Slow Marketing Manifesto: How & Why This Method Will Improve Your Business

Maybe it seems counter-intuitive, the idea of ‘slow marketing’. Maybe you’re sat there thinking, “why would I want to do things slowly, I want results right now”. But think about that for a minute – do you really? Do you want your product to go viral, sell out in hours, then spend weeks desperately trying to catch up and fulfil orders all while dealing with calls and emails moaning at you? Do you want to get so busy that you can no longer provide a great customer experience, so your repeat custom ebbs away and leaves you quieter than you are now? Do you want to live to work, getting quick bucks here and there rather than build a brand?

I’m assuming that the answer’s no. Most of us here want to do work that feeds our life, that allows us to embrace the lifestyle we want and have a business that aligns with our purpose and outlook on life. We want work that feels good, that feeds our soul, and makes us money - but in that order.This is what slow marketing is all about. It’s about making a business based on genuine human connection, it’s about marketing ourselves and our business in a way that doesn’t feel like we’ve sold our souls, it’s about building trusted, long-lasting brands. It’s about being valuable, about using our knowledge and intuition, and about picking the most efficient ways to utilise our time so we can do some living too.

On my consultation calls we always talk about my process and how I work, so I thought I’d codify it all into one post as an overview of my kind of marketing, a behind the scenes of my head, if you will. I hope it will help you to see the bigger picture of where I’m coming from with my other posts and start to consider the way you’re marketing differently.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

The reason I started my business was because, as a marketer, I could see that when I Googled marketing problems I was having with my blog, the results were less than relevant. Most marketing advice on the front page of Google is aimed at corporate marketers, the ones selling tens of thousands of pounds of software to other marketers. It’s not for coaches, photographers, indie shop owners. Now I knew that some of this stuff was way above the level I needed to be, but I saw other business owners getting bogged down in the detail of it, and lose faith in their own abilities.

So key to the way I work is to try to remove the detail and simplify everything possible into a way that fits us as passionate people creating something new. For example, the sales funnel. Google ‘sales funnel template’ and you’ll see lots of primary coloured templates with seven step processes that doesn’t look anything like what happens in your business. And the first thoughts that come to mind are that if your business process doesn’t fit this template it must be wrong, right?

Actually, the truth is that if it doesn’t look like your business then it’s not going to help your business. Don’t squeeze yourself into a seven step process that is going to take up more of your time and not make you any more money. I think about the sales funnel as a three step process – the top of the funnel are people just discovering you, the middle of the funnel are people learning more, and the bottom of the funnel are people ready to buy. Then all you need to so is make sure you’re providing content and information that is suited to each stage of the funnel. Simple.

Start With Purpose

My clients will be nodding knowingly now! We spend a lot of time working on clarity of purpose, because without it you have nothing; how can you run a purpose-driven business when you don’t know what that purpose is? Getting super clear on your purpose, your value, what you want to be known for is the first step to marketing success. It gives you a hook, something for people to remember you by in this era of scrolling and five second attention spans. And more importantly, it gives your customers something to buy into – you might be selling a photography session, but what they’re buying is the way you feel about and shoot families.

A clear purpose is also an anchor for you and your brand. As creatives we can be pretty magpie-ish and scamper off after the shiny new projects, but having a clear purpose becomes a check on yourself. Hold up every idea, every new opportunity to that purpose to see if it fits – if not, it doesn’t happen.

Audience Knowledge Is Your Best Resource

When it comes to getting to grips with audience knowledge I really push my clients, and they all kind of hate me for it. Because it’s hard – it’s hard to think of the imaginary blur in your head as a real person, and harder still to think about what might be worrying them on a Tuesday morning. But in business as well as life, the hardest things are the ones that are most important. Once you have a really in depth, practical knowledge of your customer (focusing more about what challenges them rather than on their demographics), your marketing plan writes itself.

I’m not even really exaggerating here; when you know what drives your customer it becomes really easy to know what to do to get in front of them. When you know the sort of things they’re Googling you can make sure you’re creating content that will show up on those searches. When you know which magazines they read you can pitch articles or advertise in them. When you know what Instagram posts they like you can make sure you’re creating similar content and using the same hashtags to get in front of them. It all flows from this customer knowledge.

Be Human

If we simplify down all the theory and BS about sales and marketing, it is just an exchange between two people. Two people that want the same thing, for the customer to buy a product and for it to improve their life. Somehow, along the way, we’ve turned it into a game, a situation where there can be a winner and a loser, where we have to play a system in order to win. Strip it back, and just remember that you’re talking to another real person who wants to buy what you sell. Lean into that and let it inform everything you do.People buy from people, particularly in this age where consumers are growing tired of automated messaging and off shore phone lines. Your intrinsically human self is one huge advantage you have against the big businesses – but so often we feel like we need to speak ‘professionally’ online, and end up talking like a bank. Communicate in a way that sounds like you, like your brand, in a way that demonstrates your purpose. This is the way you’re going to catch the eye, get people interested, and form longer lasting relationships.

Serve With Value

Whenever anyone asks me ‘I want to start a business – what should I do?’, my answer is always ‘how can you provide value?’. Not all marketers will do this, and the ones that do may only go so far, but being as valuable as you possibly can be is central to soulful, slow marketing.

As I’ve already said, sales and marketing is just an exchange between two people, but what they’re exchanging is value. At the point of sale it’s obvious what that value is: a product for money. But the value exchange happens all the way through the customer’s journey before they get their purse out. They exchange their attention and a website click for a beautiful picture on your Instagram feed, they exchange their time for browsing on your site, they exchange their email address for an ebook or 10% off code. And the more valuable you can make what you’re providing, the more they’ll appreciate and reciprocate.

As humans we tend to approach situations with the mind set of ‘what can I get out of this?’. It’s natural, and totally not something to beat yourself up about. But as a business owner you have to change that round to think ‘what can I do for my customer?’ – that way you’re both meeting with the same mission in mind. If you think ‘how can I help?’ rather than ‘what can I do?’, your activities, and entire business model will be built on the value your customer wants. Because at the end of the day, no one is going to pay you money to fulfil your dream, they’re going to pay you money because you help them.