Do You Use Industry Knowledge as Marketing Knowledge?

You don’t know what you don’t know. And what you don’t know can mean marketing opportunities are lost. How effectively you keep up with your industry and developments outside it can affect how you market your services and to whom you market those services.

I keep up with news and trends within my profession and industry in several ways. It’s amazing how informative posts are from industry colleagues on social networks. Also, I’m fortunate to have a large network of contacts who regularly share valuable information, insights, observations and news. Valuable information comes to my attention through my membership in special interest groups on social networks, representing a broad number of fields. This includes articles, posts and content shared from members’ sources.

For general profession related news, I subscribe to quite a number of daily, weekly and monthly news and information reports. Sources are industry or sector related publications, companies, business organizations, specialized journalists, educational institutions, and subject matter experts.

What should you look for? This depends on the news and content you need to keep up as an informed professional and to customize your marketing efforts for your niche. One objective should be to follow news and content that support your skills and knowledge. This is content that makes you feel like you know what’s going on in your business ecosystem, but also motivates you and inspires ideas. Another objective is to keep up on trends related to projects you tend to seek and the types of clients you want to pursue. What do you need to learn to anticipate clients’ needs? What should you know to be able to have meaningful conversations with colleagues and clients about their projects?

The other key area to keep up on is your prospective clients. Define your needs by asking a broad range of marketing questions. Where is your future work going to be coming from? What developments will best help you adapt to changing market conditions and the directions your clients’ industries are headed? What are emerging pain points for your prospective and current clients? What opportunities are arising from prospective clients just outside the traditional edges of businesses in your industry?

If you want to serve a specific group of companies or organizations, you should keep up on them. Use news search utilities or RSS feeds for online publications to provide you with alerts when articles or news releases are published. I automatically receive summary reports that contain headlines and links to sources on companies according to key words or phrases that are relevant to my marketing efforts. Look for online services or individual publishers that provide these feeds. Also, you can “follow” companies on many social networks to receive their news, articles and posts.

When I run across news or information that is actionable, I usually do a bit more research to figure out what steps I can take to adjust my marketing efforts. In some cases, I’ll note contacts to follow up with to see if they can use my services. I use other alerts as prompts to devise strategies to reach out to or connect with new markets or prospects. Some news or information helps me know what to follow for future investigations and marketing actions.

I check my email, news and social networks daily for valuable information. Over the years, I’ve cut down the number of summaries and alerts I receive due to quality, relevance and timeliness of the content. However, I also add new sources as they come to my attention. It’s critical to stay on top of this effort because you don’t want these messages to pile up and become an overwhelming task to address. Don’t set yourself up for information overload. Be selective.

Try starting with only a handful of feeds that include the most valuable sources clearly related to your profession and industry. Include a few general sources that offer a bigger picture of interesting news and trends, as well. Be careful not to be hyper-focused on your field or you might be blindsided by impacts from developments on the periphery or outside your field or industry niche.

Only you can determine what’s necessary to know to keep your business thriving and marketing messages on target. Your goal is to position yourself on the leading edge in your field by keeping up as a professional as well as staying aware of broader market opportunities.

Excerpt from Smart Marketing for Solopreneurs and Microbusinesses by Douglas Freeman, available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GV55XJR?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_BR83A5H13WK2G85TV3BQ_1

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