Your personal marketing toolkit: What is it and why do you need it?
In this blog post, Heather Townsend, co-author of the newly published ‘The Go-To Expert’ and author of the best-selling and award-winning ‘The FT Guide To Business Networking’, will show you exactly what you need to have to present your best face to the on-line and off-line world. Your professional photos are only one (but very important!) part of this toolkit.
Why do you need a personal marketing toolkit?
How many times have you written a blog post or taken part in a seminar (be it a webinar, teleseminar or physical event) and you have been asked for your ‘head and shoulders shot’, bio etc etc? Did you write them from scratch? How much time did it take you to get all these bits and pieces together? This is why you need a personal marketing toolkit. It will help you save time, but most importantly help you present a consistent image – both online and offline – to the world.
Where will you use your toolkit?
Your kit will literally go with you everywhere and be the backbone of all your marketing efforts. It is the content of this kit that will help you create a consistent image and message, regardless of where someone meets you.
What needs to go into your toolkit?
Your Personal Marketing Toolkit will include everything you, as the Go-To-Expert, will require to attract new clients. Depending on your personal circumstances, it will include some or all of the following:
- Credibility Statements
- Credibility Stories
- Relationship Hooks
- Website
- Blog
- Business card
- Biographies, including your Author Credit, short Bio and long Bio
- 1-page credentials document about you or your firm
- Professional photos, including a head and shoulders shot
- Speaker Kit including showreel, 1-pager about you and what you speak about, introduction to you to be read out at events where you are speaking
- Social media profiles – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+
- Name badge
- Templates for slides, documents and handouts
- Press Kit
- Series of 2–3 minute video clips of you presenting, being interviewed, talking to camera
- Client list, testimonials and case studies.
In a series of guest blogs for John, I will explore more of the contents of your personal marketing toolkit. Of course, John is probably the best person I know to help you get your professional photos really looking the part.
Author Credit
Heather Townsend is the co-author of ‘The Go-To Expert’ and the author of the award-winning and best-selling ‘The FT Guide To Business Networking’. To get a free chapter of the ‘The Go-To Expert’ click here.
