6 Proven Strategies Helping Introverts Easily and Effortlessly Market Themselves

"I hate to market myself" is a very common complaint I hear from many of my clients. Some are introverts, who are naturally averse to self-promotion, while others just don't realize that they also wear the hat of Marketing Director when they start their own business and unhappily discover that they are responsible for getting their own clients and customers. Trust me, it's imperative that you get over this stigma (or move beyond it), for without marketing, nothing happens.

What are the best ways for introverts to promote themselves in a way that doesn't feel overly promotional? Here are 6 proven strategies to help introverts easily and effortlessly market themselves:

1. Stepping into the shoes of your ideal client and target market. Do you understand what your target market needs and what their problems are? What about the biggest pain or complaint of your ideal client? Being able to accurately describe both your target market and your ideal client will help you greatly in understanding them. Take 30 minutes and jot down some notes about both and see if you can craft your target market profile and ideal client profile. Once you have created these, your copywriting for your web site, your ezine, and your emails becomes so much easier, because you can create each piece of your marketing content as though you're sitting down and having a one-on-one conversation with a specific ideal client or member of your target market. What you have to say then feels authentic and not salesy at all.

2. Discover and use your "profitable essence." I borrowed this term from visability expert Nancy Marmolejo. By this I mean discovering what you're brilliant at doing and getting recognition (and money) to do what you do best. Once you figure out what makes you unique, the notion of selling yourself dissipates, as you then find yourself effortlessly doing what comes naturally to you.

3. Share your knowledge. Introverts often value knowledge over people, and so what someone knows becomes more important than who someone knows. Because introverts enjoy research and amassing knowledge, it becomes very easy for introverts to share what they know. How can you do this online? Easy. By writing a new article every week that is published online. Or, by publishing a weekly email newsletter. Perhaps you offer a value-packed giveaway from your web site that entices visitors to sign up on your list. Or, you offer much of what you know about a topic on your authority web site.

4. Teach what you know. Introverts may not realize that skills that they have are unique to themselves and aren't a skillset that everyone possesses. Once realizing their uniqueness, many introverts like to teach others about what they know. This might mean delivering your signature speech at in-person association meetings, or perhaps holding a teleseminar or webinar and presenting your information online. Or, perhaps you seek out opportunities to be interviewed where you set the tone of the interview by providing a list of questions to be asked.

5. Seek out for 1:1 opportunities. Introverts function much better in small groups or 1:1 than we do in crowds. So, seek out opportunities to speak 1:1 with someone. Perhaps you answer questions on an online forum or ask others to submit questions to you. Or, you request prospects to set up 20-minute strategy sessions with you so that you can get a feel for what they might need and you can demonstrate to them what you can offer to them.

6. Network selectively. Yes, you can network as an introvert, but not all networking opportunities are created equal. The key here is finding groups in which you feel comfortable.

One of my favorite networking groups held monthly meetings where there was a guest speaker on a relevant topic. Part of the meeting entailed being seated with 7 other women where each of us got to deliver a 60-second elevator speech to the others seated at the table. If we wanted to know more, we passed our business cards with a note on the back to a particular speaker to follow up after the meeting or at a later time. Each meeting typically involved 2-3 rounds like this, so at the end of a meeting, each of us had a list of people who were eager and willing to hear from us. I loved this group because it structured my networking for me and I didn't have to make idle chit-chat with people I didn't know.

Another option is to participate in an online social network, like Facebook or Twitter, which gives you the ideal opportunity to connect with like-minded people 1:1 virtually.

Marketing isn't an evil part of business for the introvert. Think of marketing as an extension of sharing yourself and your expertise with others who desperately need what you have to offer. These 6 strategies will help you successfully market yourself without sacrificing your natural introverted tendencies.