Hub Marketing
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Hub Marketing Build Your Business By Building Community and Relationships By Tad Hargrave Hub Marketing Contents: Introduction 5 The Path To Your Door 11 Part One: Learning About Hub Marketing 15 Part One Introduction: Learning About Hub Marketing 16 What Is A Hub? 17 Why Do Hubs Matter In Marketing? 20 Hub Marketing Is Like Baseball 22 The Three Levels Of Marketing 25 The Seven Types Of Hubs 31 Real World Hub Marketing Examples 34 Working With A Complimentary Charity 41 The Three Core Qualities Of A Good Hub 43 Part Two: Identifying Your Hubs 47 Part Two Introduction: Identifying Your Hubs 48 Hub Categories 49 Creating Your Hubs Database (why does no one teach this?) 51 Facebook “Friend” Lists 56 Hub Marketing For Farmers’ Markets 57 Three Hub Marketing Case Studies From Farmers’ Market Vendors 61 Seven Hub Examples From A Hub Marketing Workshop 67 Part Three: Approaching Hubs 73 Part Three Introduction: Approaching Hubs 74 Connect With A New Hub Weekly 76 The Three Wins Of Working With Hubs 78 What Do Hubs Want For Supporting You? 80 Why Would A Hub Not Support You? 82 Some Truths About Hubs 85 Don’t Waste A Hub’s Time: The Grave Consequences Of Being Fuzzy 86 Some Real Life Examples Of Fuzzy Contact & Content I’ve Received 88 By Tad Hargrave marketingforhippies.com !2 Hub Marketing How To Approach Hubs And Potential Clients Cold 100 Eight Examples Of How To Reach Out Smart & Well To Hubs 126 The Two-Step Hub Email 136 Eight Key Points To Take From All Of This 139 Colette Kenney & I Discuss The Amazon Best Seller Program 140 Other Thoughts & Approaches for Connecting With Hubs 144 Part Four: Becoming A Hub 148 Part Four Introduction: Becoming A Hub 149 Eight Key Benefits Of Becoming A Hub 151 12 Laws Of Becoming Well Respected 154 Stay-In-Touch Marketing: Six Core Hub Marketing Approaches 157 Four Stay-in-Touch Marketing Case Studies 161 How Often Should You Email Your List? 166 Six Core Stay-In-Touch Marketing Approaches 168 Eleven Tools To Position Yourself As A Hub 186 Connect Your Hubs 188 The Team 100 Approach 191 Seven Dynamics To Consider As A Hub 194 The Shadow Side Of Becoming A Hub 197 Part Five: Affiliate Marketing 200 The Tricky Business Of Affiliate Marketing 201 The Four Ways I’ve Come To Treat Affiliate Marketing Decisions 206 Part Six: Creating Movements & Communities 213 On Creating Movements & Communities 215 Conclusion 222 Bonus: Hub Marketing Mini Coaching Sessions 223 Gratitude 236 About the Author: Tad Hargrave 237 By Tad Hargrave marketingforhippies.com !3 Hub Marketing “Mas fhiach an teachdaire, ’s fhiach an gnothach” “If the messenger be worthy, the business is.” — Gaelic proverb By Tad Hargrave marketingforhippies.com !4 Hub Marketing Introduction When I was in my early twenties, I had a private meeting with Vicente Fox. This was before he became the President of Mexico, when he was still the governor of his home state of Guanajuato. I hadn’t intended for it to be a private meeting. It was 1999, and I was running the youth portion of an an annual meeting of civil society organisations called The World Social Forum in San Francisco. Vicente had spoken one afternoon and I was very moved by what he had to say. In my youth I was obsessed with the spotlight of fame and desired to be anywhere near it. I convinced myself (correctly as it would turn out) that this man would become the President of Mexico one day andI began wondering about how I could have a conversation with him. I was friends with Claire Garrison, the wife of Jim Garrison, who ran The World Social Forum. I didn’t think Vicente would agree to meet with me alone, but he might agree to meet with me if the other young people were there. As well as if Claire was there, who I knew he was close to. So, I approached Claire and said, “Claire! All of the youth are having breakfast together tomorrow and we were wondering if you’d like to join us?” She was delighted to be invited. The rest of the youth knew nothing about this, yet. I then approached Vicente. “Mr. Fox,” I said, “the youth and Claire are having breakfast tomorrow and I’m wondering if you might join us?” “Well, I wouldn’t have long because I have a flight to catch but certainly I could spare half an hour.” “Wonderful! Let’s meet in the lobby of the Fairmont at 9am.” The deal was struck and I marched off to share this fine development with the rest of the youth in the program. They mostly nodded and agreed to be there. “This is great!” they said. “Thanks for setting it up!” they said. Some declined, and a few pointed out that because it was the last night of the Forum it was a big party night and, well, they’d have to see how they felt in the morning. But, after an evening of hustling, I felt confident that I’d rustled up enough fellow young people to make it worth everyone’s while. The next morning, I made my way to the lobby to see Vicente waiting for me with no other young people around. Claire was nowhere to be seen either. After a few minutes, my stomach dropped as I realized that no one else was coming. I told him, “I am so sorry. I think everyone is hungover. I think I’m it.” And so we sat and talked for thirty minutes about leadership and the world. Towards By Tad Hargrave marketingforhippies.com !5 Hub Marketing the end, as the good Governor Fox was leaving, Claire arrived and we wandered off to breakfast together. * “Where do I find clients? Where do I advertise?” This plaintive cry lands at my doorstep all too often. Of course, all of this starts with your niche, which I’ve written about extensively in my book The Niching Nest. Your niche is this strange constellation of what you do, how you do it and for whom. You niche is your role in the community. One of the central questions that niching asks of us is: Who are your people? Until this is identified, the above question about where to find customers remains impossible to answer. In the world of word-of-mouth marketing, we have a name for the places where you can find your people. They are called hubs. Why? Well, consider the wheel: the hub of the wheel is the only point on the wheel where all of the spokes connect. And so, in the marketplace, in the centre, hubs to market to are the places where your target market hangs out and connects with each other. Hubs are the centre of your niche’s world. They are very, very important. My definition of hub marketing: • Hub marketing is about putting your marketing where people are already looking and listening. • Hub marketing is about finding the people, places, groups and events that are already well connected to and deeply respected by your ideal clients and marketing there. • Hub marketing is about getting the people your ideal clients trust most to do your marketing for you. Hub marketing is one of the core things that I teach in my marketing workshops. hub marketing is not a new idea, but it’s often new to those with whom I work. By Tad Hargrave marketingforhippies.com !6 Hub Marketing Out of everything that I teach, hub marketing is one of the pieces that people consistently tell me is most useful and practical. hub marketing has four things going for it: 1. Hub marketing is an approach to marketing that is less expensive, and sometimes even free. 2. Hub marketing is also more effective than other forms of marketing. Much more effective, and not just by 10 or 20 per cent but sometimes two, three or ten times more effective as an approach to marketing. 3. Hub marketing feels better to do. 4. Hub marketing feels better to receive. I’ve been baffled for years about why this isn’t shared in more marketing courses. hub marketing is one of the magical things about marketing. A good question to ask of our marketing, as my colleague George Kao suggested: “Whenever you’re about to try an approach — some technique, some tactic — ask yourself, ‘If everybody in the marketplace used this approach, what would happen to the marketplace?’” Of course, we can see the results of that all around us. The ways that we mistrust certain people, and even within this conscious business scene, there’s a mistrust and a suspicion because certain techniques get used a lot. There are consequences to what we do. Hub marketing is an approach that, if everyone did it, the marketplace would actually, in my mind, be a much more trustworthy and safe place for people to be working, buying, exchanging, and sharing in. To give credit where it’s due, I first came across this notion of hub marketing through Jay Abraham. The way he talked about it was as Host/Parasite Marketing, later changed to what he called Host/Beneficiary Marketing (meaning that one person was the one with the connections and the other person benefitted from those connections). hub marketing also appears often as joint ventures or strategic ventures In this scenario, you’d ask yourself which businesses you could partner with that are already connected to your people? But the term “hubs” came to my art from Dominic Canterbury from Seattle.