(Photo by bark)

When marketing your business, are you better off showcasing yourself or your customer’s needs? It all depends on what your target audience knows and thinks about you.

Are you well-known and beloved? If so, leverage the social trust you’ve built up to showcase your new offering. If people liked what you’ve showed them previously, they’re more likely to be interested in what you’re showing them now. But be careful – if your prospective customers sense you’re “cashing out” on your name without something of benefit for them, they’ll (slowly) stop listening to you. That’s why smart celebrities are careful about lending their name for new offerings. Too many missteps and their brand value declines.

If you’re not well-known, don’t start by announcing yourself to the world. That creates a double problem for your business: first you need to educate people who you and then you need to show why people should care about what you’re saying. Instead, focus your marketing on convincing people of what you’re selling (as validated independently). Done repeatedly, you’ll then be able to step into the limelight to show why your wisdom that matters.

Here today and gone tomorrow. Make sure that your marketing leads with how people would react if you were gone tomorrow. Would they miss you or what you can do for them?