MM: Ever felt bad charging people money?

This is Marketing Mondays #8, sent on a Tuesday. Welcome back to work!

Here are some marketing bites this week.

• Asking for monayy – Ever felt bad charging someone money – a client, a friend, money to do something? Let's talk about how to overcome that.
• Simplify your marketing – Sell to 5-year-olds.
• The D.I.A Strategy – Sometimes marketing can be simple.

💰 Feeling bad asking for money.

At some point in time, as a business owner or freelancer – you surely must have felt guilty for charging someone money.

Maybe it's a friend. An extended family member. Or even a client.

I know I once felt that way.

• What if they call me a scam?
• Maybe I'm not good enough.

But if you want to succeed, you need to charge money. Here are 3 ways to feel confident charging money.

1 - Understand the value you create.

If you're a marketer (like me), you solve revenue problems for businesses. But even if your work doesn't lead to direct revenue, it can still help your client.

• Does your work mean your client spends less time?
• Do they get less stressful?

How much is that value for your customer? Charge accordingly.

2 - Most people are buying time.

Your customers don't just buy stuff. They are buying back time – even if they don't realize it.

• When you order food on Grab: You save time having to cook your own food.
• When you enroll in a personal training program: You save time & the confusion to getting fit.

3 - People who pay, pay attention.

Ever given free advice to a friend? What did they do with it?

That's right. Nothing!

When people receive something for free (like YouTube videos), they rarely act on it.

Also why I think you should join a paid conference. Otherwise, would you care?

🎙️ Video takeaway of the week:

There's so much more in the world, than just digital marketing. – Stephy Foong

I recently spoke to VP of growth & marketing at Zus Coffee, about their marketing strategies and what they do to grow so fast.

Some stats:

• 197+ outlets
• Over 30 million cups sold
• Over 1.5 million individuals on the app.
• 800,000 active users every month.

All in 4 years of operation.

Stephy shared that digital marketing can only cover so much. If you're doing digital marketing and neglecting other marketing sources like – offline marketing, influencer, and events... you're missing out on reaching a bigger audience.

Watch the entire video interview.

🗣️ Explaining it to a kid.

Can you explain what your business does to a kid?

If we want good marketing, we need to learn how to explain it to a kid. Because to be able to explain to a kid – we first need to understand it ourselves.

So quick check. Can a 5-year old kid understand:

• What your email is about?
• What your ads are saying?
• What your landing page is selling?
• Your sales pitch?

🌟 Nuggets

Some quick bites we found around the internet that you might like.

• Up to RM100,000 for content creators in a challenge program by MDEC. For people who create digital comics, animations, interactive media & video games.
• Just as we shared Buzzfeed News is closing down last week, now Vice Media is also filing for bankruptcy. They used to be valued at USD5.7 billion.
• Apart from Netflix, why are most streaming platforms blue in color?
• META (Facebook) suffered an ad glitch early last week, causing some accounts to spend even though campaigns were turned off. Were you affected?
• A story of how people around Tony Hsieh (the late Zappos CEO) were milking millions of him, months before his eventual death.

📄 The D.I.A Strategy

As marketers, we're bombarded with new ideas, tactics, and strategies that promise to change how we do marketing.

Just as I was onboarding Notion, someone told me about Coda - and how it's better than Notion. Should I jump ship? or should I stay?

In truth, this pursuit of new and shiny things can distract us from what's really important. Doing things that are already working for us – and getting better at it.

If something works, just DIA – DO IT AGAIN.

When I marketed Underdog Marketing Con last year in November, I wasn't able to run a lot of ads. So I posted a lot on Linkedin. After some time, it appeared to work. Ticket sales were coming in.

So this round, I simply did more of it again.

What is something in your business that is already working? Why not double down on that?

Read more on the D.I.A strategy, originally by Pat Flynn.

👀 Watch: Failure doesn't exist.

The perfect explanation for failure. Use this as an inspiration to keep moving.

DailyCMO updates.

10 More Days!

Ten.more.days.

Underdog Ad Con is not a flashy conference. Don't expect laser lights or loud music. But expect an event with tons of takeaway lessons.

We invited advertising practitioners from various companies to share their lessons with you. And created a space for a full day of networking. At this time, more than 90 people have signed up and there's still space.

Grab a ticket to Underdog Ad Con here.

Can't make it physically? Consider getting a recording-access-only ticket. We'll be recording the speeches and releasing them a week after the conference.

Hope you enjoyed the newsletter. When you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. Don't miss the opportunity to meet people from companies like Zus Coffee, Alterseat, OVER, TIME dotCOM, and more at Underdog Advertising Con. There are participants from really successful companies attending too.
2. Freelancing can be the solution to building more income. Get Freelance Profit (currently discounted) and build a successful freelance side gig.