Pull out the big guns with the 'Power of One'

As most of you know, I run marketing and social media workshops for small business owners. In almost every workshop, there’s someone who introduces themselves by saying…

“I’ve got three different businesses .”

I bet you’ve been on a workshop or at a networking event where you’ve heard someone say that.

(Actually, the strangest multiple business combo I ever encountered was a man who ran some kind of ‘specialist metalwork’ business for the nuclear industry and he had an owl that he hired out for children’s parties. Both businesses were on the same website.)

Whenever I hear this kind of thing, my first instinct is this.

• The first business didn’t make any money, so they started the second.
• The second one doesn’t make any money, so they start a third.
• And the third one doesn’t make any money because this one-person entrepreneur is spread too thin trying to juggle three businesses.

Obviously it’s none of my business what people chose to do with their lives or businesses - until that is, they ask for my help with marketing.

The average small business spends around 10 hours a week on marketing. So if you have three businesses on your own, that means one of two things.

1. You have to spend 30 hours a week (10 hours per business) on marketing to cover all three adequately. And obviously that’s not possible without hiring people to help.
2. Your ten hours is diluted between the three businesses, giving you just 3.3 hours a week to promote each business.

The net result is all three suffer and you are continually plate spinning, hedging your bets and getting nowhere.

So I’m going to introduce you to...

The Power of One

I didn’t invent it. It has been used in advertising agencies and direct response campaigns since the dawn of time. But I think in the vastly overcrowded and noisy world of digital marketing, it’s worth thinking about. And it’s this…

One clear objective

One message

One audience

One offering

One call to action

This doesn’t mean you can only sell one thing. You can sell as many things as you want. It just means you only promote one thing at a time.

Example

So let’s say you are a bakery called “Joe’s Artisan Bakery”. You sell lots of different things to all sorts of people both in your bakery and online, with a local delivery service. How can you use the Power of One?

You decide to launch a range of Gluten-Free bread for online orders only. (They need to be made in a separate kitchen to avoid cross-contamination so they can’t be made on the shop premises).

So the Power of One works like this:

So during the launch period (let’s say it’s a 4-week campaign) every touchpoint where someone comes into contact with the bakery’s brand, they get a clear and consistent message about the gluten-free launch. You still sell all your usual lovely products. But for that campaign timeframe, you do not proactively market anything else.

The power of one can also work for …

Blog articles. One idea. One theme. One focus.

60-second networking pitches. Focus on one thing e.g. one story, one product, one service, or one special offer. You can rotate your pitch every week. So, don’t say… “I can help you with all aspects of your business, and we also have an owl for hire for children’s parties”. (Although the owl bit would be something memorable, so you can keep that in). There’s no law that says you have to say exactly the same thing every time you go to a networking event. When it's not specific, not focused and the same every time - I promise you, nobody will ever remember what it is you do.

Social media posts. One message per post.

Ads. One message, one audience, one offering, one call to action.

That's it. Let me know what you think.

Thank you for reading.

Jackie ??