Does your Marketing Make you Nervous?
Today we wanted to explore a theory we have been working on. We are big believers that good marketing should stand out, go against the status quo and break the mould, but we understand that is easier said than done, a lot of businesses we talk too think:
1. They aren’t creative enough
2. They are scared to stand out
And it got us thinking…should your marketing make you nervous?
We had a think about some of the stand out marketing we have done ourselves (our explosive head shots, our cyclone stand at the NE Expo, our wanted poster and our strategy at Social Media Marketing World to name a few), and to be honest…the answer is YES! We were nervous, they did give us butterflies in our stomachs and we weren’t 100% certain how people we going to react.
Why? Because they were different, and it put us on a pedestal to be judged!
But also more importantly, a pedestal to stand out and be noticed and admired.
In all of those cases, the apprehension was worth it, as they paid off.
The Safe Zone
An issue we see with small business marketing is that they place themselves and their marketing firmly in The Safe Zone, and do generally accepted marketing strategies, the same as everybody else in The Safe Zone.
The Safe Zone has these characteristics:
- It is easy
- You are going with the flow
- Nobody judges you
- You feel confident
- You are accepted
Sounds good right? However, you can probably see where we are going with this. The issue with The Safe Zone is that EVERYBODY is in it, and your marketing is competing with everybody else to get noticed.
So this is what we want you to do, break out of The Safe Zone into The Butterfly Zone.
The Butterfly Zone
The Butterfly Zone has these characteristics:
- You are alone
- Marketing ideas are harder to think of
- You place your business in a position to be judged
- Some people (from The Safe Zone) are going to think you are crazy
- You have butterflies when doing marketing
It is a leap we know, however the benefits of being here are crazy good. In The Butterfly Zone we can:
- Generate a buzz around our business
- Get noticed above our competition
- Attract collaborations
- Build an actual brand that people LOVE
The cost of that is a few butterflies in the stomach.
So back to the question at hand
Does your marketing make you nervous?
We think every now and then it probably should, and if it isn’t then maybe you need to open the doors on The Safe Zone and have a look out.
But what if you suffer from what we mentioned right at the start:
1. You aren’t creative enough
2. You are too scared to stand out
We would say to you this…use this theory of The Safe Zone and The Butterfly Zone to realise the benefits of standing out, and learn to accept the butterflies in your stomach as a good thing, a sign of breaking out of The Safe Zone.
ACTION: We want to challenge you today. We want you to do something risky. Something that gets the blood pumping. It doesn’t have to be about business, and since all of our limits are different it can be something small, but take a risk (note: please keep it legal and don’t blame us if you get arrested for public indecency)
ACTION: After you have done your risk, we want you to think about your marketing and branding and assess where you are. Are you in The Safe Zone or The Butterfly Zone?
ACTION: If you are in The Safe Zone, we want you to just take one aspect of your marketing and think about how you can move it into The Butterfly Zone, maybe you are exhibiting at at event, or attending a networking event, or getting some literature designed. How can you make one of these thing Stand Out, and remember the butterflies you get when you decide on an answer are just the sign of you entering a whole different zone.
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