Marketing Education with Tori Sikkema, Interior | Brand Photographer + Stylist

Barbara Gobbi is a marketing and branding strategist with extensive sales, marketing, and advertising experience. She founded BG Marketing (Barbara Gobbi Marketing) in 2011, intending to focus on strategic planning and social media marketing for small to medium-sized businesses. Since then, she has assisted hundreds of organizations in launching and growing their brands.

Get inspired as Barbara talks about the first step to starting your business and how you can find our ideal clients and connect with them. She also talks about the things you should focus on and the relevance of consistency and focusing on the target audience.

DISCOVER YOURSELF TO START YOUR BUSINESS

The first step in launching a business is figuring out who you are. As you learn more about yourself, you may attract more people similar to you. Some entrepreneurs desire to be trendy, which is a mistake because trends come and go. Learning about yourself is essential since it will make you more comfortable and authentic, attracting more customers.

HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS?

Finding your ideal clients begins with the science of the Reticular Activating System. This means that when you have your radar up of what you’re looking for, you will see it everywhere.

To further understand, Barbara gives the following example:

“If you bought a new black Cadillac SUV, you might think, “I’m the only one who has this,” and then you drive it off the lot. And you see it everywhere. And you think, “When did everybody else go get my car? They all have my car now.” Those cars have always been there, but you weren’t aware of it until you started to focus on that.”

Simply put, it’s all about knowing what you’re looking for and where to find them. To know your customer more deeply, you can ask these questions.

• Where do they like to shop?
•  What did they like to do?
•  What are their hobbies and interest?

After answering these questions, go out and speak to just that person instead of trying to reach everybody.

“You don’t have to be on every social media platform out there,

you only have to be on the ones where your customer is.”

Barbara Gobbi

GETTING INSIDE THE HEAD OF YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS

Barbara tells the story of the AHA moment when she realized that you don’t have to find your customer, and they’re right in front of you. And sometimes your customer finds you. And so the next thing she does is research her clients to know them better. Ultimately, she was left with a treasure trove of information about her perfect customer.

If you are still deciding whether to do customer research, Barbara encourages you to do so.

“So, we all think I don’t want to do research. I’ll tell you, it was the best, and I was addicted to it because I got so much valuable information.”

Barbara’s research finds that most of her clients have negative thoughts about themselves. And it also reflects upon herself, putting her in the right place to help her clients. Because of this, she is now serving the ideal clients in a way that speaks their language.

Barbara advises on the following:

“So if you’ve seen a horse race, you know that they put blinders on the horses so that they could focus and stay in their lane. And they’re not thinking, boy, that horse next to me has a shiny; I wonder what shampoo they use. Or if only I had that saddle, I might run faster. They are not thinking that. They have blinders on to put out the distractions, and they stay in their lane. And that’s what you need to do. “

FOCUSING ON THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO GROW YOUR BRAND

The term “All the things” might sound productive, but in reality, we can’t do all the things because we end up doing nothing. Thus, instead of trying to be perfect and be everywhere, just focus on one place where your ideal customer hangs out.

And then you can always add in another platform. But don’t be worried and consumed by the places you’re not. Barbara gives an example of this:

“For example, if you’re in interior design, you need to be on a platform that’s a very visual medium. Don’t waste your time with Twitter now, as that will not serve you. Instead, focus on Pinterest or Instagram, which are more visual platforms. If you know your customer is older, then Facebook might be a better platform for you. Or if they’re young, you might need to be on Tiktok or Instagram.”

Barbara highly recommends Pinterest as it is a visual medium. It is a search engine with a very sophisticated algorithm that can search the words in your caption and pictures, which Google cannot.

CONSISTENCY AND FOCUS ON THE TARGET AUDIENCE

Customer research is vital because you need to know your target audience’s languages. You can use their languages in captions, images, and links since you need to speak their language to be found out.

Another thing Barbara does to do customer research while serving her clients is to start a Facebook group where her audience hangs out. She uses these to ask her clients questions that feed the information she needs in research.

Until next time, take one new action that lifts your brand!

Tune in for Branding, Marketing, and Business

Find out more about Barbara through her socials:

Website: https://barbaragobbi.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbaragobbi/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BarbaraGobbiMarketing/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/barbgobbi

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbgobbi/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgq2u2XUSNHHNnKD6v8FbzA