Welcome to the Escape Blog

Marketing (still) to so many is a bit of the unknown. It has (especially in the UK) been shrouded in mystery to protect those in the know. The problem is that those in the know, don’t necessarily know anymore, you know.

Marketing techniques have changed, making it much more accessible for all small business owners to think smart and market themselves with very little money, as long as the core foundations are right. Seth Godin gives us two very good points to get us started with:

Most marketing problems aren’t intractable. They are solved with
persistence, consistency and attention to detail. When marketing
doesn’t work, it’s usually because the product is lousy. But the second
reason is that the organization picks too big a marketplace in
comparison to the resources they have available.

Yes, if you have something worth selling, and you sell it the right people, at the right time, in the right way you will have success, but… don’t let that be the end of it. The more you know, the easier it is and the more you can target your market.

1. Why do people buy from you now?
2. What is it they are buying from you (really)?
3. What problem are you solving / solution are you offering for them?
4. What could make it better?
5. Who are ‘they’?

As little as two years ago I went to an IOD seminar where someone mentioned marketing as fluffy. The suggestion was that it was a waste of time and should be left to the arty farty types. It may be fluffy my friend but it has a serious bite if fed correctly.

When you understand that anyone can market themselves, and that the BS is simply that, you can start to realise that the internet is full of resources (this white paper being one of them). You could start with Seth’s Blog. You then may realise that you get nothing back if you put nothing in, and you only learn what works and what doesn’t work [for you] by trying it.

Most of all, it can be fun and when you look at it like that, what’s stopping you?