How Marketing is like a Lifeboat

by Andrea Beadle

If you are a heart based entrepreneur, marketing can feel like you are lost at sea. You know you need to do it but either don’t know where to start or traditional marketing feels too “salesy”.

Maybe you’ve launched a product and dipped your toe in the water to market it but nothing is happening so you lose heart? Working with some clients recently made me realise how uncertain heart based entrepreneurs are about the whole marketing thing.

If you are helping professional of some kind, I hope that this analogy will help you.

You have a product that you know can help people. Let’s call this your life boat.

In order to help people, they need to climb into it.

So you have this beautiful, shiny new life boat and it is sitting in the boathouse.

No one knows it is there yet but people are sending up flares around you and you have to learn how to spot them and know that they need your help.

For your clients, what do the flares represent? What are the symptoms that are causing them to send up the flares? What are they struggling with? What do they really want right now?

Until you identify this you won’t recognise the flares and more importantly unless you decorate your life boat with things that people will recognise, they won’t know that your life boat can help them.

You need to start speaking to people in terms that they can understand. Highlight their problems and symptoms, let them know how your life boat can rescue them so that when they recognise it when it arrives.

Blogging, social media and your newsletters can all be ways that you are sending out the message to people that you are there to help them.

Now you’re ready to launch your life boat; take it out of the boathouse and put it on the rails of the slip away so that you can push it into the sea.

As well as through the methods above, this might also include something like a product launch a tele-seminar or a free event of some kind.

But it isn’t enough to get your lifeboat into the sea alone

Lifeboats don’t sit waiting for people to swim to them! They have to go where the people need them. They spot the flares going up and scramble to the rescue.

It is no good putting up a website or launching a product if you don’t then scramble the lifeboat and go and find the people who need you. You must keep moving and looking for people to help.

Taking action with your marketing is key. Developing relationships through social media, blogging, your content and your newsletters is vital. You must regularly put content out into the sea (the Internet) in order for people to see you. Failure to do that means that another boat may come along and rescue someone that you could have actually helped better.

When you reach people, they will need different levels of support to take action and get into the lifeboat with you.

Some will recognise that you can help them and climb in straight away with very little support. Others will be in a state of shock and not be able to act without some warmth and comfort first. You may need to offer a hand and tell some people exactly what to do to take it whilst other you may have to haul lifeless out of the water.

So how does this relate to your marketing?

Imagine you have held a free tele-conference promoting a course that starts in a few week’s time. Maybe you expect that everyone will get into the lifeboat at the same time (sign up for your course)?

Firstly be aware that it might not happen like that. Don’t lose heart if no-one signs up straight away. The lifeboat has only just scrambled!

You now have to find out what each person needs to encourage them and make them feel safe enough to get into the lifeboat.

A lifeboat doesn’t motor up to each person and disappear if they don’t climb in. They assess the situation, see how best to help them and do all they can to rescue them. And sometimes they just need to throw the life buoy close enough that they can reach it!

Find out what your client needs to help them make a decision. Follow up emails with different viewpoints are critical. Offer a hand to people by letting them know you are a real person who understands where they are. That it is ok to feel scared, cold, exhausted but that you can help them.

Let them know exactly what it will be like in the lifeboat.

Help them to see what their life will be like when they have climbed in to the lifeboat and are being taken back to shore.

Let them know what experiences previous clients have had with you so that they feel safe enough to climb in.

Blog, create videos, send emails that encourage and support whilst telling people exactly what they can do to get help.

Tell them to connect with you through social media, email or call you if that is an option. Remember that people might be in a state of paralysis and too scared to reach out. You must reach out to them.

And keep your lifeboat circling inviting people in right up until the point that you have to return to shore. In other words, don’t give up and think that your marketing efforts have failed until the actual event or course that you are promoting has arrived!

Thinking you have failed to fill your event before it even starts is like returning to the boathouse before you have searched until dark!

I would love to know your thoughts on this post, please do comment below and let me know!

If you are a heart centred entrepreneur and you need help with marketing in a more heart centred way then do feel free to contact me and see how I might be able to help.

 

 

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