Stop Using Hope Marketing – Hope Is Not A Plan

Anyone starting a business does so with a little hope; they hope their idea will pay off and they’ll be a successful entrepreneur. Without that initial hope, people simply wouldn’t be jumping in and starting businesses. 

Yet, eventually that hope has to give way to strategic, logical planning. One of the biggest differences between startups that take off and those that fizzle out is that the ones that take off set aside the starry-eyed, fingers-crossed, throw-everything-at-them approach, and create an intentional marketing plan. 

They understand that hope marketing really just means having no idea what to do to attract leads. That mentality never got anyone anywhere. If you’re serious about your business, it’s time to stop using hope marketing, and set out with intention to draw customers your way.

What Is Hope Marketing?

The concept of hope marketing is akin to wrapping your marketing strategy up in a lucky rabbits’ foot. Basically, with hope marketing, you don’t have a set plan. Instead, you throw everything at it, try every tactic you can think of, borrow the ideas of others, and just believe that something, eventually, will work out for you. 

Hope marketing stops short of suggesting no action. Those who depend on hope marketing do take action, in fact, they usually take a lot of action. They might even wear themselves out with the amount of action they take. 

Hope marketers take action, they just don’t take any focused action. They don’t have a plan. Essentially, they get in the car to take a long road trip, but they don’t have a map and they don’t have GPS. They just assume they’re going to find their destination if they drive, even though they’ve never been there before and they don’t know the way. 

In the business world, this idea of driving without a map, or hope marketing, looks a lot like opening up a store, putting up signs, maybe playing an ad on the radio, starting an Instagram page, and just waiting for people to find you. When no one finds your store, you put a print ad in the newspaper, start a website, and post a few pictures on your Instagram account. You see your competition is on Facebook, so you start a Facebook account. And again, you just wait. 

It’s unplanned, sporadic, and void of anything resembling a strategy. And it simply won’t lead you to your destination.

If You Want Your Business to be Successful, You Need to Stop Using Hope Marketing

Hope isn’t a bad thing. In fact, hope is essential in life. Your business started because you had hope. The problem is, hope isn’t everything you need when it comes to business. In business, hope is a nice support, but it won’t deliver results, and results are what you need for business growth and success. 

In order to achieve any sort of dream in life, you need to add a plan and intention to your underlying hope. When you begin to paint a masterpiece, you need a vision in your mind of what you are creating. You prepare your paints, your easel, and your workspace. You ensure that you are ready to begin your painting, and then you let your creative juices flow. You don’t just sit down and randomly throw some colour on a canvas with the hope that it will turn into something incredible. 

If the mere hope of something made it happen, everybody would be living the lives of their dreams. The bottom line is that, while hope is important for maintaining the positive mindset that is essential for success, intention, plan, and focused action are what is needed for growth and reaching your business goals.

Instead of Hope Marketing, Try Digital Marketing

Deciding to develop an intentional marketing strategy is the first step towards building your successful business. A great business strategy will be heavily focused on digital marketing tactics. This is because life today happens online. Today’s consumers are looking for instant answers and authentic connection, which is what digital marketing provides.

Digital marketing includes tools such as the various social media platforms, email subscriptions and newsletters, video content, SEO, websites, and Pay-Per-Click ads. To develop a great digital marketing strategy, you will need to take into consideration a number of focused, intentional aspects:

Your target market

The number one thing that you need to know when you set out to develop a marketing strategy is who your target market is. Your target market is the specific demographic of people that you are trying to sell your product or service to. They will be the people that you think of when you consider who has the problem that you are trying to solve.

When you are thinking about your target market, you might consider things such as age, income level, interests, location, and more. The more you narrow your target market down, the better you will be at reaching them with your marketing. You will be able to craft content and advertisements specifically for your targets because you will know what will grab their attention and speak to them. 

Knowing your target market is the first step out of hope marketing because instead of shooting arrows with a blindfold on, you get to shoot an arrow while you are standing directly in front of your target. It becomes nearly impossible to miss.

Ways to differentiate yourself

Another aspect of creating a digital marketing strategy is considering how you can differentiate yourself from your competition. This is in direct contrast to hope marketing, because hope marketing essentially observes the competition and haphazardly attempts to do what they see. 

However, if you are determined to differentiate yourself from your competition, you will be intentional about NOT doing the same thing your competition is doing. You will observe, and then determine how you can make your business stand out and away from them. 

Designing your unique brand will help you to differentiate your business. Consider your message, values, purpose, and mission, and create a stand out way to share that with your target market. Don’t follow the same path that your competition is following, it will just keep you in the back. 

Tell your story big. Show who you are. Find that thing that makes your business POP.

How to gain visibility

Digital tools make gaining visibility fairly simple if you use them properly. Once you know your target market, you can make sure that your marketing is directed towards them. 

By utilizing the social media platforms that your potential customers are on, you are giving yourself the opportunity to stand out and reach them. Social media provides a unique chance for businesses to connect and engage with their audience, which helps them to increase their visibility as well as gain new leads. 

When you have high engagement on your social media accounts, you will be seen by more people, which will grow your audience and help you receive greater conversions. Not only will you focus on social media, but you will also want to have a great SEO strategy to ensure that your website ranks high on search engines. 

A successful digital marketing strategy will include an intentional way to increase your visibility, as opposed to hope marketing that just hopes potential customers will stumble upon their business.

How to create interesting and relevant content

Your marketing strategy needs to be focused on crafting interesting and relevant content. This will include content on your social media accounts, your website, and in your emails. If you have great content, your audience will value what you have to share and will want to hear more. They will share your content with others, either by tagging or sharing on social media, or through word of mouth. 

Consistent and relevant content will keep your audience interested in your brand, will show them that you are an expert in your industry, and will show them that you are valuable. Your content is one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from your competition and gain visibility. 

Content is anti-hope marketing. It is an intentional and purposeful way to increase your leads and gain conversions.

The Final Word

We all need hope. It is an important aspect of life. Yet, when it comes to business, purposeful action is essential for growth and success. No one is saying that you have to let go of hope. But you do need to move on from hope marketing. Develop an intentional digital marketing strategy and watch your business soar. We can help, contact us today for a free consultation.