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Marketing Framework
FIRST WE COMPLETE YOUR BUSINESS OUTLINE.
THIS IS THE FOUNDATION ON WHICH YOUR ENTIRE BUSINESS IS BUILT.
LET'S GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.
Branding Strategy
Your brand is more than just a logo and color scheme. Your business brand is the feeling that people get when they hear about your company. Your brand is what they picture in their mind when someone brings up your products and services. If you don't control that thought process, then different people will have different ideas of your brand.
Your brand identity needs to be deliberate and focused. This ensures that your vision for your company is translated clearly and effectively for your employees and your clients. The key element of your brand is your logo, and your websites, social media, print, and all marketing materials should always include your logo and other brand elements. Your brand is what you are promising to your employees and customers and your logo is your business's signature to seal that promise.
First, we'll review your current content, platforms and ideas to identify your current brand identity. If it's not the image we want to convey we will fix it. If it looks good, then we'll just focus on emphasizing your brand going forward.
Business Color Palette
Part of your brand is the colors you use. Each color has meaning and causes a reaction to those who see it. Putting different colors together can even change the perception of the viewer. If you choose red as a color staple because it invokes power and confidence, then you add yellow, now your customers could be reminded of ketchup and mustard rather than the power you're looking to convey.
We will work together to identify and build a set of colors that look attractive together, be identifiable as your business colors and incorporate them as much as possible in your future marketing materials.
Logo
Your logo is your business signature on all your work. Its your way of promising a consistent and predictable result to your customer. If you use your logo on a contract and fail to deliver, now your logo and your reputation are diminished. Just like if you give your word you'll do something and fail to deliver.
First, we want to create a clean, professional, unique, and recognizable logo for your business that everyone can see and know. Then we include it on everything you produce as your stamp of approval. Lastly we work on ensuring your business delivers on all its promises to make sure your logo goes up in value as your business develops.
Vision, Mission, Tagline, & Values
What are you fighting for? What do you stand behind? What direction are you going? These things should be clear not only to you but to your employees and to your customers as well. By establishing a clearly defined vision statement, mission statement, tagline and core values for your company, you are committing to your cause.
When you hire people, you can check them against your values. When you are dealing with a customer or speculating taking on a new product or service, you can use your Vision and Mission statements as your guideline to make sure you are true to the identity of the business.
The best time to select these business essentials is during your startup. If you skipped this step, don't worry. You can do it now and start refining all your procedures and policies to ensure they stand up to your standards.
Business Summary
What do you do? This is slightly different than writing your elevator pitch. Pretend you're on television and someone asks you to summarize your company. That's this. If you're at a cocktail party or tips club and looking for leads, that would be the time to use your elevator pitch.
Your business summary can be more than one sentence and, as Simon Sinek coined, should "start with why". For example Sharper Steel's summary is:
"We believe in growing and stabilizing the New Mexico economy through policy, new opportunities, education, and technology. We do this by focusing on the private business sector and providing business owners the tools to succeed in business and impact their communities. Some of the tools we provide are: full-service scaling and marketing, succession planning and business acquisition, business mentorship and ownership programs, and business consulting services to reinforce businesses."
Elevator Pitch
This is the short and sweet 30-60 second pitch for telling people what you do. The trick here is to include utility and curiosity. If you say "I'm a real estate agent" the conversation naturally tapers off. Its challenging for the listener to think of unique things to say in reply. Instead if you set them up for the conversation to flow naturally, you can continue talking about your business without being a burden. For example:
Rather than "We do marketing" I could say "I take businesses from any stage and launch them to the next level using conventional and non-conventional marketing, operations systems, and secret tricks I've learned over the years of business development."
This way people can jump onto any piece of that and ask questions like, "what else have you done?" "what are non-conventional marketing?" "so you'll work with a startup business?" etc.
Company Voice & Personality
When you're posting on Facebook or Twitter, what do people think of you. Are you the life to be envied? Are you the grammar nazi correcting posts? Are you sarcastic like Wendy's? Are you funny and quick? Are you informative and professional? Maybe you're the meme-queen?
Your business will have a voice and personality as well. If you pick one ahead of time, then all your posts, comments, and materials can reflect that personality. It can be challenging to change a business personality so make sure the one you pick works well with your employees, customers, and industry.
Customer Profile Development
You may have heard this called a "customer avatar". They're the same thing. This is the time where you map out your ideal client/customer and then try to create an entire demographic and lifestyle persona for that ideal customer. Then when you make posts or write emails, you always act like you are writing to that persona and ask yourself "what would this person want to hear right now?"
I buy businesses from Baby Boomers, modernize and optimize them, then give them to Millennials. My profile is: a white male, 70 years old, married with adult kids, been running his business 30-40 years. Business is doing well. Kids don't want to take over or can't. Business owner doesn't want to close his doors but doesn't know what else to do. His wife is pressuring him to retire and be done. The business makes between 500k and $5 Million per year and has a great reputation.
Now I know when I write things to use large font, to speak like I would to an older person (since I'm a Millennial) to be sure to include my experience and time in the military in conversation to build credibility. These tactics came from the statistics of my target audience and now I can focus my efforts.
Market Research
Always be sure to do your homework before you begin. Figure out who is providing similar products or services. Who is competing with you. Who is helping you. Who provides what you need as a supplier? Who buys from you? How many are there to buy? How frequently do they need to purchase? What other things do they look for? What makes them buy? When do they buy? Where do they look? These and many more are questions you want covered before you get too deep and invested.