Podcast Episode 5: My 3 basic marketing laws that you definitely need to know

As a HR consultant, there are certain 'HR basics' that you follow like a universal law. 

And when business owners ask you for advice, you fall back on these basics, as well as your experience, to provide them with the guidance they need. 

As an example, when it comes to ER matters you might ask if their employee has been there less than 2 years. 

You might ask if they've been treated unfairly at all. 

And you might ask if they have a protected characteristic. 

They're really important things you need to know in order to provide the right advice. 

When it comes to conducting an investigation, or disciplinary, you know that there's a certain process that you need to follow. 

And when it comes to a culture or change management project, you follow certain frameworks to help guide you too. 

You're an awesome HR consultant because you know the basics and you've got lots of experience in helping you create the best possible solution. 

Marketing is the same really - it's just systems, processes and frameworks. 

And something I always revert back to when offering marketing advice are my 3 basic marketing laws which I'm going to talk you through right now. 

The vast majority of big purchasing decisions, and this goes for both B2B and B2C transactions, are not only made with the brain, but they’re also made using gut feel and our emotional mind.

We make buying decisions with our heart, then our brain rubber stamps the decision.

This is particularly true when it comes to choosing a HR consultant, and that’s because the average business owner or manager doesn’t know much about HR and they don’t know what makes a great HR consultant.

They have nothing rational to compare you to when making a decision.

Instead, they ask themselves whether they like you, get along with you, and get a good feel from you.

Then they’ll find things to rubber stamp the decision such as cost, location, perceived expertise and years of experience.

In short, they make 80% of the decision using their emotional mind and then 20% using their rational mind.

Therefore, your marketing must appeal to them emotionally first.

And the most powerful emotions you can target are your client's needs, wants and fears. 

Needs addresses the essential solutions your product or service offers to solve a problem. 

At a phycological level, this is always brought back to survival. 

We then have wants... 

So wants go beyond basic needs and are driven by desires for comfort, convenience, status, or pleasure. 

Here, yyou want to tap into your clients dreams and aspirations at a phycological level. 

And then we have fears - so fears are about tapping into your client's anxieties or concerns about missing out, facing negative consequences, or dealing with undesirable scenarios. 

And this is always brought back to threats or loss. 

An example of this is the phycological concept of loss aversion. 

People tend to prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring equivalent gains.

In other words, the pain of losing something is psychologically more powerful than the pleasure of gaining something of equal value.

So if you're writing a headline, I'll always angle it about preventing pain rather than achieving success. 

When I've made my millions and I'm bored of the beach, I would love to learn more about consumer psychology because it really does underpin everything I do as a marketing professional.

So long story short, you really need to tap into your clients emotions when marketing your consultancy and the story brand framework, which I talk about in an earlier podcast episode is a great way to do this. 

When marketing your consultancy, you have a very very small window of opportunity to grab a business owner's attention. 

So you NEED to stand out. 

In order to do this and to increase your chances of getting noticed, your messaging has to be so relevant to who you're contacting. 

This is why I'm a really big fan of creating target markets via industry because you can then contact each industry at a time, do your research and create messaging that hits home. 

Another reason to create target markets via industry is that people would prefer to work with a perceived specialist in their field.
 
Lots of consultants have contacted me because I'm a marketing expert for HR consultants. 

Think about picking a marketing person to help you grow your consultancy - you'd likely pick me over another marketing expert that didn't specialise in HR. 

The same goes for your clients. 

Even though your skills are transferable which means you can easily work with any type of business, business owners would rather buy from someone that is a perceived specialist in their field as it provides you with instant credibility, authority, and helps you to build all important trust with your prospects.

Being a perceived specialist will help you to get more sales faster. 
 
To summarise all of this, I always say that relevance increases results and you should do everything you possibly can to make you, your brand and your marketing more relevant to who ever you're targeting. 

And then we have my third and final marketing law...  you need to systemise your marketing and I've created and perfected my 3 step lead generation system for you which I'll talk you through in just a second. 

There's a couple of reasons as to why you need to create a system. 

The first is that cutting through the noise is harder than ever... 

Think about your LinkedIn feed right now. 

There’s so much content out there, isn’t there? 

There are 900 million registered members worldwide and thousands of posts are made every second. 

Over on Facebook, there are over 510,000 comments, 293,000 status updates, 136,000 photos uploaded, and more than 4 million likes across various posts every single second. 

It's honestly wild! 

The second reason is that people only buy when they're ready to buy and you need to be in the right place at the right time with the right message. 

In the other big marketing company I lead, people tell us that they've been listening to the podcast for years before they decided to buy which I always find crazy. 

But it just shows that your client's 'right time' to buy is completely out of your control. 

It could be there and then, a week later, a month, or even years. 

And according to stats, you need 28 to 62 touch points before someone is ready to take action with you. 

Sadly we don't have a crystal ball and there's no way to predict when that perfect moment will be. 

So the best thing you can do is to show up consistently. 

And my final reason is to remember that one-time marketing doesn't work. 

One time marketing is when you something like send a bunch of emails, or send out a bunch of LinkedIn DMs and try to get people to take action straight away. 

I know loads of business owners that do this, don't see any results and then give up saying that marketing doesn't work. 

The reality is that they're doing marketing completely wrong. 

So because all of these reasons, you need to create a marketing system. 

This system needs to build a relationship with your prospects for as long as needed before they book an appointment with you and turn into a happy client. 

And that's why, over the years, I have created and perfected a 3 step lead generation system that I use in every business I work in. 

Honestly, every aspect of your marketing and sales can fit into one of these 3 categories. 

So let me talk you through the 3 steps now. 

Step 1 is to grow multiple audiences - like your LinkedIn connections and an email marketing list. 

I call these activities lit building and it's the first thing I focus on when trying to grow a business. 

Step 2 is to then build a relationship your list. 

So once you have a bunch of LinkedIn contacts and an email marketing list, it's important to get your touch points in, create posts and send emails. 

You need to be consistently seen and heard over long periods of time before people are ready to buy from you. 

And to do this, you need to put lots of quality content out there. 

This is where the HR Marketing Box really helps because it's full of content and content ideas to help you get as much content out there as possible in the quickest and cheapest way. 

And then the third and final step is to commercialise your relationship. 

You'll do this by encouraging your warmed up prospects to book in a discovery call with you to talk about your HR and there are lots of ways to do this like specific campaigns, webinars and via your service ladder. 

So let's summarise... 

Imagine you're with a client right now and you've got an ER case on your hands. 

There's a bunch of questions you'd ask straight off the bat to establish what's going on and where they've been going wrong. 

It's the same for me. 

If you jumped on a call with me today and said hey James, my marketing isn't working. 

I'd ask you who you are targeting, how much research have you done and how are you leveraging their emotions in your marketing? 

I'd then look at your brand and messaging to see how relevant you are to them. 

And then I'd figure out if you're doing one time marketing or using a system to build a funnel of lovely new clients. 

If the answer is no, then this where I would get started. 

So let's recap my 3 basic marketing laws that you need to remember when marketing your consultancy. 

The first is to understand what makes your clients tick and to leverage their emotions. 

The second is to be highly relevant in every way that you possibly can. 

And the third is to grow your consultancy using my 3 step lead generation system 

step 1 is to grow your LinkedIn connections and email marketing list. 

step 2 is to build a relationship with your list over time and consistency is key here. 

And step 3 is to commericalise the relationship by getting a discovery call booked in the diary.