It’s funny because even though marketing and promotion are quite distinct I often see people making the mistake of treating the two disciplines as the same thing.

So what is marketing? In layman’s terms it sharing with people what you do on a regular basis, without having anything specific to sell.  So when you write a blog without promoting a product, produce a vlog, help people within your target market in FB groups or networking. It’s marketing.

What’s promotion? Promotion is when you have a specific message about a product or service to sell.

To effectively promote you need to target your audience with clear messages about the thing you want to shout about. During your promotion period it is normal to increase the frequency of messages your audience would receive from you. So don’t feel embarrassed about it.

The trick to an amazing marketing and promotion strategy is to get the balance between the two.

Obvious right?

So where’s the confusion?

Often people think they are marketing when they are actually promoting. Or marketing when they should be promoting.

Take a look at the Facebook pages you don’t like that are related to a products and services. I bet a high percentage of those pages are only telling people to:

Opt in to my special offer

The next class starts X

50% of here…

BUY MY STUFF!

It’s a real turn off. Nobody wants to be sold to all of the time.

The reverse is only ever sharing expertise, offering great free value – marketing – without ever reminding anyone exactly what it is you can sell and how you can help.

Big problem, if you are launching a new product of service.

Even if you have one service that is available all year round it’s still important to get the balance.

So What Can You Do?

Have a look at your business and make a plan.

Map out what your strategy is going to be for marketing your business on a consistent basis.

Have a think about the content you are going to share, speaking opportunities, networking and advertising and be clear on what your key tasks are for each day and week of the month.

Next layer that with when you are going to do specific promotions for your classes and courses and get creative.

Do you want to do regular monthly promotions? If so how can you make them feel and sound different??

How can you up your game on social media?

Peer to Peer networking

Engaging old clients

Taster classes

Guest posting

Interviews

If you’re screwing your nose up at interviews – stop it! Even small local publications and blogs that feature your name are great for business. And if you can time an interview to run in line with a promotional drive all the better!

So in essence, marketing and promoting are both super important, but they are definitely not the same.

My parting questions for you are:

Is your business where you want it to be right now? If not, how much marketing are you doing?

How much promotion?

How much marketing vs promotion?

Time to get to work??

Happy days.

As always I LOVE to know what you think. Please hit me in up the in comments. Is the balance between your marketing and promotion just right? Or do you need to tweak things? Are you taking a strategic approach?