Marketing 101

I’ve completed more than 50 marketing certifications and have read hundreds of marketing books. After a successful consulting career, and now from my experience building the next-gen AI notes app, here’s what I wish someone had taught me about marketing when I started.

What is a Market?

A market is a self-referencing group. Which means they’re people who TRUST each other. You and your friends are a market. Because if one of the girls says, “you gotta try this,” you try it without thinking twice.

A market is not an industry. An industry is the economic umbrella to measure national outputs. A market is not an ideal customer profile (ICP). An ICP is a role, like a runner, a reporter, or a CTO, that you use to understand your market’s needs.

What is an ICP

Middle-aged women shopping for work shoes in Berlin. That’s an ICP. Nailing down the exact ICP helps you in the search for a market. You ask yourself, “Where can I find a group of women who want work shoes in Berlin, who all know each other?” That question will help you find a market. For example, the office building on 53rd and 6th Avenue, or a Facebook group of Berlin moms who work. Be specific.

Once you’ve nailed an ICP and a market, the next step is to find a way to gain your market’s trust.

Relationships and The Funnel

To gain trust, you build a RELATIONSHIP.

A relationship is not one-way. And it’s not just about content. A professional relationship is built on understanding your market’s pain AND making them FEEL understood.

To make your market feel understood, you have to nurture the relationship across the funnel.

Awareness

The first stage of the funnel is awareness, and to gain it, you need to get attention. This can be as simple as showing up in a Facebook group or actually going to the cafe near 53rd and 6th and having conversations with your prospects (ICPs who aren’t customers yet). People want to talk to impressive people, so keep that in mind.

Online, this can be attention-grabbing posts (social media) or understanding the ICP’s search intent and writing articles or making videos that fulfill the desire behind the search (SEO). You can also pay money for ads to get in front of your prospect with the right message.

The goal of awareness is to convert your prospects into curious friends.

Friendship Phase

The middle of the funnel is usually segmented into many more stages, but for simplicity, let’s call it the friendship phase.

During the friendship phase, you want to understand your prospects through conversations.

You’re trying to understand two things: why are they still suffering the pain your product solves, and what have they tried to solve it in the past. Feel free to go above and beyond to understand and make them feel understood.

The goal of the friendship phase is to make sure your friend is right for the product you’re selling (qualifying).

If they’re not, point them to the best solution. You gain trust. Try to think of yourself as a doctor diagnosing a disease. If you’re a heart surgeon and they have a kidney problem, DON’T OPERATE ON THEIR HEART. Refer them to a kidney specialist. But if you determine the prospect is a right fit for your product, the next phase is the demo.

Demo

Show your prospect the product, walk them through it, and give them a free trial if you can.

What you want in this phase is FEEDBACK. How can your product completely relieve their pain?

If they do not buy the product after the demo, it’s because your product doesn’t heal their pain. Period.

If they don’t buy, ask your friend what it would take for them to buy. Remember, feedback is the goal. If you can improve your product, then do that, and when it meets their standard, follow up. Anything other than “stop calling me, stop texting me, or stop emailing me,” from your prospect has nothing to do with you, so don’t take it personally if your follow-ups are ignored. Just keep doing it every week.

If there’s nothing you can do to make them buy by the end, then either you did not qualify your prospect, there’s a better product out there, or they're just busy right now.

So keep following up. Marketing takes time. Most of my customers and clients were the product of follow-ups and not taking perceived slights personally.

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