There are a few things in life Chris Thomas loves: The first is a delicious slab of ribs sitting on his dinner table. The second is playing the harmonica. And lastly, Chris lives to help small businesses find their voice and their audiences, and he does that through his agency, Yonder. Chris started Yonder in his basement and has grown it into a full-fledged agency that companies of all shapes and sizes trust to help them with the most fundamental of problems: finding their audience.

“Every time [clients] walk in the door and they’re like, ‘We can’t generate leads, or nobody knows who we are.’ I’m like, ‘Well, who’s the audience? Who are you trying to reach?’ That’s really the biggest [obstacle] for everybody. You’re a boutique for women over 45 and you’re on Facebook trying to market to 50-year-old dudes. That’s not going to work. And once they figured out their audience, the rest is easy.”

On this episode of Marketing Trends, Chris explains his passion for helping SMBs discover their audience as well as their own brand identity. Plus, he details some of the best strategies for how companies can retool their SEO approach, and he reveals the reason you should never equate retooling your brand with fixing the nuts and bolts of your business.

Main Takeaways:

• Who Is Your Audience?: This is the fundamental question to ask a client that is having trouble generating leads or finding awareness. Once you have clarity on this, targeting efforts and generating meaningful leads becomes much easier.
• Have Some Self Awareness: As a marketer, success comes by knowing your strengths and weaknesses and adjusting your plans based on those things.  Don’t overstretch yourself in areas that you know are out of your wheelhouse. When you start dipping your toe into unfamiliar waters without a paddle, you’re doing your client and yourself a disservice.
• Your Brand is Not Your Business: When a small business believes it needs to reposition and work on its brand, what marketers need to be stressing is for them to go back to the basics of the business. They should examine their website and SEO practices, and educate their customers on who they are. Once those business fundamentals have been addressed and results follow, then it’s appropriate to n refocus your efforts on the brand.

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