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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

Is Cheap Outsourcing Ethical?

It’s become pretty normalised for businesses in higher GDP economies to outsource work to less developed countries. It’s often considered an almost primary option for reducing business costs. But can we really call this kind of business ethical?

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Is outsourcing cheap labor ethical?

In this video, I want to discuss the ethics of outsourcing work to countries that have weaker economies so that you can pay them less.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already please do I share lots of videos about marketing tips and also about marketing ethics. (And hit the bell if you want to be notified when I release a new video.)

Outsourcing Marketing is Normal, Right?

So, it’s pretty normal in today’s society that a company in somewhere like the UK or the US or Australia, they outsource some of their simpler tasks to countries like India or Philippines or Indonesia. And it seems reasonable because you can pay them less and you’re supporting a country that has a desperate need for work.

Now let’s talk a little bit about the ethics of this though.

Is Outsourcing Really Supporting Other Economies?

Are you really supporting the country that is desperate for labour or are you exploiting people who are desperate for work?

I think the key point here is are you paying the minimum wage in the country where you’re earning money? Because ultimately if you are paying someone less than the minimum wage in the country where you’re earning money, then you’re paying them less than you are legally obligated to in your country. To me that sounds like exploitation.

Disclaimer: I’m Not An Economist!

Now, I realise that there are loads and loads and loads of complexities around this, and economics is definitely not my expertise, so I would love to hear from you if you are an expert in economics and you have an alternative viewpoint on how this is genuinely beneficial.

But if you are a business owner and you are thinking about hiring someone in a foreign country because it’s cheaper – and your primary motivation is that it’s cheaper – then I would really stop and consider whether you are acting within the ethical boundaries that you set for yourself as a business owner.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

You Don’t Want High Paying Clients

A reality of doing business is that it has to be profitable in order to survive – profit is the fuel that runs your business.

This has often led many businesses to focus on the ‘high ticket’ clients as the criteria of “can they afford it” becomes the most important qualifying factor.

That’s when we start swimming in some less ethical marketing waters…

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You do not want high paying clients.

Hi, I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital and in today’s video I’m going to be talking about how targeting your customers based on how much they can pay could be a really bad idea.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do. It will help me loads and you’ll be notified when I release new videos.

Your Target Person Should Involve Affordability Factors, Right?

So, a lot of marketers, a lot of business coaches, a lot of people who want to grow businesses will tell you that your criteria for how you target your market should involve how much they can pay. And I get it, this totally makes logical sense. If they can’t afford your services, why on earth would you target them?

Let’s start off by me saying that that is totally valid. I’m not arguing that you shouldn’t be using whether they can afford your service as a part of your targeting.

Yeah, I mean, I get it. It makes sense to be thinking about whether they can afford your services or not, and you don’t want to waste time with people who can’t afford your services, but let’s talk about that just a little bit and the kind of systemic problems there.

The Ethical Problems with Targeting Only Those Who Can Pay

Now, I know a lot of you have turned off as soon as I’ve said ‘systemic problems’ but if you want to be practicing your business ethically this is something you really need to consider.

If you’re completely rejecting people based on the fact that they can’t afford your product, then you’re probably contributing to a world where only people who have money are able to access the thing you do.

Now, this may be fine for a lot of people. Maybe if you do luxury goods, if you do something that’s not really that important but if you’re solving a really difficult problem that a lot of people have then you might want to consider how you’re able to help the people who can’t quite afford it.

And this doesn’t mean that you serve everyone who can’t afford it. This means that you find ways to make sure that you are helping some of those and you’re not only helping the people who can pay you a lot.

The Ethical Problem with Targeting “High-Paying” Clients

Now the other issue that comes in here with quite heavily targeting people who can afford your product is the phrasing of it and what that ends up meaning.

The phrasing of “I’m targeting people who can afford it” is more valid than “I’m targeting high-paying clients.”

This is where people fall into the trap.

They start to think, “Oh, these clients give me a higher margin and, therefore, I need to target them more.” They stop just targeting those who can afford it, and start targeting those who can pay the most for it.

You then start to craft your entire business around these people who can pay more, who can pay you exorbitant amounts for the thing you do, leaving the other people – who probably more genuinely need your help – to not have the best service from you.

The thing you need to be looking out for here is, are you giving your better service to someone only because they have more money? You might be giving a better service to them because they have bought more of your products and therefore you need to then provide more of a service. That is different from giving them a better service than the other people just because they’re paying more money for a similar thing.

It’s Not Just the Systemic Problems – It’s About Your Own Enjoyment Too

The really funny thing here is that it’s not even just about the impact on society or the fact that you’re supporting people who have more money than the people who don’t. It’s also going to be bad for you!

If you’re not aligning values – if you’re not using values as a higher priority than money – then you are inevitably going to end up with people who are paying you a lot who are not aligned with who you are and you’re going to hate working with them.

So, in the end, it benefits you as well to mitigate a little bit against targeting people who can just pay you a lot. It will make for a better business, you’ll make for a better world, and you’ll be happier as a businessperson.

I hope that makes sense to you if you disagree if you have a comment on it if you want to discuss this some more please put a comment on this video or on the blog post if you’re reading it watching it there or just send me a message. I’m happy to discuss this stuff I love chatting about it. So, please do message me if you want to talk about issues like this.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

ROI is a Tool of Oppression

A big job of making marketing more ethical is about becoming aware of how some of our actions have unconsciously reinforced systems of oppression. One of the ways this happens is in the way that marketers use data.

I think this is a really important takeaway not only for marketers but for all business leaders that are trying to use data to set direction.

Podcast mentioned:

How to Embrace a More Diverse Approach to Marketing – Duct Tape Marketing

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In today’s video I’m going to be talking about how ROI – Return On Investment – might become a tool that’s making your business less ethical.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already, please do, it will help me loads and you’ll be notified when I release new videos.

Where I Heard About How ROI Can Be Oppressive

Now, I was listening to a podcast episde on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast, about how to increase diversity in your business or something like that, and the whole point of it, and one of the things that I really took away from this episode, was that ROI can become a tool that’s increasing oppression from businesses.

Oppression Makes Sense When You Just Look at The Numbers

How this works is that if a business is constantly focused on the return on investment – the money put in having to match up to money out – it results in a business becoming really focused on making money. And then they stop focusing on things like benefits to the community and how the business can serve the community and serve people around them. Ultimately, they stop focusing on how they can serve to break down the barriers that are in the way for minorities and for anyone who is disadvantaged, because it just makes sense when you look purely at the numbers.

Now, this doesn’t mean that we throw ROI out the window. It doesn’t mean that we have to ignore return as a business. If anything, like, you must – you must – always be focused on the return that your business has.

So, How Can We Use ROI Ethically?

But the point here is that we need to start looking at return on investment as more than money. As more than profit. We need to be okay with putting investment in and the return being building a better business and contributing to the community.

Because when we do that we will be contributing to a better world.

And I think this needs to be a priority for all businesses. One of my values is “Sustainability is Not Optional“. We all – every single business in the world – need to start putting sustainability and fighting oppression and the Sustainable Development Goals at the forefront of all of our businesses.

This concept of return on investment is one that really needs to be tweaked in the minds of business owners so that we start looking at it as that return can be a benefit to all, and not just our own business.

I hope that you enjoyed that video a little bit about business ethics if you disagree, if you have a comment on it, if you agree, I would love to hear from you. Please comment and let me know.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

Is Pushing Pain Points Ethical Marketing?

It’s very established in marketing that when you’re trying to sell something, you need to focus more on how the product solves a problem for your customer. That can sometimes mean agitating pain points in order to highlight how your product solves those problems.

Is this an ethical marketing practice?

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Should you be pushing on pains or drawing in with benefits?

Hi I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital and in this article I’m going to talk about this really core marketing concept of pains and benefits and which ones you should be focusing on as an ethical business.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already please do it will help me loads and you’ll be notified when I release new videos.

Pains and Benefits, Not Features

There’s this really core concept in marketing where you want to make sure that you focus on pains and benefits. This is really fundamental. A lot of the time businesses focus on their features, what they do, and how they do it, rather than focusing on what it is that your target person actually wants and satisfying the needs of your target person.

Now, a big thing in marketing is making sure that you’re solving a problem for your target person. And when I go through that, you know, Step One of my Content-Led Marketing Strategy, the way my videos are structured and everything, Step One is Understanding your Target Person.

Wants, Needs, Fears and Frustrations

When I do the exercise of understanding the target person with a client the whole thing we’re trying to get to at the end is Wants, Needs, Fears, and Frustrations. And I talk about this in another video but what I really want to talk about here is where you should be putting more of your effort. And in the end what I’m talking about is positive marketing.

What is Positive Marketing?

When I talk about positive marketing, I’m trying to say that you want to be spending more time talking about those wants and those needs. You want to be spending more time pulling them in according to the things that they want to go towards.

That doesn’t mean that you should ignore the problems. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t push on pains. The whole thing that you’re doing, after all, is solving a problem for people.

You Can Push on Pain, But Don’t Create It!

But you shouldn’t be creating pain. If the pain that you’re solving is not something that they have constantly, then agitating that pain can definitely be a marketing strategy but it’s one you should use very sparingly.

The Larger Effect of Negative Marketing

The reason I say this is that in the end everything you do – everything you do – as a marketer, as a business, is contributing to a wider world and to a wider effect. And if you are constantly talking about pain, then you are kind of contributing to a more negative environment in general. And a more negative environment around your business.

Use Positive Marketing and Make Your Business Sexy

But if you find really clever ways to talk about the positive things, about the ways that you are satisfying those wants and those desires – making your business sexy in whatever way it is that you do – you will create a positive environment around your business and you’ll be contributing to a way better business world.

I hope that kind of gives you a bit of an angle to think about when you’re talking when you’re thinking about how you’re trying to communicate your business service or product to your target person.

If you want to go over this in more depth, I’m really happy to have a half-hour, one-hour conversation with you just to go over the nuts and bolts and really dig in deep into that target person that you’re targeting. Just use the form below to request it!

Otherwise please enjoy the other videos and let me know if there’s any content that you want to see more of.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

Is Guerrilla Marketing Ethical?

Have you heard about this type of marketing called ‘guerrilla marketing’? In many modern references, they’re using this to refer to a form of attack marketing where you design campaigns that embarrass and drag down your competitors.

Here’s why I think it’s awful and what you should do instead in order to practice marketing ethically.

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Guerrilla marketing is for businesses that suck.

Hi I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital and I’m going to talk today about something that might be a little more controversial with marketing circles and talking about why guerrilla marketing is not something you should be doing.

What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Before I go on about guerrilla marketing let me just make sure that we’ve defined guerrilla marketing correctly. You see, I was listening to this podcast and this guy was going on about this ‘attack marketing’ guerrilla marketing.

What I understood of guerrilla marketing before this podcast was that it would mean marketing yourself in an alternative way. Doing flash mobs, appearing in places where your brand normally wouldn’t be.

And I think this is the real definition of guerrilla marketing.

But, to clarify, this video is not about the real definition of guerrilla marketing, or what I think is the real definition.

We’re Talking About “Attack Marketing” Here

In this podcast I was listening to, this guy was talking about how he was attacking competitors who were in the same space of his clients with the marketing he was creating. He was talking about how his strategies were like really bold and how the CEOs that he was working with had to have real cojones to use these strategies that he was using – marketing strategies that involved completely blasting the competition.

To me, this sat really poorly. I didn’t feel like this was an acceptable way of doing marketing.

Requiring Big Balls Probably Means Bad Business

Excuse my language, but it may take some bigger balls to be a bit of a dick, but I think that what it also indicates is that the business sucks.

If your marketing has to resort to dragging down your competition, then you probably don’t have a very good product.

Because if you had a good enough product you shouldn’t need to bring down the competition. You should be able to show up your competition without talking them down.

This is a Key Ethical Marketing Point

This is really key, I think, to practicing marketing ethically. Step two of the content marketing strategy that that I’ve kind of put together is defining your USP, right? It’s defining your Unique Selling Proposition. And there’s that that Venn diagram of the three circles and one of those circles is “what your competitors do not do well.” It’s kind of the most important circle.

It is important to focus on your competitors. To know what your competitors are doing and know what they’re doing that’s similar to you and know what you’re doing that’s dissimilar to them.

Show Yourself as Better Rather Than Drag Competitors Down

You can then focus on showing yourself to be better than your competitors without actually blasting them. You can talk yourself up. You show how you are better than them and you won’t need to resort to attacking them.

So I hope that video was a little bit enlightening on the ethics of marketing. I want to do way more videos on ethical marketing, but I’d love to know if YOU would like to see more videos on ethical marketing. Or whether you’d like to see more videos on content, on USP, choosing your target – feel free to comment and let me know what kind of videos you’d like to see more of otherwise I hope you are doing really well at the moment and I will see you in another video or in a chat.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

Newton Didn’t Discover Gravity

In school, you might have been taught that Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity when an apple fell upon his head.

But the truth is, he didn’t actually discover gravity… and what he actually did is a good way to understand how we think about marketing ethically!

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Newton did not discover gravity.

Hi, I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital and today I’m going to explain why the phrase that Newton discovered gravity is false and why that matters in terms of marketing.

If you haven’t subscribed to my channel yet. please do. it will help me loads on YouTube and you’ll be able to be notified when I release new videos.

The Story of Newton Discovering Gravity

Now what I mean by ‘Newton didn’t discover gravity’ is a little bit of a semantic point. Sir Isaac Newton was a physicist or what they called back then a ‘Natural Philosopher’ when all of the sciences were combined.

The story goes that he was sitting under a tree, the apple fell on his head, and this allowed him to understand the idea of gravity and come up with a way to explain it.

Newton Didn’t Discover Gravity, He Described It

That last sentence I just said – “come up with a way to explain it” – is what I mean by the fact that he didn’t discover gravity.

Gravity was always there – we were all experiencing it. What Newton did was he figured out a way to describe gravity and he managed to describe gravity in a way that other people could understand it.

How Does Newton Describing Gravity Matter in Ethical Marketing?

So, why does this matter to marketing? Why this matters is because he learned how to describe a thing. He put it in words, or in equations, that other people could understand. And this is the core of ethical marketing.

Marketing is about communication. It is about education. It is not about deceiving someone on what your product is. It is about teaching them what your product does, how your product helps them solve a problem.

This is a really fundamental marketing principle but it’s also a fundamental ethical marketing principle. Because once you learn how to describe your product in the best way possible, you’re doing marketing and you’re doing it in an ethical way. You’re helping people solve their problems with your product and service.

I hoped you liked that little snippet of ethical marketing. It’s something I’m really passionate about and if you have any ideas or comments on ethical marketing, feel free to find me on LinkedIn, feel free to find me on any of the social media platforms (in the bar at the top of the page), or use the form below to get in touch – I would love to chat to you about it.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

Growth Hacking is Not Ethical Marketing

It’s super pervasive to consider ‘growth hacking’ as synonymous with marketing.

However, I care to disagree – and I would go so far as to say that the ‘growth hacking’ approach that results in speedy growth, more often than not, is probably not an ethical marketing approach.

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Growth hacking is unethical.

Hi I’m DJ from Rainbow Dragon Digital and in today I’m going to discuss why I think that the idea around “growth hacking” – which is super pervasive in marketing at the moment – is, controversially, quite unethical.

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Fast Growth Quickly Becomes Unethical

Today I want to talk about something that might be a little bit controversial with a bunch of marketers but I’m feeling more reaffirmed by having met more marketers that actually are operating in this same way that I’m about to talk about.

I just did a workshop, actually, about what is ethical marketing and it’s a very slippery area, it’s difficult to pin down. But I think one of the things that is quite important to me is that fast growth quite quickly and easily becomes unethical.

Why Is Growth Hacking Unethical?

Almost every time there is quick, fast immediate growth some sort of unethical thing is happening.

That might be because you’re stepping on your employees, or it might mean that you’re stepping on your customers, or it might mean that you’re taking advantage of systemic oppression. But there’s some way that fast growth will be almost always be unethical.

Balancing the Doughnut of Ethics

And in the end, you do have to weigh that up against your balance of ethics. I talk about a “Doughnut of Ethics” similar to Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics – I used her model to think about marketing ethics and how there is a tension between the individual and society when we talk about ethics, and that there are a bunch of rather individual metrics that you need to use to measure where on that Doughnut you are.

And when there’s speedy growth it usually means that one of those metrics is out of whack.

So What is More Ethical Than Growth Hacking?

Now, what do you do instead? I attended another workshop from another marketer at Newton Bell, and their marketing agency is built around slow, steady growth. And that is what is going to help you maintain your Doughnut of Ethics.

Make sure that you market in the right way and grow in the right way.

This doesn’t mean no growth – it means growing within the bounds of ethics and within the bounds of our society. And not taking advantage of people.

This means improving your message and improving your user experience. Make sure that your product is actually adding value to people. Make sure the way you’re communicating is not deceptive and is accurately portraying what you’re doing and the value that you are bringing to people.

As soon as you start communicating in a way that’s trying to highlight certain things and hide other things, you’re starting to deceive and you’re starting to become unethical.

I realise that the conversation of ethics is always a little bit controversial so I would seriously hugely welcome anyone to make comments on this. I am open to being wrong ethics is a slippery thing and it and it is a thing that I believe everyone should be open to being wrong about. So please comment below if you have any about this particular topic.

You can also join my Facebook group Marketing for the Many – I’m responding to stuff on there as they come in. I’m also posting interesting insights I find there!

Otherwise please enjoy the other videos on my channel and I’ll see you in another one.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

2 Factors to Ethically Cold Email A Bought List

Most of us really hate spam (I’m not sure what to say about anyone who actually likes the stuff – either in the tin or in your inbox!). When you cold email a list that you’ve bought or acquired from some database – it almost always looks like spam.

And yet, people are still sending out these cold emails for one cold, hard reason: they work.

Just because a marketing technique works (well, sells in the short term – it’s arguable whether that’s marketing that ‘works’) doesn’t mean it’s something that necessarily should be done – especially if part of the fabric of your business is ethical business practice and ethical marketing strategies.

But it’s hard to just throw the baby out with the bathwater, especially when you actually kinda need the profit to keep your business alive, right?

There is a way that you can still use the cold emailing strategy without spamming a whole lot of people who absolutely don’t want to hear from you…

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Don’t like videos? Here’s the text version:

Is it possible to ethically email a cold list? In today’s video I’m going to discuss whether you can email a list of email addresses that you’ve bought in an ethical way.

If you haven’t subscribed to my YouTube channel already please do! It’ll give me a bit of YouTube cred and it’ll give you notifications whenever I release a new video.

Should I Do Cold Email Marketing?

The reason that I want to talk today about cold email marketing is that this actually came up in discussions with one of my clients.

The client offers a product for schools and they came up with a new product that would be really helpful to schools right now.  And they were giving this away for free. They were giving it away free in the forums they’re in, to their email list that they already have.

But they were like, “We want to reach out to more schools we want to give them this stuff because it will help right now.” And it was a very time sensitive product.

They came to me asked, “How do we reach more schools?” and more specifically asked me, “Should we buy an email list?”

Will Cold Emailing Make Me Look Like I’m Spamming People?

They were a bit hesitant about buying a list, “We don’t want to look spammy and we don’t want to be THOSE people who are spamming others.”

This is completely understandable and we definitely do not want to spam.

I will repeat, we do not want to spam!

But there is a way to send out an email to a list in a way that’s not spammy and remains within your ethical boundaries.

2 Factors To Make Cold Emailing More Ethical

When you’re trying to email a cold list there are two factors that you need to keep in mind if you want to stay within this ethical boundary or at least the ethical boundary that I would like to keep within.

The first factor is that you need to make sure that your list is your target person. If your list is not your target person then you’re going to look like spam.

The second item is that you need to make sure that whatever you are sending them in the first email is adding value. Is adding a lot of value. Is adding like maximum value you could possibly give this person.

These two things are kind of a little bit interlinked.

In this particular situation, it was super easy. You know, the list was definitely the target person: you could get the list of the head teachers of the school or you could get the list of just the general emails for schools. And the email that they were sending them – high-value. It was a free resource that they could fully use right now. All they had to do was enter the email address to download it.

For them it was super easy, but I can see how this gets a little bit more complicated.

What Happens When You Can’t Get A List Of Your Target Person to Cold Email?

One situation where it might get a bit more complicated is where you can buy the list but some of them are not quite your target person. You might be a bit like, “Uh I don’t want to look like spam to them.”

And you are absolutely right to hesitate. Do not… DO NOT email a list where some of those people are not your target person. Especially if that email is not going to add any value to them.

If your resource, your product that you are releasing in that first email is not relevant to even some people in the list, change the email.

If you can’t make sure that the list is exactly the target person, then you need to make sure that your first email adds value to every single person who actually is on that list.

The fact is when you buy an email list it will have some sort of category. You’ll have bought something according to an industry or a location or something that you can use to craft a product or some sort of message or item that you send out to be relevant to everyone in that list.

And if you can’t do that then abandon this strategy.

What Happens When You Cold Email With No Value?

If you do email people when it’s not relevant to them, you are probably going to damage your reputation. I mean, you’ll get some sales. You will. You will end up reach the people that you want to reach as well – but you will also look like a spammer to the others.

This isn’t just some like, “We don’t want to look bad” reputational issue. If your emails get reported as spam, it becomes more difficult for you to send emails to others. The email providers will punish you for it.

This isn’t just about staying within ethical boundaries. It’s staying within the boundaries that will keep your marketing strategy able to continue into the future.

That’s a little bit on like the ethics of cold email marketing. Obviously, it’s a much bigger topic.

If you are thinking about doing cold email marketing if you have some questions about it feel free to put it in the comments below feel free to email me or the place you can probably reach me easiest is on my on the Facebook group, Marketing for the Many.

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Ethical Marketing Philosophy

What is a Marketing Strategy Led By Content?

I thought before I go on recording videos within each of the 5 steps of the content-led marketing strategy – I thought it might make sense to do one that quickly summarises those 5 steps and why it’s the approach I take.

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When you’re planning your marketing strategy, you could probably take the quick and dirty route. Get things done, push things out and get ‘results at all costs’. Cutting corners will almost certainly get you those results more quickly, but it won’t get you a marketing strategy that lasts.

And it almost certainly will have to involve some moral compromise.
A marketing strategy is so much more than knowing what channels to market on. In this video, I explain the 5 steps that I think absolutely anyone needs to take to create a marketing strategy that lasts and a marketing strategy that’s ethical.

In this video I’m going to be explaining what I think a content-led marketing strategy is and the five steps that you need to take to do one for yourself.

Please make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t already. It’ll keep you updated on when I release new videos.

Why Cheap and Fast Marketing Is Not A Strategy

Now, when I’m talking about content-led marketing strategy, well when you’re talking about any marketing strategy, you could cut corners – you can do it as quickly as possible to get fast results. You can be selling things and making ‘loads of money’.

And that might work for you at the start.

But what you will end up doing is selling a whole lot of things and not actually building a strategy.

I remember there was someone that I was working with earlier in my career who said you can have:

  • high quality work
  • you can have it done cheaply
  • or you can have it done quickly

But you only get to choose two.

So when you do this this cheap and quick marketing, trying to sell all the things quickly, what will happen is that you’ll end up with a strategy that that doesn’t last very long.

It’s not a strategy that you can build on as you grow.

But if you slow it all right down you really increase the quality of your marketing strategy. I think the approach that I take towards marketing is a great way to slow it down.

So you’re not going to get fast results doing this, but it will be something that you will be building on. And once you’ve built some of it, you will see how it just keeps growing.

The 5 Steps to Building a Content-Led Marketing Strategy

So I’m going to run through five steps with you and these are five steps that you need to take whether you do it with a marketing person, or you do it yourself.

These are the five steps that I think anyone, really, should be taking if they’re going to be trying to sell anything.

Step 1: Understand Your Target Person

Step One is that you need to really understand your target person. And that means understanding them emotionally. It doesn’t mean just how they relate to your product.

It’s understanding their Wants, Needs, Fears and Frustrations as a person.

Step 2: Define Your Unique Selling Proposition

Step Two is that you then need to fully define your unique selling point. What trips up people here is that it needs to be unique and it needs to actually be a selling point.

I explain this a little more in the What is a USP video.

Step 3: Choosing Your Marketing Channels

Step Three is that you then need to choose your channels. And this is where a lot of people start.

They’re kind of like, “Oh where do I need to start marketing?”

But you must do step one and two first because there’s hundreds of channels. There’s so many ways that you can market. You need a way to choose.

And the best way to choose is make sure you understand your target person and make sure that you know what you’re communicating to them.

Step 4 & 5: Create Your Content Ideas & Manage Your Marketing Resources

Step Four and Five then just flow straight on from there.

Step Four is all about understanding the content that you need to create. This is kind of blue sky thinking, coming up with all the things you need to do.

And then Step Five is all about then tempering all the things you need to do with the resources that you’ve got and timelining out your production.

This is the way to start with a marketing strategy.

My Content is Built Around These Steps

So my YouTube channel (and this blog) is all organised according to these five steps and there’s also another playlist that’s all about the ethics of marketing where I’m going to be talking a bit about things I think what marketers don’t talk enough about, which is practicing marketing in an ethical way.

Please feel free to dip and dive into different bits according to what you need and if you’re really stuck and you’re really confused and you don’t know what’s happening but you have an ethical, sustainable business, or you’re working towards changing the world, please get in touch with me email me at dj@rainbowdragon.digital or fill out the form below and I’m happy to give an hour of my time to anyone who is doing something amazing.

And if you’re doing something really amazing, I might even just keep helping you because that is what I want to do with my time.

Let me know if you have any comments or anything that you want to hear about, any kind of information that you would like me to talk about, I’ll be happy to add it to my schedule.