Tuesday, February 7, 2017

When Distinguishing Your Business is Tough



What I’m Doing to Promote My Freelance Service

I think it’s easier to market other people than myself.  It’s easier for me to believe what others have to say.  Looking at myself, I tend to magnify my flaws and forget I have something to offer - something that may be a huge benefit to someone else.  

It’s even worse if I haven’t done a thorough market analysis.  Last weekend I was thinking it would be easier to work in real estate because of another venture I’m involved in.  Maybe I could do newsletters so that it’s a consistent type of writing each month.  

I could search the local websites for the community my realtor is in to provide that hometown feel.  Throw in  relevant stats like current mortgage interest rates. Write to reflect their personality.

Competition is Fierce

Digging a little deeper, I realized two things.  First, there are already services out there like that … for cheap.  See the snippet below.  $13?!?  Yeesh!  It lacks the personal touch because it’s a plug and play service.  And what if someone else in the same area is using the same service.  How embarrassing to have the customer get the same thing from two realtors with no connection to one another! 

A Snippet of the Search I Did
 The real estate professional would need to alter some material for the individual touch.  Some services allow that for a higher rate, yet still cheaper than I could offer.  Since I don’t have “cheap” to offer, how would I market myself to provide value to match the rate I would need to charge?  Would they see the value?  Would their customers appreciate the difference?

Those are details that could be overcome except for this:  my heart isn’t in financial.  A well-done newsletter in that field must include financial.  The thought of writing financial on a regular basis dries up my virtual pen.  

Back to the Drawing Board

My passion is in personal development. Where there is deep interest, where I believe in something, I make pixels come alive.    I know how much I have benefited from people who have developed books and websites.  I've lost count of the many webinars and YouTube videos I’ve watched, hungry to learn that nugget that takes me to the next level in whatever I’m learning about. 

I want to share that satisfaction with others by writing for those who have conferences and other instructive materials.  I want to help newer, less established people who have something to contribute to the greater conversation.  I want to do that by writing their sales material and whatever they need to get noticed.

What Makes You Special?

To do that, I must be able to answer the question, “What makes you different than any other copywriter?”  I can talk about how passionate I am about this field.  I can talk about where I trained - though I’m hardly the only one. I can talk about how passionate I am about this field, yet there are other passionate writers, too.

Crafting my unique selling proposition (USP for short) needs to be more about what I can do for them.  How well do I understand their pain points?  How does what I do help them solve their problem?  What is in my background that is uniquely suited to doing an excellent job for them?

I am digging into the research this week so that I can answer those questions in a powerful way.

How have you distinguished yourself in your market niche?  Was it easy or hard for you?

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