Do You Need Clarity in Your Marketing Message?

Everyone appreciates an objective third-party perspective.

Each time I meet with a coaching client for the first time, my goal is to provide some clarity and help them see things that they may have missed by being too "in it". In most cases, the owners and creatives I meet with know their stuff... they just need a little guidance in the right direction.

Many times, their reason for starting the business in the first place gets blurred or even forgotten. I think it's important to stay connected to that passion even if that means the passion has shifted. It's about awareness about, where you started and where you want to go. 

It's not easy to see the entire map when we're in the middle of the road. 

Here is a fun little clarity exercise to try:

Step #1: Write or record an explanation of your business without looking at any of your marketing assets. Just write/record freely without any references and try your best not to edit yourself.

• What inspired the creation of your business?
• What products/services do you make/provide?
• Who do you sell to?
• What do you love most about the business? What brings you the most joy?

Step #2: Look at your marketing assets (website, brochures, social platforms, business cards, hangtags, etc.) - Ask yourself if they all convey the same information/story as your clarity exercise did. 

When things don't jive, this creates confusion for you and for your customers. 

If you found inconsistencies, fix them so that every aspect of your message is cohesive and authentic to your story. 

This is actually the first thing I do when I provide a consultation with a potential coaching client. I want to see if what they tell me verbally about their business is the same thing that is being conveyed on their website, social platforms, etc.

Providing this kind of third-party perspective is one of the things I love most about coaching/consulting. I get to view the business like a potential customer might and give them truly unbiased feedback. 

Try the clarity exercise and PLEASE share your findings with me either confidentially via email at arica@writtenandstyled.com or be extra brave and post it here in the comments. :)

-Arica

image by Jordan McQueen via unsplash

Inspiring Examples of How to Create Content with Value

What is content marketing? To keep it simple, I see content marketing as the voice of your brand and what you consistently put out into the world that conveys the value of your business, products and services. The content itself must be useful and relevant to your audience. You want your audience to look forward to what you have to provide. Just because it's free, doesn't mean people automatically want it.

The most important aspect is that it provides value. 

Content Marketing can take on many forms. Here are a few vehicles for content marketing:

• Videos
• Books
• Infographics
• Podcasts
• How-to Guides
• Testimonials
• Blog Posts...wink wink ;)
• Lookbooks

Ok, what about the actual content?

When I'm working on content, I find having too many options is actually stifling. It's easy to get overwhelmed and fear there is something else better out there I could be providing. What can help is to actually give yourself boundaries. For content creation, here are three types of value you can bring:

You can...

• Entertain
• Educate
• Inspire

If you're like me, things start to click with examples. I pulled a couple that relate to each of the three value buckets listed above. 

You'll love the video below - pinky swear.

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Entertain

#missadventure by Kate Spade New York

In 2014, Kate Spade launched a series of videos featuring Anna Kendrick, Zosia Mamet, Kat Dennings among other fabulous and very likable female actresses, comediennes and even political activists. I dare you to watch just one and not click to the next...

Kate Spade did an AMAZING job of integrating their new product collections into comedic adventures. Yes, you know they want the clothes, shoes and accessories to take center stage, BUT the girls are so impeccably styled, you don't mind and kind of like it.

The Lego Movie

If my little dude wasn't already obsessed with Legos, the Lego movies and other programs have won his heart - and mine. They do such an killer job of making you forget you're excited about paying to essentially watch an advertisement about toys. Genius...

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Educate

Co-Schedule's Headline Analyzer

A brilliant way to provide value to the user regarding how to improve their headline copywriting skills, the FREE headline analyzer provides a score based on the overall structure, grammar and readability of your headline.

With this valuable free resource, Co-Schedule positions themselves as a voice of authority in the space which invites the user to check out other products and services without sales pressure.

Amber Renae's True Colours Kit

For less than a couple of lattes, you can change everything you thought about what colors work best for your skin tone, hair and eye color. I spoke about this on Instagram recently and I'm telling you, I thought I knew what colors suited me best, but I couldn't have been more off!

Amber created a super easy way to determine what "season" you fall into: Winter, Summer, Autumn or Spring. Then she created videos for each and a handy pocket guide so you can reference your best shades when out shopping.

It's a great way to get into the fold with Amber, understand her teaching style and check out her programs and courses on personal branding and presentation. What season are you??

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Inspire

Sharpie Creations

You might think content marketing would be tricky for a company that sells markers. Sharpie thinks outside the box by helping YOU think outside the box.

To inspire current and potential Sharpie fans, they launched a campaign to share all the ways people use the classic permanent marker in crafts, around the house, on clothing, art and more. Website visitors can browse, rate and get inspiration.

The 'Dove Real Beauty Pledge'

Dove has been an inspirational force in the beauty industry for sometime now. In this campaign, Dove invites all women to realize their personal potential for beauty by engaging them with products that deliver superior care.

This concept both encourages and inspires women to be themselves by clearly defining the Dove core values and vows:

1. Feature real women, never models.
2. Portray women as they are in real life.
3. Help girls build body confidence and self-esteem.

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My best advice is to begin by:

1. Determining how you can bring value to your audience.

2. Make a list of the ways that you (or your products/services) can provide value before asking your audience to purchase from you. 

3. Look for even more specific examples within your industry. You never want to steal ideas, but you might get a spark of inspiration for your own content by checking out successful campaigns by your peers or completely different types of businesses that might have a similar audience to yours.

Cheers to creating content with clarity!

-Arica

Getting Started Part 3: Find Your Tribe

Be everything to someone instead of something to everyone.

image lovingly shared from @taramilktea

The idea of putting ourselves and our products out into the world where there is so much competition can be truly scary and sometimes even makes us second guess the very choice to go into business. 

I'm here to tell you, you're not alone. Most people have those nagging thoughts about not being good enough or that no one will buy what they're selling. In fact, you can also look at competition as a positive: it means there is an audience for it. 

The thing is, you are good enough.

You have more wisdom than you realize. I mean look, you may not be the only one selling exquisitely crafted handmade pottery or planning beach weddings, but that doesn't mean you won't be incredibly successful. You just need to keep putting one foot in front of the other, start with the right audience (you're tribe) and be everything to those special people rather than being something to everyone.

This goes back to the first part of this blog series about understanding your value and what makes your product/service unique. In the end, we have to lean on ourselves and what makes us and our expertise special and unique. 

So how do we find and connect with our tribe? 

First, we have to flip it and focus on our ideal customer. We have to understand what is important to them. What problems do they need solved that we can help with. A great way to really visualize your ideal customer is to create a customer persona. Depending on your business, you may have 1-3 personas or as many as 10-15. I would suggest starting with your top 1-3 to get started. 

Questions to consider as you develop your personas are:

• Personal Details (household, job title/industry, aspirations)
• Demographics (age, education, income, location, gender)
• Personality (social engagement, communication preferences, hobbies)
• Goals (what drives them)
• Challenges (biggest pain points)
• Fears (what keeps them up at night)
• Solutions (how does your product or service make their life better)
• I also like to pop in a photo of what the potential person might look like. 

To make it a little easier on you, I've created another freebie download in the form of a Customer Persona Template to keep everything organized in one place. You can get access to it here.

Now, when it comes time to actually fill in the customer personas, there are a few ways to go about it:

1. Interview customers (if you have them). Consider providing an incentive for their participation.
2. Send a survey to subscribers (if you have them). Consider providing an incentive here as well.
3. Analysis of customer purchasing behavior (if you have sales). Look for trends to see what interested past customers to make a purchase.
4. Another really fascinating way to get some great information about your potential audience is with Facebook Audience Insights. You will need to set up a Facebook Business Manager Account via business.facebook.com. Just follow the prompts to set up or you can get more help with this link from Facebook. 

Next we put on our thinking cap and hypothesize about other brands that may be of interest to our tribe. The only caveat here is that you will need to think about brands that have a large Facebook following for there to be enough data. Let's go back to the fictitious brand of children's clothing made with organic cotton that I provided when we worked on defining goals in the second part of this blog series. I would probably be correct to assume that the mother who is purchasing clothing made with organic cotton may very well be interested in purchasing other products for her children made with organic or without potentially harmful ingredients. One business that I would consider a contender would be The Honest Company. They make a wide variety of products for baby, personal care, cleaning, and vitamins made without potentially heath-compromising chemicals or compounds.

To get to Audience Insights in the Facebook Business Manager, just click on the stacked icon, hover over "All Tools" and click "Audience Insights". Here is a screenshot of how to get to Audience Insights. 

I typed in "The Honest Company" into "Interests" within Audience Insights to see if they have enough fans for this experiment - they do. See the other screenshot below for where to go.

That's pretty much it. Now you can tour around and view a bunch of really great information about the audience that likes The Honest Company's Facebook page or any other Fan page that you are able to pull up with enough of a following. Cool stuff, right? 

Now that you have your pep talk from me, all the pertinent questions to consider when crafting your customer personas and some really awesome ways to fill in the information, what's next?

Loves, it's time to start crafting content that will connect with your tribe.

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Thank you so much for reading! I looking forward to continuing to help you tell the story of your brand, products/services through thoughtful, valuable and informative content. 

I hope you found value in this three-part blog post series about getting clarity with your brand. Please get on the list for my weekly email to be the first to know about new free resources, ideas and inspiration to keep you moving forward. 

With love,

Arica

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Getting Started Part 2: Define Goals

"A goal without a plan is just a wish." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Hi Love! Thank you for popping over to read the second part of this series to get our ducks in a row and build a strong foundation of knowledge around your brand. These discussions and exercises will inform how to develop the best strategy to attract customers/clients for your business.

If you haven't had a chance to check out part 1 which helps bring clarity to your mission, you can go here to read and see how I suggest you use the free Brand Clarity Workbook that I created for you.

Ok let's get to it. 

I remember way back when I was in one of my first Director of Marketing roles. The business was growing quickly and I think a lot of times small business owners are too busy to think through a marketing strategy. They just want results, and fast. So it means a lot of trial, error and quick pivots. However, I feel this leads to a lot of confusion and frustration for the people running marketing efforts. As much as we want the owner to be happy and for the business to be successful, we also believe patience can be a virtue. In most cases, marketing initiatives require multiple variations of testing before it can be ruled out. One single change can alter the outcome drastically. For example, the day/time you send an email blast can be huge.

So what do we do? Well, first we need to be clear about our goals. This way when we begin to develop a strategy or when we are creating a single campaign or piece of content, we can always check ourselves to ask, "Is this ___ supporting my main goal?" It will help avoid a lot of wasted time on potential projects that don't support the goal. Sometimes you have to know when to say no to efforts that are not the right move in the current state of your business.

Now, when I say "goal", I'm speaking in general terms, but it's important to break down and clear some confusion around the differences between goals, objectives, strategies and tactics.

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GOALS: The easiest way to think of a goal is that it's the "What" not the "How". Goals are what you want to accomplish as a broad primary outcome. 

Example for a children's clothing brand, their "goal" might be: To be the preferred choice of organic cotton, casual children's clothing for suburban mothers in the United States. 

It doesn't matter if the goal is lofty. The point is to keep everyone in the company focused on efforts that support this main outcome.

OBJECTIVES: Here is where we get a bit more realistic and measurable. Objectives outline necessary steps to achieve the primary goal. Think of objectives as actions, such as: increase, double, sell, deliver, convert.

Example for the same children's brand: Grow an email list of women ages 27 - 45 with children, who reside in suburban communities. 

STRATEGIES:  A strategy is the "How" and also the "Why" when it comes to fulfilling the objectives that relate to the main goal. It's both because the strategy is speaking to what the approach will be and it's why you are taking it. Might be easier to understand in the example.

Example for the children's brand: Create authority and credibility via endorsements of the clothing brand and designs by collaborating with top mom bloggers and editors.

TACTICS: These are all the action items to be fulfilled in order to carry out the strategy that will meet objectives and support the main goal.

Example list of potential tactics for the children's brand as it relates to the overall goal, objective and strategy outlined above:

1. Compile list of potential bloggers and editors for outreach.

2. Coordinate a photoshoot to showcase product.

3. Design a visual representation of collection (potentially a digital lookbook).

4. Outreach to media with pitch, imagery and offer of physical samples (or actually provide).

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Now that we have the difference between goals, objectives, strategies and tactics clear, I invite you to download my free Goal Worksheet and fill in based on your particular business.

As always, feel free to share with me via arica@writtenandstyled.com if you have questions or would like feedback. 

Don't miss Part 3 next week, where we will close out this series with a discussion all around determining your target audience and why it's so important to get clear now before you start creating content. I'll be sharing some really interesting ways to use Facebook as a tool to get tons of great data. Sign up here to be the first to know about the post. 

Cheers to creating content with clarity!

-Arica