Knowing the data and your audience are vital pieces of information that will positively impact your audience and set you apart from other businesses, but if you don’t know how to market your business, people will never find you.
Before we start talking about how to market your business, let’s define a few terms. A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular mission or goal. A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It is the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to your business. Marketing is defined as the action or business of promoting and selling products, including market research and advertising.
Knowing all this, the question you probably have is “how do I effectively apply them?” Let’s dig in. Before you can start working on our marketing plan, you must define your marketing goal. Sometimes the goal will be brand awareness; sometimes it will be to generate new customers. Once you have defined your goal, you can start creating the strategies needed to make it a reality.
Let’s pretend your goal is to launch a new product. The strategies would be building product awareness, attracting current customers to try it and attracting new customers. Each of these strategies ensure your new product sales will increase. For each strategy, you will create a plan of action—daily exercises you can do to ensure you reach your goal.
Looking at each strategy, you will need to define what methods of communication you will use. Will you do direct marketing, social media, print advertisements, sales? There is no right or wrong answer. Rather, what you want to achieve and the data you have about your target audience will define the marketing methods you will use.
Once you have determined your marketing methods or what platforms you will use, you will create the ads or posts. This is the fun part: the time you get to be creative. If you are choosing to use print ads, social media, and a website popup, you will need to create unique content for each platform. And depending on which social media sites you are on, different posts may be necessary. Before you start to create content, make sure you have a copy of your branding guide handy. The single most important thing you can do is to make sure all content is branded. Next, list each platform you will use, breaking social media down by sites. Then, focusing on one platform at a time, create content designed to appeal to your target audience that is clearly branded. Make sure you list key words, lead-in statements and hashtags. Before you finish this step, make sure you either schedule all the ads or assign someone to schedule them.
When writing your content, use the ladder method. Picture a ladder. Starting at the top, state what personal value the product gives your customer. Next, list and[1] review the personal benefits of using the product. What emotions do you want your audience to feel? Of these emotions, which are key?
Now look at the bottom of the ladder. What is the key product feature? What sets this product apart from others? What are the product benefits? If you took the key feature of the product, what is the key feature you feel will make your audience want to buy the product? What is the result of this key feature? What is the ultimate benefit? Combine the key emotions with the key benefits, and you will have the perfect content for your ads.
Once launched, it is vital for you to follow the analytics, so you are ready to pivot and adapt as needed. No matter how well you research your target audience, the human factor can play a vital role. We cannot predict human behavior. Closely watching the analytics or data will let you know what works and what changes need to be made.
This method will ensure you create the most engaging marketing pieces to meet your goals. It will also help you learn more about your audience.
Sara Orellana is an independent entrepreneur who specializes in strategic planning, leadership, and grant writing. She can be reached at sara@3raptorconsulting.com.