Are you reaching your market with a voice of authority or are you at the mercy of a market that is not what you hoped for?
I find that many companies fail to bring a sense of authority to their marketing. It is time to improve that right now. Let us consider where marketing authority comes from, and why so many businesses are lacking it.
This world is made up of people … flawed people … every last one of them. Businesses are made up of one or more of these flawed people, so can you really expect perfection to come from that? Of course not, and those flaws often come through in the same ways in business as they do in the flawed people’s personal psychology. This makes perfect sense, right?
Lack of authority is a weakness for many people and it comes with insecurity, which often comes from lack of proper information. Fear is a strong emotion, and one that can wreck your hopes of bringing authority to your marketing. With all of the right facts and figures to draw from, it starts to look like science, and that makes it harder to deny. It also makes it much easier to have confidence and to market with authority!
How do we begin to repair that lack of authority and reach your market with confidence? I want to offer you some ideas.
Define Your Authority
If you are marketing pizza, and people tell you it is the best pizza, they offer you authority. Take it and use it! Stop being afraid. If enough people say that your pizza is the best in town, all of the sudden, guess what … it is! Testimony is a hugely important factor in court trials … even the court trials that get people hanged by the neck until dead. Shouldn’t your customers’ testimony be enough to give you authority, too?
Sales Volume Does Not Equal Authority
It is really easy for companies (flawed people) to perceive their authority to be diminished when sales are slumping. It begins a downward spiral. I will stick with pizza for this example. If you are marketing pizza and a Pizza Hut or other chain moves in and captures a piece of your market, does that mean your pizza is not still as good as it was? Sometimes this is the case, but as an after-effect, and not as the cause.
If you have good pizza to market, be sure to market it with the same authority that it deserves, and not based on the mood you awakened to on a given day. It is really easy to get this wrong, but a common and very inappropriate response to the marketplace. Remember that only because Pizza Hut sells a lot more pizza than you do it does not mean they take authority away from your brand.
Uphold your Authority
If you convey authority, there is an inherent responsibility to uphold that authority. I believe it is easy for people to forget all of the things that give them authority in their marketplace. This is especially true when their authority is questioned. Tragically, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when it is questioned from the inside.
You can see this all around you, if you look for it. Just consider how many companies you can find that beg for business instead of taking the time and effort to become an authority, and project that authority in their marketing.
I see this problem more often in smaller companies, but weak efforts and asking to be right are problems of companies in all sizes. It seems that it often comes with an uncertainty of how others perceive a business, rather than having a rock solid position that the company is better than the competition, and knowing why.
Are You an Authority?
Maybe you are already an authority in your field but you just don’t know why, or how to prove it. If you are not an authority, maybe it is your time to get there. The odds are pretty good that you are an authority at something. Come on … there has to be something. Start with that “something” and grow it! Lastly, don’t neglect to push your marketing “Go” button!