Author: Franz Malten Buemann

 
When it comes to marketing, almost nothing is more important than knowing your target audience.
But what if I told you over half of marketers are missing critical information on their consumers?
In our annual survey of over 1,200 marketers, we found that just 42% know the basic demographic information of their target audience, like their name, gender, and location.
And, the data gap doesn’t stop there:

Less than half of marketers know their audience’s interests and hobbies, shopping habits, the products they are interested in buying, their purchase history, and where they consume content.

Only 31% know the online communities their target audience is a part of and even less know the challenges they are facing.
Just one-fourth of marketers know the social causes their target audience cares about – a huge missed opportunity when it comes to expressing your brand’s values, especially when marketing to Gen Z and Millennials.

So why are marketers having such a hard time getting these data points?
Let’s take a look at the biggest challenges marketers face in getting the data they need and discuss some solutions to the disconnection marketers are seeing with their audience.
The Biggest Challenges Marketers Face in Understanding Their Target Audience
A whopping 82% of marketers say having high-quality data on their target audience is important to succeeding in their role – but more than half of them say they’re missing key information.
So why is it such a challenge for marketers to get the data they need?

The biggest challenges marketers face in understanding their target boil down to two main issues:
1. New Data Privacy Measures
Data privacy regulations are reducing marketers’ access to the consumer data they need. At the same time, consumers are less trusting in sharing their personal data.
This results in marketers missing out on critical data on their target audience, from their shopping and media consumption habits to their basic demographic information.
2. Evolving Audience Targets
Consumers’ lives have changed drastically over the past few years, and with a looming recession, their habits, attitudes, and preferences are likely to continue shifting quickly.
The two challenges above are difficult to overcome because they’re actively developing as data privacy regulations tighten and unprecedented events that change consumer behavior continue.
So, what can marketers do now?
How Can Marketers Improve Their Data Strategy?
1. Gather First-Party Data
A great solution to increased data privacy regulations like Google’s planned phase-out of third-party cookies is gathering your own first-party data.
First-party data can be collected from many sources – your website, surveys, email, SMS, your CRM, and more.
Since first-party data comes directly from your customers, it offers high-quality insights about your audience and allows you to create a personalized experience for them.
2. Use a Single Source of Truth for Marketing Data
Only 27% of marketers say their marketing data is fully integrated with their systems and tools, and as we saw earlier, data not integrating well is a top challenge for marketers trying to understand their target audience.
Disconnected marketing data is problematic because you don’t have the full context needed to make data-driven decisions. On the other hand, a single source of truth offers a holistic view of your target audience by connecting all the data points you have.
A single source of truth also improves efficiency by making marketing data more easily accessible for marketers and their collaborators.
3. Keep Your Data Fresh
We talked about how consumers’ lives are changing rapidly and marketers need up-to-date data in order to keep up.
The interests, habits, and attitudes of your target audience probably changed several times over the course of the pandemic. And with a recession looming, your audience will likely change again – so whatever data tracking method you use, make sure your data is regularly updated to keep a pulse on your customers in real-time.
Another reason you need up-to-date information on your target audience is so you can pivot your marketing strategy and messaging in response to the changes your customers are experiencing.
Not only did over half of marketers pivot in 2021, 83% of those who pivoted changed course 2-4 times in one year. And 20% of marketers have already pivoted in 2022 due to a potential recession, so chances are 2023 will be no different.
Needless to say, you need a plan for when things go off course. When the next unprecedented event or unexpected challenge arrives, will you have the data you need to adapt?
In an ideal world, you would have all the data points you could ever want, but that isn’t always realistic. So let’s end by taking a look at which data points marketers say are most helpful to have.
The Most Helpful Types of Audience Target Data
Marketers say the interests or hobbies of their target audience is the most helpful data point, closely followed by consumers’ shopping habits, where they consume content/media, and the products they are interested in buying.
Basic demographic information, purchase history, and the online communities their target audience is part of are also valuable data points.
A Crisis of Connection
If you’re realizing you might be missing critical information on your target audience, don’t worry, you aren’t alone.
Many businesses are currently experiencing a Crisis of Disconnection, and it goes far beyond poor customer data. Read more about the challenges on the horizon and how your company can navigate them in our series on The Crisis of Disconnection.

As a result of the pandemic, there’s been a shift in recent years to virtual conferences.
But a virtual conference strategy can’t be a copy-and-paste of a physical one. Virtual conferences come with unique challenges, and require a new perspective to succeed.
Here, let’s explore the benefits of virtual conferences, take a look at some examples of successful virtual conferences to inspire you, and check out a few tools that can help you plan your own.
Plus, hear from Tamara Mendelsohn, CMO of Eventbrite, on her best practices for hosting a successful virtual event in 2023 and beyond. 

Skip ahead: 

Virtual Conference Benefits 
6 Virtual Event Best Practices, According to Eventbrite’s CMO
Virtual Conferencing Tools
Examples of Virtual Conferences

Virtual Conference Benefits

There are plenty of major benefits to hosting a virtual conference.
For one, it can lower the price of admission, enabling smaller businesses with limited budgets to purchase tickets to your conference and offer their own unique insights.
It also lowers the cost your business would have to pay for conference space, on-hand staff, catering, security, and much more.
Additionally, it allows people from across the globe to interact with each other without needing to spend exorbitant amounts on flights and hotels. Imagine how much easier it is for marketers from India, Ireland, Australia, and the U.S. to collaborate virtually, rather than trying to gather in-person.
It also may help you attract high-demand speakers who don’t have the time to commit to an in-person conference, but are happy to share industry takeaways via a quick video call or pre-recorded presentation.
Additionally, an online conference enables you to create a product — recordings from your conference — that you can continue to share and use as a lead generation tool for months and years after the initial live launch.
And, finally, there’s the obvious: sometimes unforeseen circumstances, like a global pandemic, can make in-person conferences in certain locations simply impossible.
Emily Raleigh, HubSpot’s Marketing Manager of Brand and Strategic Partnerships, provides some advice if you suddenly find yourself shifting your in-person event to a virtual one: “If you are shifting from a live event, try to add extra value to the viewers who are now tuning in online. Do an extra session. Offer more Q&A time. Give an extra special offer. Find creative ways to add extra delight moments.”

Additionally, Raleigh mentions, “Virtual events can easily lose one of the best benefits of live events: human connection. To mitigate that, keep the event engaging and get the audience involved.”
Now that we’ve explored a few benefits, let’s dive into Mendelsohn’s tips for making your next virtual event a success. 
6 Virtual Event Best Practices, According to Eventbrite’s CMO
1. Identify your audience.
As you sit down with your team to organize a virtual event, you first need to decide who the event is for — also known as your target audience. Your target audience will impact almost every aspect of your event, such as the speakers you select, the topics you cover, and even the time you host the event.
Mendelsohn told me, “Dig into who you want to attend your event, and understand their challenges and goals. What’s going to inspire them to register? What value are you providing? How can you best deliver on that in a virtual environment?”
She adds, “Remember that virtual events can broaden your audience beyond the physical restrictions of in-person, so this is an opportunity to connect with new audiences — potentially even globally.”

This is one of the major benefits of virtual events: The opportunity to reach a wider audience than you otherwise could. Of course, when defining your target audience, you’ll want to consider which regions make the most sense for your event.
For instance, is your topic broad enough to be global, or is it better to host one session for your North American participants, and another for specific regions in South America or Europe? Alternatively, perhaps it’s better to start with a small group in one city, and expand from there. 
2. Craft your event strategy.
During the global pandemic, many marketers rushed to repackage in-person events into virtual ones. But in reality, virtual events require a completely different strategy. After all, the medium is different, the technology is different, and the way attendees interact is — you guessed it — different.
A well-rounded strategy should outline your goals, budget, and action plan for the big day, according to Mendelsohn.
A good place to start is answering the “why”, or purpose of your event. On the business side, what do you hope to achieve? For example, maybe you want to build brand awareness, drive revenue, or grow memberships. It’s also important to consider what your attendees want from your event. This could be networking, education, entertainment, or a mix of all three.
Mendelsohn gave an example of one of Eventbrite’s creators, custom glass studio UrbanGlass, which hosted an instructor-led training on crafting glass. After attendance was lower than expected, they revisited their strategy to understand why. They realized attendees were seeking community and opportunities to work together.
By experimenting with their virtual group classes to ensure they offered a better sense of community and collaboration, UrbanGlass ultimately found much more success.
3. Make it easy for your audience to interact and network.
It’s already tough to get people engaged in person, but once you shift the event online, you have to compete against unwanted distractions.
That said, you don’t have to settle for low engagement. In fact, 47% of people are more likely to ask a question at a virtual event, and 37% are more likely to speak to someone in a virtual booth than a real one. The key is finding opportunities for people to interact.
“Build in opportunities for audience participation. This could be a poll or pulse check at the start of an event, a brainstorm in the middle, or a Q&A session at the end,” Mendelsohn told me.
She continues, “If it’s appropriate for your event, send participants into breakout rooms. People are more likely to participate in smaller groups.”
If your event has a physical component — such as a yoga session or cooking class — it’ll be easier to engage the audience. But if there isn’t, Mendelsohn recommends thinking outside the box: “Encouraging your audience to get up, move around, or participate in a group activity can be really fun and powerful.”
4. Promote your event before, during, and after.
Whether your event is in-person or virtual, you still need attendees — and that means event promotion. According to Mendelsohn, this should happen before, during, and after your event.
She says, “This could entail paid or partner promotion, live social media posts during the event, and ‘thank you’ emails after. Make sure to tap into your network and ask others to spread the word.”
Event branding is another important aspect of promotion. This can be anything from your logo and tagline, to your website and promotional materials. For Mendelsohn, it’s all about creating strong branding and keeping it consistent across your program.
5. Schedule tech rehearsals.
Virtual events rely on technology — but technology isn’t always reliable. This is why Mendelsohn recommends tech rehearsals.
She advises, “Host practice sessions with your speakers and crew — and have a fallback plan in case the unexpected happens.”
Another mistake with technology is assuming your attendees are all tech-savvy. In reality, people have varying comfort levels when it comes to technology.
Mendelsohn underlines this point: “For people who don’t frequent online events, even finding the Zoom link or knowing to enter a passcode can be tricky.”
To combat this challenge, consider conducting a test run of the event from the attendee’s perspective. Click on any links, send a message in the chat, and launch different sessions.
Additionally, you might test out using various platforms to increase accessibility based on people’s platform preferences.
For instance, Mendelsohn told me, “One of Eventbrite’s creators, Eastwind Books of Berkeley, saw this challenge when they introduced virtual programming. Their solution? Streaming on multiple platforms, such as Facebook Live, and then archiving events on YouTube, so people could attend via their preferred technology and revisit later.”
6. Show humility, and have fun with the process. 
Finally — have fun, and be willing to show humility if something doesn’t go as planned.
Mendelsohn says, “At our RECONVENE summit last year, the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Victoria Luisi said something that’s stuck with me: ‘Virtual is now our playground to try things we would have never been able to try before.’ This approach can expand our thinking about virtual events as a whole, and it’s especially instructive for engaging virtual audiences.”

She adds, “We’re all in this evolving virtual/hybrid world together. Embrace those moments of levity when things don’t go as planned and use them as a way to further humanize yourself on camera and establish rapport with your audience.”

Now that we’ve explored a few best practices, let’s dive into tools that can help you create your own virtual conference.
Virtual Conferencing Tools
1. Hopin

Hopin is an all-in-one platform for planning online conferences, offering everything from a virtual reception to breakout sessions, a mainstage, and networking events.
The networking tool is particularly helpful, with a timer you can set for each attendee to mingle with another for just a couple minutes before moving onto the next conversation (and, if the conversation goes exceptionally well, they can click “Connect” to receive contact information of the other attendee to follow-up later).
Your event can include both webinars and live-streams, and a Live Chat function enables attendees to ask questions in real-time. Additionally, attendees can use virtual booths to promote their products or services, and offer discounts as well.

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2. Whova
The Whova Event App has been a leader in attendee engagement and networking since 2014. For four years in a row, Whova has received both the Best Event App award and the People’s Choice Award from the Event Technology Awards.
Event organizers can use Whova to help make online events highly interactive, fun, and productive before, during, and after the event. The tool directly integrates with live streaming and video hosting tools such as Zoom, Google Hangout, YouTube, Vimeo, etc. It also provides live Q&A, attendee networking, a discussion board, meeting-matches, a virtual exhibitor hall, and even virtual meet-ups.
Many organizers provide access to the Whova app prior to their events to let attendees virtually socialize and discuss various topics, one-on-one or in virtual groups, making everyone feel more connected by the time the event comes around. Every attendee has a professional profile, allowing them to find others with whom they have common interests. The ice breaker and in-app chat, in particular, make it fun for strangers to get to know one another on a personal level and communicate with both new and old friends.

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3. Accelevents
Accelevents is a customizable and flexible event platform for running virtual, hybrid, and in-person conferences. It is a robust platform offering powerful registration, true white labeling, integrated live streaming, in-depth analytics, and numerous exhibitor and sponsor opportunities. Although the platform is intuitive, they still take support seriously with an average response time of fewer than 30 seconds.They are known for their suite of networking tools which provide powerful attendee engagement. Among the networking tools are lounges, workshops, 1:1 attendee video, automated speed networking, and live attendee chat.In addition, exhibitors and sponsors have the ability to customize their own booth and engage in video chat with their prospects that visit their booth. The build-in gamification and push notification tools are a great way to drive further engagement throughout the event. They can also advertise on banners displayed throughout the platform and have easy access to lead management and insightful exhibitor analytics.

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Examples of Virtual Conferences

Game Developers Conference
The 2022 Game Developers Conference (GDC) switched its in-person conferences to streaming recorded versions on the GDC Twitch channel. The conference will still have ceremonies for The Independent Games Festival (IGF) and Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA), and will stream session content starting 9 AM PT daily, March 16-20.
The GDC has a well-organized itinerary posted on their website, with breakout sessions led by influencers and experts in the Gaming industry.
Additionally, you’re able to pause Live sessions if you’re interested in watching at a later time, and the GDC has included “Recommended Channels” with headcounts on the left side of the screen. With some sessions evoking over 30,000 viewers, it’s safe to say the GDC has successfully launched a virtual version of their initially in-person event.
2. HubSpot’s Partner Day
On April 7-8, 2020, HubSpot launched its own virtual Partner Day. The Partner team used Zoom, a popular video conferencing tool, and sent each presenter a “video kit” with a mic, camera, lighting, and backdrop, so that participants could experience an optimal viewing experience from each of the day’s virtual speakers. Additionally, attendees used Zoom to network with other partners.
I spoke with Arden Brust, a Manager on HubSpot’s Partner Marketing team, to learn about some challenges you might experience when planning a virtual experience of your own.
Brust told me: “When planning an online event, it’s critical you remain flexible and open-minded. With a virtual event, you run the risk of technology issues, as well as scheduling issues you might not have considered if you had everyone in-person (including timezone issues). To combat this, continue to iterate with your team and plan on pivoting — don’t get too attached to plan A that you don’t consider how plan B might work out better.”
3. How I Built This, by Women In Product
With the help of the Run The World virtual conferencing tool, the non-profit organization Women In Product launched an entirely virtual event March 7-8, 2020. The Women In Product conference included participants from China, India, Canada, and Silicon Valley.
The conference featured 10 speakers who’ve built successful products — including the Director of Product at GoDaddy, a PayPal Product Lead, and a Senior Product Manager at Ebay. The virtual event included fireside chats, keynote speakers, and networking events that enabled women to hear about the challenges and successes of product launches in different markets.
4. Webinar Mastery Summit
Jon Schumacher had hosted webinars online for a while with minimal results when he launched the Webinar Mastery Summit, a virtual conference for people who wanted to advance their webinar skills.
His first virtual summit featured 25 experts, and generated 7,000 new email subscribers and over $55,000 in revenue with his All-Access Pass sales. With All-Access, his participants receive lifetime access to 17 expert video sessions, full MP3 recordings of all sessions, three months of course creation software, and access to a private community for additional networking.
Ultimately, with virtual conferences, you’re able to create recorded packaged content for future lead generation and sales even after the initial live launch — something in-person conferences, for all its networking benefits, is unable to do.
5. HubSpot User Groups (HUGs)
Meghann Keogh, a HubSpot Marketing Manager in charge of HubSpot User Groups and Events, has experienced circumstances in which she found it necessary to cancel in-person events and create virtual ones, instead. Keogh told me she’s hosted virtual HUGs events for San Francisco, NYC, Berlin, London, Helsinki, Paris, Bogota & Mexico City.
Additionally, she’s created virtual fireside chats, including an upcoming one with CEO & Co-Founder Brian Halligan & Christian Kinnear, VP of Sales & Managing Director EMEA.
When asked how to run a successful virtual event, Keogh told me — “Whether in-person or virtually, people are hungry to connect. The feedback we have received so far has been extremely positive. It’s not just cities that are connecting, it’s countries.”

“What’s made our virtual events a success so far? Our amazing speakers who inspire, educate, and innovate our HUG communities.”

Keogh adds, “We’re committed to bringing relevant content to our HUGs, whether that’s in-person or virtually. We want to make sure our communities still have that chance to engage with one another, and we’re devoted to making that happen.”

Taking the risk with any new platform is daunting. After all, no one wants to dedicate their time, energy, or budget into something with little return.
That said, it’s hard to ignore the hype around TikTok, its fantastic engagement rate, and its massive user base. If you’re willing to get creative, TikTok could be the perfect home for your short-form videos.

Here, I spoke with HubSpot’s social media team to gather their best tips for bringing your brand on TikTok.
1. Know where your audience hangs out.
It’s important to know where your audience hangs out online. For some brands, this includes TikTok — for others, not so much. For instance, if you sell retirement homes, you won’t get much traction with the platform’s predominantly younger audience.
“TikTok is obviously all the rage right now, and it makes sense that brands want to jump in. But before you do so, make sure to take time to ask the right questions: Does it make sense for our brand to show up on TikTok? Is our target audience there?,” advises Annabelle Nyst, senior marketing manager at HubSpot.
If you’re debating whether or not to bring your brand on TikTok, remember to hinge your decision on the most important factor: your target audience.
2. Find your “why.”
Getting started on TikTok can feel overwhelming, especially when you don’t have a goal to work towards. 
Think of your goal as your compass. It influences the videos you make, the topics you cover, and your overall strategy. You don’t need to have a specific goal right off the bat — and it will likely change over time — but you should have an idea of the general direction you want to go.
Here are a few common goals:

Build an engaged community
Increase brand awareness
Improve brand image
Promote products
Generate website traffic
Expand your audience
Provide customer service
Educate your audience

It’s just as important to track your progress. Take a look at several key performance indicators (KPIs) like profile views, video views, video likes, and follower growth to see if you’re inching closer to your goals.
3. Determine how you’ll provide value.
The next step is determining how you want to present your brand on TikTok. For Nyst, this starts with answering a simple question: how will you provide value to users?
“Asking this question upfront will help you establish what your purpose is for being on TikTok, and what your brand’s presence might look like on the platform,” she told me.
For instance, Gymshark, a popular fitness apparel brand, provides value by entertaining its fans with fitness-related challenges, skits, and clothing hauls. It’s no surprise the brand has over 4 million followers on the platform.
Because TikTok is quirky by nature, it creates a misconception that “serious” brands don’t have a place on the platform. This isn’t true. However, you may have to approach your brand from a different angle. 
For example, the Washington Post has raked up over 1 million followers on TikTok. If you haven’t seen their videos, you might expect serious content. Instead, you’ll find comedic skits about the latest breaking news.

@washingtonpost Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to Twitter employees Wednesday morning: commit to a new “hardcore” Twitter or leave the company with severance pay.
#TwitterPledge
♬ original sound – hbomax

The ultimate goal is to provide value in an engaging way. This is achievable for many brands — serious or not.
4. Save time by creating a content calendar.
TikTok surpassed 1 billion monthly active users in 2021. On top of that, millions of conversations happen on the platform daily, and trends come and go at rapid speed. 
In short, TikTok can get overwhelming. For this reason, Nyst recommends planning a content calendar. 
“Things move quickly on TikTok, and gaining new followers often depends on having a bank of existing content on your profile. So, think ahead to how many videos a week you’d like to post, and what kind of topics you’ll focus on,” she advises.
That said, TikTok is a trends-driven platform, so make sure to leave space in your content calendar to jump on trends and create time-sensitive content.
Additionally, you also need to decide how often you should post on TikTok. Nyst favors quality over quantity, advising brands to aim for 1-2 videos per week. In other words, consistency is key.
Another upside to posting consistently? The more you post, the more insights you gain from your viewers. This will help you understand what topics and video styles they respond to the most.
Want to know the best day and time to publish your videos on TikTok? Check out this helpful guide.

5. Insert your voice strategically.
When you first join TikTok, it’s tempting to join every conversation, hop on every trend, and participate in every challenge. However, brands need to set guardrails and be strategic with their content, says Nyst.
“There are so many conversations happening at once on TikTok, and they’re changing all the time. It’s important to remember that your brand doesn’t need to be a part of every single conversation – so try to pick the ones where it makes sense to insert your voice,” Nyst told me.
She adds, “Sure, the latest dance trend might be exciting, but can your brand actually bring something new, unique, or valuable to the table?”
Not every trend or challenge will align with your brand or its messaging. On top of that, if you can’t add a new or unique spin, it’s better to skip it entirely. But don’t worry about missing out — trends on TikTok are a dime a dozen, and another one is right around the corner.
Back To You
TikTok is the new kid on the block — and has quickly become a viable (and exciting) marketing platform. Before jumping in, make sure that TikTok makes sense for your brand. Once you’re on the platform, focus on targeting your audience with valuable content on a consistent basis.

We all want to go above and beyond for our customers, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. What tips can you share about point-of-sales materials and how they can help your business? These are just a few valuable insights that we’ve compiled from years in the industry that will give you a head start. submitted by /u/nipuna077 [link] [comments]

It’s a pandemic-era tale we’re all familiar with at this point: In March 2020, I was happily growing my PR consultancy when, suddenly, everything froze. All my clients decided to pause their monthly retainers, and within a matter of weeks I didn’t know where my next penny was going to come from.This experience could have easily stopped my business in its tracks, but instead, it challenged me to pivot and ultimately propelled me to new levels of success. I knew that committing to monthly retainers wasn’t going to be feasible for clients, so I thought about ways that I could still get them results while offering more affordable rates. Ultimately, I decided this was a good opportunity to shift away from one-on-one consulting and productize my offerings while providing the same level of transformation.By April, I had shifted to more low-touch one-on-one work, where I was providing clients my proprietary pitching framework and helping them write pitches, but then it was up to them to send it out and build those relationships, so they can actually own those relationships. Six months later, I was launching the first iteration of my online course. And now, by making my methods more accessible and sharing what I’ve learned as an industry outsider, I’ve been able to help 5,000+ small business owners (primarily BIPOC and WOC) get seen, heard, and valued. Plus, I’ve unlocked more stability and earning potential in my own business, regularly having multi-six figure years and even earning seven figures cumulatively since I launched the course.Doing all of this during a time of scarcity required some serious mindset shifts and letting go of unhealthy narratives that kept me stuck. As inflation and the shaky economy are presenting another challenging season for many business owners, I wanted to reflect back on the approaches that helped me build a thriving business despite what was going on in the world around me.I let myself be imperfect so I can show up authenticallyWhen launching something new in business, it can be tempting to spend time getting it just right behind the scenes before putting it out in the world. I didn’t have time for that at the beginning of the pandemic—I needed to pivot yesterday to keep my business afloat.So I let myself be imperfect and show up in whatever version of myself I was in at the time, which helped me connect with others and made me much more relatable as a human. I launched an early version of my new offering even though it wasn’t the more automated version I envisioned. I talked to everyone I knew about what I was doing—in Clubhouse conversations, Slack channels, LinkedIn forums—and looked for any opportunity I could to learn more about what was resonating with people and what they needed that the market didn’t yet offer.As scary as it was to release something that didn’t feel completely there to me, it ended up benefiting my business greatly. Not only did it mean I had a new revenue stream more quickly, it gave me a testing ground to better understand my customer, their needs, and what about my offering and messaging most resonated with them. This meant that when I was ready to start creating the online program, I could be a lot more confident that I was building something people would actually find valuable.I tell my PR Starter Pack members this all the time when it comes to their pitches, and I think it’s true in business growth as well: There’s someone out there who can benefit from what you have to offer right now, even in its imperfect form. Don’t wait for the perfect time to release the perfect draft—instead, release that first draft and learn from it. Keep testing, iterating, taking feedback, and improving. That’s how you build expertise. View this post on Instagram A post shared by SmallBiz PR Expert | Gloria (@gloriachoupr) I practiced radical generosityCommon advice for knowledge-based business owners is to not give away too much for free. For instance, much of the advice around marketing online courses is to tell customers what you will help them do, but never show them the how until they’ve paid. Maybe that’s true once a business has scaled, but I didn’t feel like it was the right energy to help me get started, especially during a time of scarcity. For one, not everyone had the means to buy my services immediately, but I still wanted to build a relationship with the right customers for the future. But more than that, since my offering was so new, I hadn’t even proven the value I could offer yet.Instead, I gave everything away for free. I partnered with organizations aligned with my target audience, like iFundWomen and Female Founder Collective, and offered to do free workshops for their members. I shared my entire PR pitching framework during these workshops, and then would have hours-long Q&A sessions where I would stay on and review people’s pitches for free. I would go on podcasts and do Instagram lives and share all of my secrets for small business PR. It may feel like this is a fast way to lose all my paying customers, but this is how I reached that first six-figure revenue mark without any ads. For one, by having radical transparency into my expertise and process, I was able to build a community and following. More than that, people got results using the method I shared with them. I’d regularly have folks who participated in my free workshops messaging me about features in places like Vogue and BuzzFeed—and then wanting to work with me further. Their thinking was: If your free offerings can help me so much, imagine what your paid program can do.Now, anytime I see business owners around me holding their knowledge a little too close to the chest, I try and think about how I can let go a little and give more freely. This doesn’t mean I don’t have boundaries—it just means that I do business through the lens of my values, and the decision to give (or not to give) comes from an intentional place within. It helps me stand out and has yet to harm my business growth. View this post on Instagram A post shared by SmallBiz PR Expert | Gloria (@gloriachoupr) I aligned my marketing with my valuesWhen the world is changing around you, I think it’s a good time to revisit your business playbooks, too. I didn’t want to continue to use so many of the scarcity-minded tactics I saw founders around me using, like fake countdown timers, high-pressure sales tactics, and trying to “sell at all costs” by preying on people’s FOMOI was guilty of these tactics as well in the beginning, but after doing deep inner work, I realized that this wasn’t authentic to me, my message, or my values. In 2022, I worked with an ethical copywriter, Brittany McBean, to reflect on many unhealthy narratives I bought into by the online marketing world and consider how my messaging could better reflect my values. This process, which I refer to as a decolonization of my mind, revealed some powerful truths that also helped me grow my business in a more value-aligned way. I realized that so much of what I had bought into was also part of bigger systems of oppression, and it was up to me to actively reject this even though it felt easier to do what everyone else was doing. I decided that, instead of using false scarcity in my marketing, I wanted to provide real support so that customers could make empowered decisions to join my programs, instead of fear-based ones. For example, I never pretend that my on-demand masterclass is live when it’s not—and yet, I still have over 5,000 people who have viewed the masterclass. This is a common tactic among online businesses who want to reach as many people as possible, but it proves to be unhelpful for attendees who want to ask questions in real time. I also reveal the full price of my program at the beginning of my masterclass webinar instead of the end, so that attendees know the details of what I’m selling right away instead of feeling bait-and-switched. Rejecting the mainstream marketing culture that has worked for so many founders was scary, but it helped me grow a more dedicated audience. Especially during difficult times, people want to buy from businesses that they can feel connected and safe with. Now, I’m always thinking about how I can curate the experience of interacting with my business so the ethos of my values permeates everything that I do.As we’ve gone through waves of uncertainty over the past few years, I think back to the fear of those early days of the pandemic often. It’s so easy to get sucked into that feeling and make rash decisions about your business, but I’m so glad I used that moment as an opportunity to intentionally create the next stage of growth for my business, reaching new levels of income and impact in the work I’m doing.