Marketing 3-4-5™ is designed to be actionable which means you can use it today to implement effective marketing through simple 15-minute activities.
The approach includes:
As a result... you'll move toward your goals and have choices.
Local communities and small businesses are outmanned and outgunned by bigger competitors when it comes to marketing. Fortunately, you have an unfair advantage big corporations can't recreate: Authenticity and Relationships.
Our Marketing 3-4-5™ Approach is designed to simplify local marketing so your marketing can be effective and you can do most things in 15-minutes or less by sharing examples from your business or community and better leveraging the relationships you already have.
Most people think marketing is just about attracting customers but it's actually about attracting more of your IDEAL customers, improving hiring & recruiting, and positively impacting your community... put another way, effective marketing helps you reach your goals, whatever they may be, while supporting others.
You need Marketing 3-4-5™ if:
Join our mission to #TakeBackLocal by effectively marketing yourself and supporting others in your community.
Marketing is more than advertising, a lot more. In fact, while attracting customers is a major driver there are other reasons for you to market your business.
Effective marketing gives you choices depending on your goals (your “why”) such as growing your business, staffing up, giving back to your community, or even working less.
Your “why” is different from other businesses or communities and it will change over time. The important thing is to understand why marketing is important to you now so that your actions reflect that.
Depending on the nature of your business and your priorities these three “whys” will vary in importance or change over time and that's ok.
Why do people work with you? Your customers’ and employees’ have a “why” and your marketing should help them see how you help them reach their goals.
People choose to work with you because of your:
Showing what makes you unique - particularly the unique parts that people care about - is critical to effective marketing.
Your content can answer the question "Why you?" over and over again to grow your marketing impact and differentiate your business or community.
How people find and engage with you is where the rubber-meets-the-road.
People find you or your organization through:
People often foolishly say, “I get all of my business from referrals and word-of-mouth” - that's both not true and effective marketing helps you drive and convert more referrals. Referrals are always great and the best way to attract customers and employees but you don’t want to feed your family based on the unmotivated goodwill of others.
Effective distribution ensures you're able to reach and convert people wherever they may be with little to no extra effort.
We know you don't have a lot of time, fortunately, with Marketing 3-4-5™ marketing activities can be completed quickly during those 15-minute slow periods you have in your day.
Marketing is a practice and when it's simple and quick you're more likely to stick with it. Whether you’re between client meetings or waiting for someone to enter your store, you can complete something meaningful in your free time.
Content is the currency of online marketing but most local marketing is a waste of effort and wears you out.
The Marketing 3-4-5™ approach simplifies content creation and distribution, focusing on creating and sharing content based on real-life business activities.
Because content (or Business Blogging) is based on your business's activities, no creativity is required and you can quickly highlight the 4 reasons people should work with you while also driving more referrals and word of mouth. After all, when you create content about customers, staff, volunteers, and more you tap into their audience who, in turn, learn more about you and your business or community
Learn more about our Prompt-Based approach to creating content which simplifies writing a blog so it's as easy as answering a few simple questions.
At the same time, great content doesn't matter if people don't see it - that's where content distribution comes in.
The internet has become incredibly fragmented but a single piece of content should improve your website, help you reach people on social media, get distributed to subscribers via email newsletters, appear on other local sites thanks to cross-promotion, and help your rank better on Google when you follow the Marketing 3-4-5™ Distribution approach (see graphic).
This should be used for all Content of Consequence™ including business blogs, events, job openings or volunteer opportunities, and more.
If you focus on social media, you might as well be running on a treadmill - no matter how fast your legs move you're not getting anywhere. On the other hand, maybe you don't know where to start.
A lot of people are overly or completely reliant on social media if they post anything at all - this is a major problem because:
The Marketing 3-4-5™ Distribution approach enables you to continue using social but breaking free of that tyranny while growing an audience you own with multiple ways to connect with people.
Yea, yea, yea, “blog” is a confusing 4-letter word and while it sounds offensive to a lot of business owners, business blogging is different and if it sounds cumbersome it means you have the wrong tools - it should be as simple as posting to social media.
You probably haven’t thought of marketing as a moral issue but it is because you have 3 constituents who are relying on your efforts.
First is your organization - maybe it’s just you or maybe you have employees, whoever is involved in your organization is relying on you to effectively market.
Second, are your customers. If you offer something of value that will benefit me and I don’t find you or understand your ability to help me then I may not work with you and I end up suffering as a result.
Finally, your community relies on you. If you don’t effectively market yourself then you’re a drag on your community’s efforts however if you effectively market yourself then others in your community are elevated alongside you.
If you go further and participate in local efforts to #TakeBackLocal and cross-promote with the folks you truly care about then you’re actively working to strengthen your community.
Marketing is important, Marketing 3-4-5™ and Locable's local marketing tools are here to help.
