MARKETING
This week is all about getting the word out. We will cover...
- Customer Personas
- Brand Storytelling
- Marketing Plan - Goals/Tactics/Measurement
- Brand Standards
Step 1: Customer Personas
Customer personas are detailed representations of segments within your target audience. Fueled by data-driven research, they map the “who” behind the buying decisions of your products or services. Insights from customer personas can help improve copy, tailor targeting, and inform product development.
Buyer personas are incredibly important for market segmentation. They allow you to segment your customers into different groups.
Knowing the different motivations and purchasing habits of your customers will allow you to target different groups appropriately.
Buyer persona research will ensure that your market uses the voice of your buyers. It is essential that you invest in proper keyword research to make sure you speak their language.
This builds a bond of trust with your buyers that leads them into the buying process. Buyer personas grant you the ability to effectively focus on understanding your buyers’ expectations, so that you can create and market what your buyers are seeking.
It’s likely your customers have evolved since you launched your business. Oftentimes our business grows and we just keep picking up new customer segments. Sometimes it’s difficult to say “no” to someone who wants to hand you money!
Before you set growth goals it's important to pause and revisit your ideal customer persona (or personas).
Two important points before you dive in...
Narrow Your Scope
Understanding that segments represent a portion of your audience instead of everyone is a great start. Once you acknowledge that there are different people with their unique struggles and long-term goals, the easier it will be to develop personas that match your visitors.
Allow Customers to Self-Segment
Another great way to learn about your customers, specifically your email subscribers, is to allow them to self-segment. In other words, when people buy from you or fill out your contact form, let them pick the topics that they want to hear more about.
Using this strategy, you can personalize your marketing emails by creating campaigns for each segment. When you send out highly relevant emails, you have a better chance of getting consumers to click through your email and, eventually, land on your website.
TEMPLATES TO EXPLORE
You will be asked to outline your customer persona (personas) in your master template.
Step 2: Brand Storytelling
Now that you know who you are speaking to, it's time to revisit your brand story…
Brand storytelling is the art of shaping a company’s identity through the use of narratives and storytelling techniques that facilitate an emotional response and establish meaningful connections.
When done correctly, research shows the powerful impact storytelling can have on us:
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- Stories are 22 times more memorable than facts & figures alone
- Our neural activity increases 5X when listening to a story
- Storytelling lights up the sensory cortex in the brain, allowing the listener to feel, hear, taste, and even smell the story
As a result, in a time when captivating consumer attention is the ultimate commodity, it has never been more important for companies to tell the right stories. The stories that stop us in our tracks, the stories that move us to tears, the stories that challenge us and change our perspective.
A brand story recounts the series of events that sparked your company’s inception and expresses how that narrative still drives your mission today. Just like your favorite books and movies’ characters, if you can craft a compelling brand story, your audience will remember who you are, develop empathy for you, and, ultimately, care about you.
At their core, stories are about overcoming adversity. So if there’s no conflict presented, there’s no drama or emotional journey that people can relate to. And if your story has no drama or emotional journey, it won’t hold anyone’s attention -- let alone resonate with and inspire them.
Unfortunately, in the business world, brands are horrified to reveal any adversity or conflict they’ve faced. They believe that spinning a rosy, blemish-free story about how their company only experiences hockey stick growth will convince people that they’re the industry’s best-in-class solution. Any adversity or conflict during their company’s history will expose their imperfections, deterring potential customers from buying their product.
Great example - Founder of the Sash Bag - Nichole MacDonald. Listen to her tell her story in this podcast.
But, in reality, this is a huge misconception. Nothing’s perfect. Everything, including companies (especially companies), has flaws. Plus, people don’t relate to perfection. They relate to the emotional journey of experiencing adversity, struggling through it, and, ultimately, overcoming it. Because, in a nutshell, that’s the story of life.
Conflict is key to telling compelling stories. So be transparent about the adversity your company has faced, and own it. The more honest you are about your shortcomings, the more people will respect you and relate to your brand.
Conflict isn’t the only thing you should focus on when crafting your brand story. A compelling story has two other fundamental elements -- the status quo and resolution.
The status quo is the way things are or the initial nature of your situation. The conflict disrupts this situation and puts something at stake, forcing the protagonist (your brand) to actively find a solution to this problem. The resolution describes how the protagonist solves the problem, giving your audience an emotional payoff.
In sum, your brand’s story structure should look like this -- status quo, conflict, and resolution. It’s as simple as that.
Don’t make it all about you - Make Your Customers the Star
Telling customer stories is a great way to connect and create buzz. Soap isn’t very exciting, but Dove makes an impact by taking a stand on real beauty, showcasing average-looking women in all their glory. Ten years have elapsed since the beginning of the award-winning Real Beauty campaign, and Dove has expanded the idea to include men…and their stories. Here is a great example!
Giving your customers the spotlight is easy. Ask them to submit stories, photos, or videos featuring your product, and then share their stories on social media. By showcasing your customers, you build goodwill and get the benefit of their reach.
Step 3: Building Your Marketing Plan & Process
Without a plan, it’s very easy to convince yourself that your overall objectives are being worked on, when in fact you may be getting further away from them every quarter. A written marketing plan ensures that there’s coordination between these potentially conflicting elements of your overall strategy.
Here are a few reasons...
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- It forces you to think
The act of physically composing a marketing plan forces you to formulate and articulate your thinking about your customers, your product, and how you bring those two things together. Explicitly thinking about these things is important. Talking about them with the other members of your team, particularly the team members who will be carrying out the plan, is crucial.
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- A plan creates a set of measurable goals
Far too often, small businesses settle for “sell more next year than last year” and “don’t go broke” as metrics for gauging their success. Measurable goals create tangible targets for you and your people to work towards. Tangible targets increase performance far more than nebulous “just don’t fail” hopes.
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- It motivates your organization
The human brain is outstanding at taking purely arbitrary goals and making them super important. This can be problematic, but it can also work for you. People will literally go the extra mile to get that last sale if “Make ten sales per week” is their goal, because the pleasure we get from achieving the goal makes it worth it—even when we set the goal ourselves.
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- A plan helps you organize your time and your priorities
You only have so many hours in the day, and only so many of those hours are tasked to marketing functions. You either prioritize and do the important things first, or you flail. Flailing is not a success strategy; having a plan shows you on a daily basis which marketing actions are in accordance with your plan and thus high on your priority list.
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- A plan puts everybody on the same page
The importance of consistency in marketing cannot be overemphasized. When you have a marketing plan, then everyone on your team knows what the plan is. It’s not just a set of concepts in your brain or hidden in a secret memo. Letting everyone know what the plan is makes it possible for everyone to follow the plan.
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- You’ll spend your money more wisely
Like your time, your marketing budget is finite. Deciding what your priorities are in advance lets you husband your resources accordingly, instead of spending when it seems like a good idea. In addition, having a plan means that when a great deal or new strategy comes onto the scene, you can immediately know whether it’s worth pursuing.
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- You’ll be proactive and not reactive
Reactivity is a besetting problem for small businesses, because we often simply don’t have the resources to anticipate everything days or weeks in advance. That can be a strength, because small business tends to be very flexible and able to handle shifting conditions quickly, but it also makes carrying out a disciplined course of action more difficult. Having a written plan gives you the ability to know what your reaction to things ought to be *in advance*, which lets you preposition your response when you see things coming.
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- It provides a reality check between your overall objectives and your marketing strategy
There are a lot of different objectives your business might be pursuing. Maybe you want to be the industry leader in your field, maybe you want to have the highest growth rate, maybe you want to have the best-compensated employee base. Whatever your objectives are, your company’s marketing is what’s going to finance them.
Reflection questions…
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- What does your current marketing entail?
- What’s working?
- What’s missing?
- Where are the bottlenecks?
- Who do you need to bring into the process - existing employees or contractors?
- What sort of budget do you need to allocate for this?
TO DO! MAKE A COPY OF THIS MARKETING/CONTENT PLAN TEMPLATE AND ADD THAT LINK TO TAB 3 OF YOUR MASTER SPREADSHEET.
Here is a video on how to use this spreadsheet - also linked in the first tab of this spreadsheet.
Often Underutilized Tactics
Public Relations - The Power of Media Attention
Getting on the morning news may not land you any new customers but it gives you credibility.
Examples
This is amazing SEO juice (especially if it’s coming from an authority site) and important content for your website and social media.
Keys to Working with the Media
Build relationships
Take some time to get to know the media and what topics they find interesting. Have you recently read an interesting article about a new development in your industry? Share that information with your favorite blogger or journalist.
Don’t just reach out when you’re trying to pitch to them. Building a relationship will help open up a friendly dialogue with reporters and may not only increase your chances of future coverage the next time you call, but can even cause the media to check in with you, instead.
Do your homework
While you know to look for reporters that cover your industry or the subject of your news, in many cases you need to dig deeper. Really study a journalist and what they currently write about or cover. Read/watch their work and comment via their site and social channels. NEVER pitch a journalist before you know that they cover your industry segment. This strengthens your outreach by providing better targeting and recognizing the appropriate channel with which to reach out to journalists.
Respect their time
With staff cutbacks, some reporters are being tasked with doing more on their jobs – just as you are. Keep your pitches brief, succinct and to the point. Don’t use a phone conversation to give all the details. The more information you provide by way of links, video, photos and other helpful information goes a long way in gaining the respect and attention from reporters.
Have a conversation
Social media provides the perfect opportunity to engage with the media as many journalists use social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to engage with the public. Beyond likes, follow them and reshare their content. They will notice, especially if you have a decent following.
Keep in mind that your messages to journalists, even on social networking sites, should be relevant and have substance. Preference also matters: some reporters still prefer e-mail and ask to not be pitched on social Networks.
Traditional media’s credibility and authority resonates with organizations who still want to see coverage from these kinds of media outlets. When used together, traditional media can help give you content for your social media, while also helping your SEO.
How to Pitch the Media - One of the best interviews we've found...
https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/334432
Nominations for Awards
Most women are not great at tooting their own horn. That’s why it’s helpful to have someone on your team (or a publicist) do this for you. It’s easiest to start locally. Have someone create a list of publications and organizations that host awards events. For example www.NAWBO.org has chapters across the country, and all have some sort of Female Business Owner Awards program. For example, San Diego has the annual BRAVA Awards - www.BRAVAawards.org.
The benefit of being nominated is that you are often automatically referred to as a "finalist" (that’s right, you only need to say you are a “finalist”... don’t worry about “winning”) is significant for your personal exposure & company exposure. This recognition is great for new speaking and media opportunities and it looks nice on your bio!
Create an e-Course
A great example of out of the box thinking is Blue Bottle Coffee - they created an entire course on Skillshare on how to brew the perfect cup of coffee at home. To date, they have had over 30,000 people take the course, and it’s just an hour’s worth of content that their baristas would probably go through for training.
Blue Bottle Coffee have also done some coffee table books and a coloring book for kids.
This is not only amazing brand awareness, it’s a great way to add value to your consumers in completely unexpected formats.
How will you think outside the box in your marketing?
Step 4: Brand Standards - Style Guide
This is critical as you grow, as you will continue to distance yourself from approving everything that goes out the door - from contractors, employees, and partners.
A brand guide is the set of rules that a business or organization follows when presenting their brand to the world. It details things like the story, voice and audience of a company to ensure consistency across all communication channels.
Style Guides go beyond basic color, font, and logo usage to provide a very detailed road map of how commonly used website elements should look and be used, such as buttons, form inputs, navigation systems, headings, body text, etc.
Style Guides offer two incredible benefits to your organization—the ability to create a consistent look and feel throughout the site, and a tool which affords designers and developers with a way to easily and quickly create new marketing materials.
Not a full style guide, but you have a tab in your Marketing/Content Plan for this too (Assets)
Great examples from Canva
