Demystifying Marketing - Five tips for businesses

For many businesses, marketing can sound like a big, daunting and expensive task or that you need to be degree qualified to “do marketing”.

This misconception can often lead to business owners avoiding marketing, leading them to miss out on sales and affecting their bottom line.

But...it doesn’t have to be daunting, nor does it have to be expensive. It does, however, need to be consistent and ultimately focused on understanding your customer and solving their needs. 

To help you get started, we have created a simple guide to help your business refresh and refocus your marketing to build and retain customers for life.

1. Know Your Customer (and what they need… not what you think they need) 

It builds trust and connection with your business and brand. Think of your customers like a friend - you wouldn’t treat them all the same. Like being a good friend - think about your customers in terms of what their needs are and how you can help them. And just like a friend, communicate regularly with them. It builds trust and connection with your business and brand. 

In doing so, it’s important that your focus is always on your customer and their needs. Not the business, but theirs. And when you are telling them about your business, it’s always with them front of mind. 

But like friends, not all customers are the same. And that’s why it’s so important to NOT think of your customers as one big group, but to drill down and and think about them as individuals. That is where persona development comes in. 

Persona development is like describing your best friends - the ones that are the most important to you. Same in your business, your customer personas define your most important customers - the ones that need your business the most and the ones you can best look after.  

The more you know about your customers, the more you are able to understand their motivations, desires, and thinking patterns. In doing this, you are better equipped to tailor your products and services to meet their needs and refine your marketing message to make sure it resonates with them every time and...any money spent, is well spent. 

TOP TIP: Create your friend circle  - aka a series of personas, give them a name so you can easily refer to them. Define their story, their needs and wants, what channels they use, and how they would like to be marketed to. From here you can tailor your marketing to reach them. 

2. Your Promise (otherwise known as Value Proposition)

Now that you understand your audience and their needs, it’s important to make sure that your promise, or value proposition is meaningful, clear and helps solve the needs of your customers. What is the product or service you’re offering and how does it meet the needs of and create value for your customers? This is what your customer wants to hear.

Ensuring you’re always focused on your customer will help you craft meaningful and relevant messages. Most importantly, is ensuring you can deliver on this promise. Ensuring the customer experience is seamless and approachable from first connection through to post purchase will ensure you build brand advocates who will help do your marketing for you - otherwise known as word of mouth - the most powerful marketing channel of them all!

TOP TIP: Make sure you’re communicating a meaningful message that the customer can relate to. It’s important to put real time into considering what you want to say and always keep the customer front of mind.

3. Share your Story (content that matters)

It’s noisy out there - so many channels to talk to your customers and so many brands all trying to compete for attention. 

So how do you cut through the noise?

Tell your story in a clear, authentic and memorable way.

Written content needs to be digestible in that it can be skimmed and understood by the customer within 60-90 seconds, shareable on various channels, and with accessibility front of  mind. Content including blog posts and articles need to be developed with clear goals and objectives - what is the content trying to achieve? It’s important to use basic SEO strategies including: descriptions on images and videos, keywords, and headlines for conversion (here is a guide on some fundamental SEO principles).

One of the most popular and engaging forms of content is video. Depending on the platform, will depend on the best length for your video. As well as length, videos need to be created in multiple formats to suit the channel you are posting. Importantly, your video should be inclusive and include correct captions so that viewers can watch videos on silent mode and are accessible by all (we use rev.com for captions). 

TOP TIP: Pull back and focus on what works and what is smart - adopt a ‘thinking’ view of marketing. Communicate when you need to, not just because you can. 

BONUS TIP: Publish and recycle evergreen content that addresses topics in a way that doesn’t date the piece. This is important in your content plan as content can be posted and reposted without regard to seasonality or timeliness.

 
4. Speak to your customers where they want to hear

Many businesses have a diverse digital presence across various channels and platforms, which, in some cases can be more cumbersome than practical. 

The key to successful marketing on social media is to ensure that the channel you’re active on is the right channel that suits your customers. Social media is one of the most informative and interactive touch points you can have with your customers to provide regular updates and grow customer relationships. 

Your website should be the single source of truth with all the necessary information, and is easy to navigate and interact with. When designing your website, writing your website copy and selecting images, again, think only about your customer (not what you like) so that they have the best user experience possible. Great user experience = more time on your website = a higher chance of converting your customers. Make sure all assets (copy, image and videos) are concise and reflect your business’ brand tone and positioning. 

In some instances, you may have an additional presence online with various listings across platforms. These can be either free or paid subscriptions - the more digital visibility you have, the better. Though it is important that they are the right channels and that your content is always relevant and accurate. 

TOP TIP: Ensure you have a register of your channels (owned and external channels). Set a biannual calendar reminder to review your channels (websites, social media profiles, and online listings) and update with new imagery and revised copy if there are any changes to your product and service offering. 

5. The devil is in the data 

Finally, but so important is data. A business is successful when it reflects and learns on what’s working and what’s not.

Data doesn’t need to be scary. Firstly, focus on what information you need to know, then, what you want to know. You will be surprised what you thought was happening vs. what's actually happening when you make use of the data available.

Marketing is not a set and forget exercise. Without an attitude to always learning and iterating, you could potentially blow your marketing budget and have no idea why!

By adopting a ‘test and learn’ approach to marketing, you are able to refine and make constant improvements as well as try new things like personalisation or A B testing, common on platforms like Facebook for example.

TOP TIP: Review activities monthly and look at how you’re tracking with marketing activity and make small iterative changes as you go. Don’t be afraid to ask yourself the question: What happens if we try this? And then, try it and see. Test and learn.