Plan for your services to sell themselves…

This business is not about your voice. It is about knowing where you fit – what you have to sell. It is about having a demo that showcases this effectively. And it is about finding the people who want to buy what you have to sell. That’s called Marketing!

But in reality, you are not really selling. Your goal with marketing is to know your customer so well that your services sell themselves. Marketing is about understanding what you do and what your potential customer wants. It is about bringing your “product” to this market (in this case your commercial demo to people who make commercials, or your narration demo, or your promo demo, or your animation demo, etc.). It is about finding new products for new markets.

Marketing is your strategy and includes a whole bunch of activities:

Business Development – Wikipedia defines this as techniques and responsibilities which aim at gaining new customers and at penetrating existing markets. It is ongoing. Techniques used include:
- assessment of marketing opportunities and target markets
- intelligence gathering on customers and competitors
- generating leads for possible sales
- drafting and enforcing sales policies and processes
- follow-up sales activity
- formal proposal or presentation management and writing
- pitch and presentation rehearsals
- business model design
Product Development – getting real good at what you do
Market Development – getting to know who wants to buy what you do – targets non-buying customers in currently targeted segments. It also targets new customers in new segments
Market Research – give you information about your customers, competitors, and overall industry
Competitor Analysis – who does what you do and how well do they do it
Pricing Strategy – where do you fit in the price range of what you do
Customer Service – making sure your customers are happy
Brand Development – what makes you different
Company Identity – make sure people can see how you are different in an instant