Week 4B: The Cubicle

I am on fire! My creative energies are bursting. Currently I'm taking four marketing classes and, I must say,  I love this marketing stuff. Can you believe I've already been approached by two business owners to help them with their marketing?

I'm astonished.

So I thought, maybe I should do some consulting in the field or even online? That's when I bought a URL and started to think about my target market. Who would I try to attract to my social media pages? Who is my perfect customer?

Slowly, a plan started to gel. I think it was about 2 am one night, as I was finishing up homework for some class. Maybe even this class.

The Idea

Basically, I would put content on a website and charge to be a member of the site. I'm talking really good content. Step-by-step instructions on marketing a business - insights, videos, exclusive interviews, live interactive conferences. All for, say, $5 a month. I could gather a community of entrepreneurs. Maybe even start a YouTube channel.

I thought about who my customers would be and one image kept coming up. It felt like looking into a mirror because...

I am my own target market.

The Target

She is sick and tired of working for low wages in a dead-end job. Chained to a gray cubicle in the daytime, she jumps on her laptop in the evenings and has a blast with social media. There are so many people opening little online stores. Maybe she could do it, too. She has a dream...

Break Free of the Gray Cubicle

She has a great product to sell. That's no problem. Her product is really and truly amazing. Maybe she's been selling it at the local open air market like the one in downtown Oceanside on Thursday nights. Maybe she has a little restaurant or creates cute little handmade items. The point is, she has a great product.

But she has no clue how to market her product online.

So she buys a website from Wix or Weebly or Shopify, googles some SEO stuff and really does try to do it right. She sets up some social media, but her following is low and she doesn't know how to grow it. The website stats are miserable. She's not selling anything.

She gets discouraged.

Because she is a woman of action, she looks for marketing advise online. Mostly the content is shallow or badly done and always leads to hiring some consultant. She really, really doesn't have the budget for that. Now she has moved from discouraged to depressed.

*****

My dream is to take someone like her by the hand (virtually) and show her exactly what to do through videos. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people trying to start up a little business. Generate some income on the side. Find a way to be with the kids more and work from home. Save some money for retirement.

My heart goes out to them because I am one of them.

We could all band together as a community and exchange marketing ideas. Have a conversation. Learn. Grow. Succeed.

Escape the Gray Cubicle Together

Let's do this thing.