Top of Mind Helps Businesses Stay Relevant in a Crowded Global Marketplace


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If your business is going to survive into the future, you need to win the battle for your customer’s brain. To do that, you need to be “top of mind”. John Hall, a branding expert and Forbes columnist, helps your business achieve “top of mind” so your business can generate more leads, get more customers, and attract repeat business with ease and consistency.

Top of Mind Helps Businesses Stay Relevant in a Crowded Global Marketplace

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In Top of Mind: Use Content to Unleash Your Influence and Engage Those Who Matter To You branding expert John Hall helps readers build a business that continually generates leads, customers and referrals in a marketplace that is growing more crowded by the day.

What is Top of Mind About?

Top of Mind addresses the rise of a customer-driven market, where customers have more options to choose from than ever. With the rise of technology, customers can now research your company, compare it to others, and make a decision before your sales staff even knows what happened. Technology has also changed the tolerance level of most customers as well. Because customers can get the information they need on their own, they are becoming less and less tolerant of traditional advertising like pop-up ads, commercials and banners.

Competition for customers isn’t the only thing changed by technology. Technology has also changed the way that businesses compete with each other. Because of rapid advances in technology, decreasing production costs, and faster production times, competitors can duplicate your product faster than you ever thought possible.

These two factors are changing the way that businesses have to market in order to survive. The key, according to Hall, is to win the battle for your customers from the inside, their brains. Winning this battle starts by shifting your business tactics from a business-focused, “Me-Marketing” approach to a customer-focused, “You-Marketing” approach that addresses customers’ needs and wants.

To adopt a customer-focused approach, businesses should rely more on the intangible — like trust, consistency and communication — and less on tangible things — like price and technical features. Tangible features are still important but they aren’t strong enough to retain customers. The thing that retains customer loyalty is internal. It is marketing that is designed to help customers remember you, see your value, and connect your marketing messages to their needs. This kind of marketing only comes through consistent focus on your customers’ realities, not yours.

Hall is the co-founder and CEO of Influence & Co, a sought-after keynote speaker and Forbes columnist who was named by Business Journal as one of the publication’s Top 100 Business Visionaries. In addition to being applauded by Business Journal, he has also been recognized by the United Nations.

What Was Best About Top of Mind?

Top of Mind applies a natural and relaxed tone to one of the top marketing problems of modern times. Hall’s examples and insights break down complicated marketing topics into understandable chunks of knowledge that make marketing easy to understand and apply. In particular, Hall connects the world of content marketing (something every business is hearing about) with the overall marketing strategy of customer acquisition.

What Could Have Been Done Differently?

Top of Mind focuses on the broad, overarching issues behind the transition away from traditional marketing — loud commercials, pop-ups, and attention-grabbing banners. It helps business leaders understand why this transition needs to be made and the initial first steps to take. The book does not delve into more advanced matters, such as analytics or omni-channel marketing, however.

Why Read Top of Mind?

Top of Mind is designed for the business leader who realizes his or her marketing may not be as effective as it used to be. The book establishes why this problem is happening and provides the initial steps for making the transition to a customer-focused approach. Using examples and clear language, the book shows how to combine inbound marketing, content marketing and basic customer psychology to help businesses establish a “top-of-mind” presence in their customers’ minds.

The book’s primary audience seems to be owners of medium-sized and large-sized businesses who have established teams —  social media marketing, PR, and advertising professionals. These teams are generally engaged in creating a multi-pronged strategy. That being said, the book provides information that can be adapted for any-sized business. This feature of the book is important because “top of mind” marketing is crucial for every business now and in the future.

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3 Comments ▼

Charles Franklin Charles Franklin is a Book Reviewer for Small Business Trends. He has a background as a professional reviewer, and is also a content provider and customer relations professional.

3 Reactions
  1. Hello Charles,

    How are you doing? It’s good seeing you again helping entrepreneurs.

    May I ask: Are these tactics within this book helpful to authors who write children’s books?

    In January, 2017 I began an approach to rebrand myself, but my email list is tiny. I tried a free book giveaway and gained 25 followers. I blog, have a new website and now I have about 10 books (including parent resource books on bullying).
    I have found that FB boosts and FB ads just makes FB rich. I have sold a few books these last 2 books, so I did a few things right, just not enough.

    You can see my website at: cherryesbooksthatsow.com

    You can see my new books there, or on amazon just by typing in my first and last name: Cherrye Vasquez

    Take good care – Cherrye

  2. More than staying relevant, a business owner should think about how to stand out. There is just so many choices and it is up to the business owner to stand out.

  3. Charles Terell Franklin

    Hi Cherrye,

    Nice to hear from you! In my experience with authors, Facebook is more of a branding (rather than selling) platform.

    To answer your question about the book, “Top of Mind” helps readers with understanding the approach needed to be on the top of their customer’s minds. Note that the book focuses on a long-term strategy. Please also note that the book doesn’t provide specific ground-level technique for authors.

    In other words, you will learn to brand yourself better, not necessarily sell your book faster.

    In regards to marketing your book, I get it. I know from experience that it’s very hard to sell a book online. There are a lot of books out there competing for your potential reader’s attention. There are also a lot of marketing strategies and tools competing for your attention. My key piece of advice for you at this stage is to get very clear on your target customer and the value your books offer to that customer. From there you need to establish sales goals. To achieve those sales goals, you have to create your marketing base. Your marketing base is the tricky part because you can use so many tools now (Twitter, Facebook, blog, website Pinterest, etc.). Find the tools that work for you and connect with the people who can help you reach your sales goals (influencers, advocates, customers, etc.). Get data (quantitative and qualitative) to refine the marketing tools you have chosen.Move your customers closer to the sale. Rinse and repeat.

    From the top of my head, I can’t tell you what marketing tools will work for you. Each author, small business owner, and creative is different. While Twitter might work for some, it might be a waste of time (and potential money) for others. That’s just the way it is. Most authors end up with a website, social media, and all kinds of other tools that they soon abandon because they’re not selling books. The truth is, many of those authors didn’t have a clear sales goal, utilize sales techniques, or create and maintain unique and compelling marketing experiences. It can be hard for a single author to do all of that.

    Then again, just because something is difficult to initially achieve, doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. Keep at it, if you feel that your books are fulfilling your personal mission in life and you’ll find a way.