What is Your Story?

Everyone has a story. Whether it’s about logging equipment or chemicals, there’s a story. Think about what your company stands for. What is your business passionate about? How does your story fit within all the content you’re planning and publishing for your company?

For example, a close friend of mine is a youth pastor at a local southern California church who along with a group of friends started a very small clothing line in 2009, LETGOdwork. They got involved in youth conventions, Christian music festivals, local gatherings, etc. After attempts at different types of marketing, they hit their sweet spot…. social media. They figured out after a few trial and error experiences with marketing, that their initial buyers loved the simplicity of their products so much; they did the marketing for them. Posted photos, shared posts, tagged friends/photos, contests, giveaways, and the occasional music celebrity would receive a few items to wear at concerts to help boost natural interest. They figured out who their demographic was very quickly and capitalized on their approach. Needless to say, after different strategies, successes and failures, this small company now has well over 18k twitter followers, 10k friends via Facebook, have produced over 50 designs, expanded apparel types beyond just t-shirts and can now be found in retail stores across the country.

For some business owners, marketing themselves and their work is as painful an experience as a math major having to write an English term paper. But the reality is if you own a company and want it to succeed you have to tell people about it and that was something that my friends at LETGOdwork loved to do, they truly had the desire and passion to tell everyone about their clothing line.

I implore anyone who loves what they do or what their company stands for to start the process of marketing, even if you hate or have never tried marketing. First, get over the misconceptions. People have many different ideas about how to go about marketing a business. Whatever path you choose, not understanding which channels to use, how much money to spend, or what type of results to expect can make you uncomfortable. Starting with the facts allows you to put together a plan based on tangible data rather than on some vague notion of what you should do.

Next, figure out what you are trying to accomplish. There are many forms of marketing, and most businesses will be an initial great fit for at least one of them. You can write a blog, engage in social media, create search engine campaigns, develop content for your site, revamp your website for better conversion rates, network in person at events, make phone calls to existing customers, or participate in speaking engagements like webinars or podcasts. Do the marketing that you’re most comfortable with first and when you see the results, you’ll likely be motivated to try other types.

Learn more from the experts. Now that you’ve decided where to start, you need the knowledge and tools to do the job right and get the results you seek. Once you feel confident in your abilities, then you can start making some larger decisions with ease.  The confidence to make those decisions can only come from basic measurable, data, conversions, sales, etc. But we cannot look to a crystal ball from “anticipated results”, we have to actually go out there and try some things.

Start with an idea, a mission, a reason, a purpose…. For the guys at LETGOdwork, it was simple:

Orange County based brand founded in 2009 by some friends that wanted to make simple, clean, high-quality clothing that they could be proud of. LETGOdwork is about positivity. We believe the world needs change and that true change begins when we LET GO.

— Joe M.

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