I often hear many professionals complain about appearing to be invisible and lacking job opportunities. When I ask them about their personal marketing, they are often surprised, and then they ask questions such as: Can you apply marketing to people? o Is marketing not just for products?
Yes, of course you can apply marketing to people, it is also not something new. There have always been people who have excelled on the professional side, although many have done so by intuition or instinct. But all of them, whether conscious or not, have used personal marketing. Now that we are clear that marketing does not only apply to products, and that we can also work on ourselves. You may be wondering who can help them.
Who can personal marketing help?
It is very likely that you will become interested in personal marketing if you are a professional who is looking for a job after being fired , or if you are a student who has just finished your studies and is looking for your first job.
We can also work on our marketing if we are entrepreneurs and want to launch our own project, or if we are autonomous and want to position ourselves to compete against other players.
If you are an employee and you work in a department of a company and your objective is to promote yourself and climb jobs, one of the best ways to achieve this is by working on your marketing.
The CEOs, entrepreneurs and CEOs , if your personal marketing work may transmit greater confidence in their communications. Even in certain situations they can represent your corporate brand in a more humane way. There are many examples of entrepreneurs who work their marketing and therefore their personal brand, such as Jeff Bezos from Amazon , Richard Branson from Virgin or Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook , among others.
Phases to work your personal Marketing plan:
Marketing for people, like marketing for goods and services, has to work under a series of procedures and an appropriate method. Next I propose a plan consisting of 6 stages with which to work on your personal marketing plan: person, objectives, target audience, brand value, brand image and communication.
1 The person: Who are you?
Personal marketing works from the foundations of a human being, therefore it is totally necessary for the person to self-analyze and also analyze the environment in which it will be developed. It is important that you be honest with yourself, otherwise in addition to lying, you will be building a plan based on falsehood.
In this analysis phase, I recommend that you perform a personal SWOT. Basically you have to answer 4 questions: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What opportunities does your market present? And what threats does your market present? If you want more information, you can access my article: The SWOT analysis matrix (SWOT) , it details how to use this tool.
2 Define your objectives: What do you want to achieve?
It is necessary to know where we want to go, to later choose the right path. If you are clear where you are going, in the face of unforeseen events or adversities, you will be able to make a decision more easily. I recommend the same as you would if it were a company, that before formulating your objectives, you define your mission, vision and personal values . After doing this exercise, it will be easier for you to define your goals. Then I leave you a link on how to define Mission, Vision and Values in companies, but you will have no problem adapting it to people.
My advice when setting your goals in the personal marketing plan, is to set them in the long, medium and short term. Set yourself long-term goals, and then set yourself short and medium-term goals that help you get closer to your goals.
When defining your goals, remember that they have to be challenging, but not unattainable. Your goals have to motivate you, since when faced with a challenging goal you tend to push yourself, but against an unattainable goal you always end up failing. The key is that it becomes a challenge, yes, always: Think Big.
3 Select your target audience: Who are you targeting?
We already know who we are and what we want, therefore we have a solid base on which to continue working on our personal marketing. But do you address everyone? It is very important to properly select the audience that you want to receive your message, it will help you optimize your resources and achieve your objectives sooner. You can target different types of audiences, everything will depend on you and your objectives: companies, professionals, HR departments, specific sectors, etc.
Analyze and get to know them in depth. They are the ones you are addressing, knowing their needs perfectly will help you create and add value in a differential way.
4 Your brand value: What do you contribute?
Knowing how to do something is no longer enough, you have to stand out, differentiate yourself and give confidence. Highlight your qualities and characteristics that make you a valuable person. Do not choose only one, no human being is formed by a single quality. When you highlight your qualities, search and combine those that make you unique, those that differentiate you and in which you contribute more value than the rest of your competitors; and obviously offers those that your target audience demands.
If you can’t find your formula, don’t get frustrated. Keep thinking, take your time to reflect. There is always something you are good at. It only remains to elaborate your message to communicate, you can base it on your knowledge, experience, talent, abilities, etc. How you see personal marketing is not about knowing how to sell, but about selling what you know how to do.
5 Create your brand image: How do you want to be seen?
Well, we already know what our brand value is and now we have to start building our image based on the result obtained in the previous phase. Everything communicates, from our way of expressing ourselves, your hairstyle, the way of dressing, but also our digital image: website, photos, social media profiles, etc. Your main objective is to communicate to your audience: who you are, what you do and what value you bring.
There are different elements in the design of your image that will transmit the brand positioning that we want to obtain. If these elements are not consistent with your personal marketing strategy and do not convey what we offer, how are you going to choose us?
The main ones to work on are:
-Logo.
-Brand positioning.
-Physical appearance.
-How to dress.
-Cards, dossiers, presentations, etc.
-Resume, cover letter …
6 Communicate: How are you going to make yourself known?
The worst mistake that can be made in personal marketing is to skip all the previous stages and go directly to this one. You will be concentrating all your efforts on communicating an ineffective proposal.
We already know who we are and what makes us valuable. Now, yes, it is time to reach your target audience, your audience, to work on communication. For this we are going to use different tools to achieve greater visibility. There are different ways to spread your message, so we must choose the ones that best suit our marketing strategy.
Some examples:
-Networking, events, meetings, presentations.
– Social networks, email marketing, website, blogs.
-Press releases, articles, newsletters.
-Media advertising, company directories, corporate social responsibility.
Finally, I would like to offer some tips for you to correctly work on your personal marketing:
-Let go of your fears. If you are clear about what your goals are, what you want to achieve and you have outlined the correct plan to achieve it, do not allow your fears not to let you carry it out, or put limitations on you.
-Marketing is not just about communication, you have to offer a relevant value proposition for your audience. It is not only useful to be known, you also have to be effective and better than other competitors.
-Differentiate yourself, don’t be the same as the rest. If you are one more proposal among all the options, why should they choose you?
-It is good that other people talk about you, but it is better that it is the result of your work who does it.
-You have to get them to trust you, just as it happens in product marketing, it is about being the chosen option.
-Everything in personal marketing has to be consistent: your value proposition, your image, your communication, your brand. If you are consistent and consistent, you will undoubtedly generate confidence in your target audience.
