wayne Marshall talking about interesting stuff about their day. They include all aspect of their lives. Their children and so on.

After watching a few videos I became hooked at how they were able to rapidly grow their audience on YouTube to the point they have now become sought after host for various events.

Romain Virgo is the same. He build his YouTube audience taking us behind the scenes about his life as a musician and his daily interactions with his wife. It may seem boring on the surface but watching it will get you hooked.

Here are a couple marketing lessons I learnt from both of them.

Document what you do.

None of the content they post is planned. All they do is document there day and then edit and share. Nothing over complicated. All we are getting is access to their lives.

What we can learn from this is don’t over complicate your content strategy. Make it as simple as possible to go from idea to publish content. Make it apart of your daily routine to document something you want to share.

Later you can edit it down before publishing it online. And you can select what aspect to share.

Documenting also saves you time. Because it only takes a few minutes to record a video or write something down.

Share your struggles

For my wife she is attracted to what the children do. In adidition to that how the wives handle certain challenges which is also one other reason why she watches so often.

Wayne Marshall got me hooked with his various stories. He talked about how one of his friends put Marijuana in his bag and how he got caught with it in the US and how it affected his life.

There was another story about how he ended up in a difficult encounter with the law. These are true stories.

Romain shares about his early encounter in the music business. What life is like on tour.

My wife loves his wife and how she handles herself and the children. All they do is give us access to their lives.

What they share also helps others feel they are not alone in there struggles. Which builds the connection with the audience.

Engage your audience.

Tami and Wayne receive letters, gifts from people who watch their content. They also ask persons to help them support a worthy cause.

They also talk about current events. There was one video they were watching the elections in the US. I think they did a similar one for the local elections as well.

There was various videos about the lockdown and how they are dealing with school.

I remember once Wayne was working on a project and went to the hardware store to buy tools.

Embrace partnership to grow your reach.

Both Romain and the Mitchell’s embrace this concept. They are influencers in there own right but they also have an asset they can leverage.

Private sector companies reached out to them for various things.

In Christmas the Mitchell’s did a giveaway and one of the partners was grace Kennedy. They had others but that one I remember distinctly. And was able to reach there goal.

Romain did a entire video about a video shoot that involved his children. All of that came from documenting his journey.

The ad will be placed in various media outlets and lots more people will be exposed to his brand.

Conclusion

Don’t overcomplicate things when using online platforms to market yourself. Document what you do, edit and share.

Control the distribution

There is a popular saying that content is king. But I know alot of great content creators who are still trying to get the word out about their work.

They are even some that are highly dependent on others to do the distribution for them. This puts a restriction on what gets out and how often things can go out.

An example of this was in 2020 Tye Tribbett wanted to release a song. His label has reservations. He went on a rant on the internet about the issue.

I don’t know all the details except what I saw but my concern was this was a known headlining gospel artist that had little control of how his music is put out.

Compare that with Lacrae who has his own label. Even though he was signed to a major label for awhile he controls his distribution of his music.

Another example is Jamaican artist. They create lots of music but have little to no access to an audience. They have fans but they don’t control the method to reach them.

Think about it, you write and record a song. Shoot a video or whatever and then try to get other people to send it out for you. Part of that is what is known as influencer marketing.

Some try to get interviews on various platforms. Others get someone else to get the word out entirely.

What if there is a way that you can reach your audience directly. People who know you and want to here from you? Well you can. Build an audience for yourself and talk to them directly.

Seth Godin wrote about a concept called permission marketing. Which is simply get permission to contact someone who is interested in what you are doing.

The simplest way is email. The other is social media following. But the goal is to create a method to reach your fans directly that you control.

Though you may use other methods. Make sure you build an asset that you control.

Tyler perry built his empire organically collecting emails from persons who visited his plays.

Work at building that audience and overtime you will be in a position to expand your reach.

Position yourself strategically

Positioning yourself to find customers is one of the most important skills you can develop.

I was in downtown Kingston on business when I notice a vendor near a local bank. He stood across from the shouting get your mask.

One by one people passing by walked up and purchased a mask from the vendor. On the surface it looks simple but look at the business lesson from this vendor.

Go where your customers are.

He was right in front of a bank. People cannot go inside without a mask so there was a strong need for his product. Plus he was on a busy street so people passing would see him.

Let people know what you have.

At intervals he would shout get your mask. This is strategic as if he just stood there no one will know that he was selling mask. If your were passing and need a mask he was right there and you could buy one.

These two lessons are easy to apply. And it also demonstrates the need to be aware of who you a targeting so you can easily put yourself in a position to sell your products and services.

3 reasons why creating systems boost productivity

Managing the creative process will vary from person to person. That’s because not everyone works the same way and they also get different results. Even if two persons do the same exact thing the results are not always the same.

One thing that becomes frustrating is replicating the results of a recent project. You may not remember the process of how you did it. But you only know the results you got. That’s why creating formulas and systems are important. Here are 3 reasons why creating systems can improve your productivity.

#1 Helps you remember how to do something

There’s a reason why all KFC outlets look the same way. Why their food most of the time tastes the same from outlet to outlet. That’s because of the system created by the owners.

Writing down the steps of how you work. This can help you and others replicate the results you got. It can be easy for them to get the same results. That way you don’t have to keep experimenting to get results just trust your process.

#2 It helps you learn how to do something

Finding a system that works is like training wheels. It guides you through the process of learning how to do something at the required standard. Help you get up to speed faster and gives you room to get creative and make the process your own.

Once you have the system down test it out to replicate the results. Document what you’ve learnt and improved the system. This will widen your understanding of the process.

#3 It helps you keep consistent

Maintaining the quality of your work is not easy without a system. Look at how movies are made. The main character has a problem, meets someone to help them, gets a plan then either succeeds or fails. For music its the same way, every song has an intro, a chorus, a verse and some have a bridge. It helps maintain the standard your clients expects from you.

You might be thinking doesn’t it limit your creativity or box you in? No, it helps you maintain the quality of your work. Gets you to the standard faster.

Overall systemizing your creative process can improve your results. Help you to be more creative and help you learn new things.

Michael Gerber says business people use systems to build billion-dollar corporations. US creatives can use it to keep consistent.

How to start a self-hosted WordPress blog

Starting a blog is one piece of your marketing arsenal, useful in helping you promote your business. You have the opportunity to educate your customers,  share your marketing messages on a channel you control but, you might be thinking that you need to hire an expert to help you set it up. Well, Not so, because it’s pretty easy and here are the steps. 

Step 1 Get hosting

The first thing you’ll need is to get hosting for your blog. This is for persons who don’t have a website. There are multiple options out there such as host gator, Bluehost, Namecheap, inmotion and a list of others. Pick one that is within your budget.

Having a self-hosted blog gives you more control and is cheaper to manage than a blog hosted on a platform. You can customize it with ease later on. Like add custom sales pages, change the look and feel of the site with a host of design options.

Once on the hosting site, pick a package that suits your budget, and then pay for it and you’re done. Now you can move on to the next step.

Step 2 Install WordPress

The reason for choosing WordPress is the variety of options available to customize your blog. In addition, you can get help when needed with the abundance of sites dedicated to teaching how to customize WordPress. Plus depending on what you are doing you can find a design or theme to fit your needs. More on that later.

Your hosting package will have a click to install option, to set up WordPress. Follow the instructions and you won’t have any issues setting up your blog. Choose your site name, which will be the name of your business and tag which is what you do. After that pick your username and password and you’re done.

The other key thing you’ll need is a domain name. Most hosting companies will give you a free domain name with your hosting. Otherwise, purchase the domain name for your business. 

Step 3: Pick a theme

The theme is like the skin of your blog. This is how it will look for the long them. WordPress has thousands of themes available for you to choose from. Browse through their list of options to choose one for your blog.

Some theme companies give you a basic theme with a drag and drop page builder. This will help you further customise the look of your blog to fit your brand. When choosing a theme, pick one with a style you like that you can customize to your choosing. 

Themes are either paid or free. Don’t worry too much about the paid options, you can just work with a free theme and customize it to your preference. 

Once you’re finished customizing your blog add basic pages, Set up your site to let people know who you are. like an about me section with your story and how you help your customers, and a contact us page, which will make it easier for people to get in touch with you. 

Step 4 Add content to your blog

Now it’s time to add content to your blog. If you’re stuck for ideas don’t worry, start sharing simple. Answer questions customers create a step by step tutorials about teaching them how to do something related to your business. 

To do this click create a post and start writing. Once you’re through writing, review and click publish and you are done.

How to find your customers online

Imagine going to a party and the music is playing, everyone is dancing and having a good time except you. You start chatting up some people but all conversation feels awkward. So you end up leaving. A next time you go to a different event for people like you. You talk to a few people and they ask what you do and low and behold they love you. You are what they were searching for. That’s the feeling you get when you find your customers and people with similar interest. And the thing is you can find them online as well. 

Online is littered with groups with all types of interest. From knitting to sports to healthcare to cars. The thing is you can use this in your search to find where your customers are. 

What are your customers interested in?

Knowing your customer’s interest will find communities to be a part of to reach them. This piece of information is useful when choosing platforms base on customers interest.  They will use a particular platform to get information. For example, a lot of friends share craft and cooking videos on facebook. They are short and demonstrate how to cook something. On Pinterest, a female coworker pins hairstyles she likes, outfits, shoes and so on. This can help you with your search.

If they have a problem where is the first place they go to find answers? Who are the influencers in the space? This will help you find where they gather on a regular basis. To help you on your search here are a few places:

Forums

Forums are the really old school way of using the internet. There are websites dedicated to giving persons space to ask questions and get help. It has evolved into various Q&A sites like Quora, Reddit and others. To maximize this space find forums dedicated to your topic. Create an account and start answering questions.

Facebook and Linkedin groups

Some social media sites have groups you can join around the interest of your customers. Similar to the forums jump in and start answering questions you can tackle and participate in the group. 

Twitter search 

Conversations are happening on twitter. They are asking questions and complaining about stuff. You can use twitter to search to find these questions. Type in the question and start answering the questions.

Youtube

There are communities on youtube. The thing is they’re usually watching certain people on a regular basis under those videos people leave comments and talk to each other. Jump in and be apart of the community associated with your platforms.

In the book brains on fire, the authors talk about a scissors company that created a community for craft makers. The idea was to enable them to make more craft. What that did was give persons more reason to create which in turn encourage them to use the scissors more often. 

If you can find your community online with your customer’s interest and start participating.

How to choose the right social media platform for your business

Given the number of social media platforms available today you can easily get confused, and scratching your head about which one to choose. This may cause paralysis, as you may find yourself asking “where do I start? ” which platforms do I choose?” You might decide to jump in on all of them, stretching yourself thin and not seeing any results from your efforts. 

I use to make some of the same mistakes, which led to me no longer using all of them as a result. 

That’s why it’s important to have a strategy. I learnt how to narrow my focus on what’s important. With that in mind, here are some questions that will help you to choose the right social media platform for your business. 

What platform are my customers using the most?

The foundation of your marketing efforts online is knowing who you want to reach. This helps you in your decision making, to find out how you can execute your content strategy. Do they use Facebook? Are they on youtube?  Are they on Instagram or twitter? Knowing this will give you a clue as to the choices you should make. 

What media represents my business the best?

The next question is knowing which content type is best to market your business. Social media platforms offer various ways to post content. Knowing this also helps your decision making. Because you now have to decide which platform gives you all the features to maximise promoting your business with content. Are you going to be using video and images? Do you plan to write a lot of text? Out of all these forms of content, which one does your customer consume the most?

Depending on what you do will dictate your choice. If you’re a photographer, Instagram and Facebook will be your best friend. They host your images with a caption. If you’re a fitness coach youtube and facebook and Instagram are good platforms for you to look at. 

What content type do your customers consume the most?

finding out which content your customers use the most is important to let you know which tactics to focus your marketing efforts on, and know-how to integrate them effectively. 

It doesn’t make sense to be all over the place. Answer the questions and align yourself with the platform that will give you the tools to market your business. ANd also help you reach your customers.

How to apply your content strategy on different social media tools

Having a content strategy is the first step towards marketing your business online. It narrows your focus and gives you a plan of action to achieve success. So, how do you narrow that down to each social media platform? 

Your content strategy is simple what image you want to leave in the mind of your customers to convince them to buy. As it relates to social media this narrows down to using the platform to achieve this. To be effective on each platform you choose, you need to understand a few basic things. 

What is the dominant way that people use the platform?

Understanding the basics of each platform is the key to success later on. The other component is knowing what content type works best. This can be images, text, video, audio. As it relates to your strategy narrowing your focus to producing native content is how you can start. So here are some questions to consider:

  1. What are the different ways to use the platform?
  2. What content type people consume the most?
  3. How can I use this to join the conversation?
  4. What are my target customers talking about on the platform?

Answering these questions will put you on a path to generating lots of ideas for content. It will also let you integrate well and use the platform properly. 

What are the features of the platform that I can take advantage of? 

Knowing what you can do is also critical for social media success. You can simply check out the options you have. Facebook, for example, has live video, stories, you can post video, images and text. But the dominant way people use the platform is more visual. So now you can start to generate ideas for each feature. 

Here are some examples: if you’re in the food business:

  1. Use stories to share the making of a meal from prep to the final dish.
  2. Post the final image as a post with a caption that tells the entire story
  3. Post behind the scenes video explaining each step
  4. Do a live Q & A to interact with your customers

All of this is a strategic way to use all of Facebook’s features to your advantage. With that the aim of getting persons to buy from you in a way that person’s don’t feel sold. Now it’s your turn to learn to about your platform to execute your strategy.