I would like to thank David Meerman Scott for his initial thoughts on this. This prompted me (after one of his seminars) to take the idea a bit further to introduce solutions to the statements so that marketers have a direction or initial game plan.

The initial points represent the new laws of marketing in the 21st century

01- Generally People don’t care about your product
02- People care about themselves
03- People care about solving their problems

These were my takeaways from this session, however it got me thinking on a proposal game plan if these were what marketers were facing. The following is suggested 10 step marketing take-action plan.

Action Plan:

01-Social Engagement
(Address the problems where the problems are – (Forums, social media outlets (FB, Twitter, Linkedin…)

02- Thought Leadership
(This is a segue off of step 1 – if you can establish yourself as a thought leader, then you can leverage action plan #1 even more)

03-Email blasts (from op tin lists) (Email automation)
(Don’t just market, don’t just sell – Focus on solving first , product 2nd as a solution)

04-Useful Press Releases (targeted problem solving agenda)
(Address the problems head on, put self promotion on the back burner)

05) Coupon Value
(If your solution is saving money, then present that as “value” and “why”?
(Don’t be coupon whore, folks distrust too many offers and think that maybe something is wrong with the business)

06- Discard interruption methods (break away from outbound marketing)
(Again trust is important, if you label yourself as a interrupter, the previous actions plans won’t hold value, take a step back and analyze current methods as how effective they have been)
“out think” over outspending”

07- Blogging (Offer market solution articles)
Also a part of thought leadership, an important takeaway here is building authority for your business and website

08- Create an Inbound Marketing product of interest
(Free Ebooks, white papers, webinars, video tutorials…. create something that a person in your market would want and give it away – also can be a lead generation tool)

09- Discard Marketing speak – identify your buyer persona and speak their language
(This means throwing out your gobbly speak marketing terminology in favor of addressing real people with real words)

10- Often, quality driven and consistence
– think in terms of daily and weekly – While all of these methods have proven effective, you have to commit as a constant. frequent engagement, frequent efforts, frequent articles, frequent solution building. Be proactive and not retroactive. Build a frequency in your approach with an action plan to tackle as much every day as possible. Over time you build audience, build interest and build authority

Takeaway:
– If you didn’t get the underlying message here, it’s consider other people needs first and then find ways to offer your product as a solution.
– Second takeaway – don’t worry about your product or service – give something useful and helpful first, let the buyers come to you on there own thru your guidance and authority.
– Fear is suicide nowadays – take the dive and embrace inbound marketing head on

Marketing your service, 10 Steps to selling your products in the 21st Century