Are you ready for a revelation that’s going to make you feel smarter? Smarter than most of those targeted marketing ads that come your way on Instagram?
Oh, you do! Great let’s get comfy for a few minutes together.
If you’re starting to feel like you’re being hit left right and centre by ads selling the online life to you , you aren’t imaging it. Thanks to the global pandemic you are seeing more and more people move online to sell courses and bolster their income. There isn’t anything wrong with that it’s just a lot of them are selling the same information and all from the same boring marketing book.
Why?
Because the headlines they use work and why rock the boat. They might have done some competitor research and found out there is a market or an uptick on starting a blog or getting online and so they produce similar content and the cycle continues.
Today I’m taking a look at the finding your ‘Why’ and you are about to feel a whole lot smarter.
For those of you new to marketing yourself online, ‘Finding your Why’ is what marketers use to describe the reason why you are online. It helps those of us who are lost find the meaning or purpose to create. While this is an amazing tool when you are in the depths of creative despair trying to crawl your way out of the blackness by your fingernails it isn’t where you should start.
Why?
Because your why becomes clearer as you create and build an audience. It’s a response that you build and refine over time. You may have started your online life with a mission or a passion for an area and you want to explore it further. But after a few months of blogging, you realise that the people you are most connecting with are completely different to whom you thought your audience would be and so your why changes and adapts and your purpose becomes clearer.
You’re smarter than most advertising campaigns out there selling you the path to your why because you already know what you want to create. Maybe you like writing and you want to practice. Maybe you want to sell your handmade items and so you start a blog or maybe you want to take a woman’s look at life, the universe and everything. The reason why your online is to reach an audience whom you can connect with.
Whatever your reason for starting a blog, you already know it by the time you purchase a domain or start your social media profiles. Even those who coldly look at a niche to see how profitable it is before they start creating, they have a why.
What if you lost your creativity and there is nothing but the black pit of doom echoing in your mind?
You still don’t need to find your why. You were previously creating and it’s time to do a self-assessment. Have a look at your audience, what have they previously connected with the most. Have a look through your inspiration swipe files. If you don’t have swipe files it’s time to start collecting them.
Sometimes your lack of creativity is just burnout and you’re willing to spend money to have someone walk you through a ‘style guide’ for finding it back. Taking a break, resting that big beautiful brain of yours and stepping outside of your area is often enough to get those juices flowing again.
“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.”
Simon Sinek
Simon is completely right, it’s not a surprise the man is a genius. For example, people do purchase one brand over another because one company uses its profits to fund glasses for those in poorer nations. They also purchase or keep coming back to your content because of how you make them feel about themselves or their lifestyle, which is completely separate to your why.
You don’t need to obsess about finding your why because you’re a smart individual who knows that your why comes from lived experiences. It’s going to change and adapt many times before it becomes your main reason why.
Great marketing is being able to sell you a product you don’t need and our insecurities are a great place to start, especially at the beginning when we don’t know any better. Work on connecting with people, form those strong foundations for building a community online and they will often scream reasons at you as to why your creations made a difference to them. This leads to a lightbulb moment for you when you why revels itself. Usually, this is when you are relaxed and enjoying your shower boogie first thing in the morning.
I have confidence that you are smarter than you think you are. Don’t stress over your core reason for being, instead, get out there, create, live, and grow into the person/brand over time.
You know more than you think you do.
