The document provides a simplified view of marketing as starting a conversation with a target audience member to understand their needs and how your product can fulfill them. It recommends identifying your key message and differentiating factors compared to competitors. Then the goal is to scale those conversations to more people in the target audience in a way that feels natural and not spammy, by treating all audience members as if they were a friend. This foundation can then be built upon more technically by outlining the complete customer journey and defining acquisition channels.

1. The Antidote
to the problem...
“I don’t like marketing,
but need it.”

2. 2
I hear this a lot.
Marketing gets a bad rep.
… but what is it really all about?

3. 3
It involves a lot of different parts…
...so here’s a simplified (and I think more helpful) way of looking at
it:

4. 4
You have an audience.

5. 5
You’ve made a product for that audience.

6. 6
Now it’s time to put it in front of them.
How do you do that? Well, you could...

7. 7
Hire someone to be your “content machine”, putting out content at
the highest rate possible, for the lowest cost possible, along with
hyperlinks, “SEO”, social share incentives and newsletter signup
forms...
#overwhelmed

8. 8
Start writing a bunch of sensational or misleading statements in
order to get as many people as possible to click on your content.
“The Future is Wow!”

9. 9
Post that clickbait everywhere you can from social media, blog
comments, youtube comments and every forum you haven’t been
banned from yet.

10. 10
And of course the ads - make sure they’re pushy and stuffed with
keywords, so people really listen.

11. 11
...or maybe that’s not the way.
That’s actually why marketing gets a bad rep to begin with.
Let’s start over and see if we can do better this time...

12. 12
Start by talking to one person...
… who matches your target audience.
Pro tip: preferably a friend, or someone you know. If that’s not
possible, imagine one of your friends did match your audience.

13. 13
What would you tell them?
Think about it for a bit and write that down. Short sentences.

14. 14
That’s your key message.
That’s going to be the little sun around which your marketing
efforts, landing pages, ads and emails will revolve.

15. 15
By this point you’ve already taken the first steps towards
understanding your buyer persona, your key message and primary
selling points.
Nothing bad so far, right?

16. 16
Next, we’ll want to continue that streak of “nothing bad” by figuring
out how to scale up that conversation with your friend to reach
bigger and bigger clusters of people who match your target
audience, in a way that makes sense, works with your budget and
resources, and doesn’t come across as spammy.
In essence, treat everyone in your audience like they are
that friend.

17. 17
Feeling like an overachiever?
You can take things even further with a bit more in-depth research
to discover who your competitors are and what they’re doing.

18. 18
Figure out who else is out there, what they’re saying to your friend,
and make a list of the things that make your product better.
Those will be your differentiating factors.

19. 19
And that’s your foundation.
Those are the elements that lead up to a great marketing
campaign.
And when you look at it this way, there’s really not much about it to
not like.
It’s just your business, highlighting what makes it great to those
people who actually need it.

20. 20
And that’s enough to start.
… but for people who want to go beyond this foundation, this is
where it gets a bit more technical.
Laying out the complete customer journey, a professional
acquisition model, defining the best mediums at your disposal and
how to reach people at every step of that journey is where a more
in-depth, comprehensive plan can make a lot of sense.

21. 21
You remind me of a friend...
If you find yourself having that
particular goal, then you may just fall
within my own target audience. And if
that should be the case, then you may
be interested in this.