If you look up the term “enlightened marketing,” you’ll find different definitions depending on that publisher’s perspective and agenda.
But most sources agree that enlightened marketing prioritizes the effects on the consumer, society, the planet, and offers real value in the world.
And those are the core principles behind Real To Ideal’s definition of enlightened marketing:
🌎 Marketing that makes the world a better place
💞 Marketing that matters to its audience
💌 Marketing that provides real value, not hype
♻️ And marketing that promotes people who are doing good things in the world
In a world of jaded, skeptical, and savvy consumers, attention will be the most valuable currency of the 2020’s and the future of digital marketing needs to be focused on grabbing that attention and holding it as long as possible.
Which won’t be possible with the old marketing ways of quantity over quality.
Marketing tactics of the past focused on getting an offer in front of you as many times as necessary to get you to buy. It didn’t matter what you were trying to do when the ad appeared, as long as you saw it. (Thank you CPM ads…)
The future of digital marketing will embrace enlightened marketing tactics ~ showing up in the right place at the right time with solutions that fit what the person is looking for.
It does matter what you’re doing when the ad appears because attention is the toughest currency to earn online these days. That’s why enlightened marketing focuses on not interrupting what you’re doing online and not harassing you with irrelevant solutions.
For example:
So imagine you’re looking for a recipe to make for dinner tonight and you’re scrolling through Pinterest to find a good food blog recipe that meets your family’s specific diet.
Let’s pretend it needs to be healthy, gluten-free, and low sodium.
Any ads that show up trying to sell you anything other than healthy, gluten-free recipes you can make at home (or a solution for healthy, gluten-free dinners without having to cook) are an interruption. They don’t relate to why you’re there and you will ignore them (at best) or feel annoyed by them. For example, a frozen pizza product that’s widely available at grocery stores across the country, but doesn’t fit your need for gluten-free or low-sodium.
Any ads that show up with a valuable solution for tonight’s dinner (like let’s say the ad knows your location and it shows you that the local market happens to have ready-made gluten-free meals in the deli section and you can click here to see the nutritional info and ingredients) are helping you solve a problem at the very time and place you’re looking for a solution to that problem.
The old way only cares that you’re seeing the ad for the frozen pizza every time you scroll through Pinterest.
The enlightened way helps you solve the immediate problem (knowing you’re more likely to pay attention – and also buy – from a company that helps you solve the right problem at the right time.)
Which marketing style makes you feel like you have a friend reaching out to help? Because that’s the one you’re going to notice, click on, and buy from.
If that grocery store deli is especially good at enlightened marketing, they’ll invest in retargeting ads to show up in front of everyone who clicked through to the nutritional info on their site and start a conversation along the lines of, “How did dinner turn out the other night? Share the story or post a pic in the comments for a chance to win a free gift card good for 4 meals from our deli!”
Starting conversations, deepening relationships, showing up with the right solutions at the right time, not interrupting what your potential client is trying to do. That’s enlightened marketing.
Enlightened marketing shows up like a friendly neighbour instead of Jehovah’s witnesses. [Tweet that!]
How to reach an audience that’s burnt out, jaded, skeptical, and savvy
Now that you have a basic idea of what enlightened marketing is, let’s look at why it’s the only marketing to use in 2019 and beyond.
For the last 10 years, a lot of people made millions with automated sales funnels designed to amaze the masses and fill their dreams with wealth beyond their wildest dreams. Unfortunately, a lot of those products were underwhelming and only helped a handful of people actually achieve the results promised.
Niche to be rich, the money’s in the email list, 6-figure passive incomes, and so on.
Online courses that promised to show you how to set up your own automated funnel to bring in a million dollars a year. Basically a rinse and repeat of what they’d been doing.
And for 10 years, this kind of hype marketing has been very successful because the idea was still fairly fresh and new.
But by 2018, the market was saturated, overplayed, exhausted, and jaded.
There’s a technical term for this too: consumer sophistication.
Your audience has been burnt enough times now that they’ve become skeptical of everything.
They’re hip to all the tactics that have been done to death and on the rare occasions they still fall for them, they end up feeling like dummies and don’t become repeat clients.
And don’t even think about pulling these tactics with millennials. Their B.S. detectors are the strongest and most accurate yet!
Believe or not, this is a good thing. This opens a gorgeous new path for anyone willing to switch tactics.
The businesses and leaders that will shine in 2019 and reach the upper levels of success are those who embrace the principles of enlightened marketing and use them to make a difference in people’s lives.
Best of all, you can think of enlightened marketing as breaking all the (old) rules and becoming the leader of your own movement where people genuinely care about what you’re talking about and want to get closer to you and your offers.
Enlightened marketing is pretty much made for rebels, innovators, passionistas, mission-driven, heart-centered, community-building badasses like you!
It’s made for attracting huge followings of highly-engaged, active, and dedicated fans who can’t wait to share your message with their followers.
And it leads to a steady stream of amazing clients who can’t wait to work with you. More sales with less effort. They come to you!
Because you’re not pushing them, tricking them, pressuring them, or threatening them with countdown timers, pushy sales pitches, manipulative messages, or anything else that treats your audience like a list of transactions instead of stars with hopes and dreams they’ve come to you for help with.
Out with the old, in with the new
So, what you’re seeing happen right now in the online space is the tail end of the dinosaurs who are trying to squeeze the last drops of easy money out of the market before retiring.
Which leaves millions of aspiring business owners looking for a strategy to market authentically to stand out from all the noise and actually reach their ideal customers.
Challenge accepted!
Real To Ideal is burning down the ruins of archaic marketing and showing revolutionary leaders, rebellious business owners, and thought leaders how to use these innovative marketing tactics to change the world.
Marketing designed to help you rise up, stand out, engage your audience, and expand your reach for bigger impact AND income.
Not because it helps our bottom line, but because every business we boost is a business that’s making the world a better place for everyone.
When (r)Evolutionary businesses and thought leaders succeed, we all succeed!
Our goal is to change society by changing the way online businesses work together to solve global problems.
Real To Ideal is saving the world, one business at a time.
Through enlightened marketing.
That’s our mission, our creative outlet, our passion, our work, and our play.
Don’t get me wrong, enlightened marketing isn’t new and there are already many inspiring (and successful) multi-million dollar companies using it every day to make the world a better place for everyone. We’ve learned from the best!
And we’re going to show you how to use those big-budget techniques on a shoestring budget to double your impact and income in 2019.
If you’re interested in switching all your marketing efforts into enlightened marketing, click here to get in touch.
If you’re interested in learning how to DIY your enlightened marketing efforts (or just get a stronger taste of what goes into enlightened marketing), start by signing up for this free guide to 7 enlightened marketing tactics and how to use them in your business:
