The Rules Have Changed: Organic Marketing in the Digital Age

Sandimaki Sq

MakiYou and I and most of the people reading this article are in the pool business. We know vinyl, tile and gunite. We understand pumps, filters and heaters. We are comfortable around excavators, cement mixers and pick-up trucks. We are hands-on, physical and results-focused.

It’s no wonder, then, that so many of us would rather do just about anything than try to decipher the foggy vagaries of marketing. Yet we’re smart enough to know that, if we want our businesses to thrive, we somehow have to do just that.

Seeing Through the Fog

For Al and I, the fog started to lift about eight years ago as we began to study the philosophy of Wallace D. Wattles, especially "The Science of Getting Rich." In his writings, Wallace underscores how important it is to have a clear vision of who you are and what you hope to accomplish:

β€œThe intensity of your desire will depend on the clearness 
of which you picture to yourself what you want to be."

Those words were a watershed moment for us. We began to understand that we needed to get crystal clear on what we were all about so we could harness the energy required to make our business dreams a reality.

As we worked to define ourselves and our business in these terms, an amazing thing happened. An idea was born β€” so simple, yet so effective β€” that became the framework on which we built our entire marketing strategy.

The process, which we’ll present to you over this and the following three articles, will help you begin to think in your certain way. This in turn will create social proof that the concepts are working, which will reinforce your belief. As you do, you will begin to notice dramatic shifts in your marketing, your business and how you approach your work. We know we have.

And it’s as easy as tic-tac-toe.

A New Marketing Paradigm

Marketing has changed dramatically over the past decade or so. How we engage, interact and build our relationships has undergone a profound and irreversible shift. So how does a business owner begin to thrive in the social sandbox?

What you need is a simple to use and powerful tool for defining your marketing goals, creating an authentic and energetic online presence and managing your interactions. We call it Organic Marketing.

What’s required of you is that you commit to it. Show up with authenticity, with consistency and with a goal of understanding how to connect the dots. When you put the right pieces in place to leverage your social sphere, your business will grow organically, and you will love the results!

The other thing that’s required is a willingness to let go of your old notions of marketing, what works and what doesn’t. We are living in a whole new digital world, and our customers are waiting for us in this playground. Let go and let this process unfold for you, and glean the insights along the way that will transform how you think and work.

The Marketing Bubble

To help understand what marketing really is for today’s consumer, close your eyes and picture your ideal client. Next, picture a giant bubble around your client. This bubble isolates your client from anything that they haven’t decided to pay attention to yet. We are exposed to more than 50,000 marketing messages each day, most of which just bounce off our bubbles. Your greatest challenge is to get your message inside of your ideal client’s bubble.

Rather than piercing the bubble by force (popping), good marketing softens the edge of the bubble. By getting your message in front of your client as often as possible, perhaps by pulling up alongside the bubble unobtrusively, or being in the periphery, the person inside their bubble might begin to take notice. Hopefully they get closer to the edge of the bubble to peek outside.

Maybe you get them so curious that they will take their bubble even closer to your bubble. (Think bumper bubbles; that’s pretty cool!)

The more curious your prospect becomes, the more of your message you can share. Craft your message in a way that helps them identify their need for your service.

Once your prospect is paying attention, they are more likely to take action. It could be a purchase, a bookmark for a later purchase or sharing your message with people in their sphere of influence. In the world of social media, the goal is the share. You really, really want people to be sharing your messages with their own social networks.

A truly effective marketing campaign will have prospects in their bubbles vying for position trying to get a glimpse of what you have going on. Instead of selling anything to them, they are selling themselves on you, before you even have to start the sales process. Creating this kind of marketing becomes possible with our organic approach.

Some New Rules for an Old Game

Based on a tic-tac-toe board, with each of the nine squares representing a part of you and/or your business, the Organic Marketing process looks deceptively simple.

Beneath that simplicity is a powerful way to gain your prospects’ attention and get them to allow you access to their bubble. The tic-tac-toe idea breaks down your marketing efforts into three categories β€” personal, business and universal β€” that when placed in a row in each axis of the board define the squares in relationship to each other.

The result is a visual short-hand to help you easily understand how to reach new audiences, build new relationships and grow your business.

What’s Next?

In both our online and in-person training, we are often asked how social media is so different from traditional media. Here’s the secret: it’s not that different. Social media is not about using a new media in an old way. It's about using the new media to communicate with people in the way they choose. Understanding this makes all the difference in the world, and the tic-tac-toe concept will help you see it and put it into practice.

Want to learn more about our Organic Marketing approach? Catch our seminar at the PSP Expo in Las Vegas!

 

 

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