Marketing | INTRODUCTION
Concepts, Practices, Resources

Get Clear About Your
Core Marketing Message
Martha Carnahan

Many entrepreneurs ask me, “How do I get started? Where do I begin with marketing?”

I often see businesses spend a great deal of time and money on logos, websites, mailers and other tangible items, only to regretfully discover later that they somehow missed the mark.

To create a business-generating marketing program, the first direction to go is inward. Before you create your outward-reaching promotional materials, you've got to get a fix on your internal Core Marketing Message — in other words, what value are you selling, and why should anyone care?

Once you walk through the process of identifying your Core Marketing Message Platform, it becomes much easier to create all of the “goodies” of marketing — logo direction becomes clear, the website flows, taglines pop to mind, marketing strategies hum. Your Platform is exactly that, the springboard for everything else.

So before you think about colors, design, what to write in your brochure or website, start with the following questionnaire.

TIP: Your answers don’t have to be perfect. Just jot down the first thoughts that come to mind and go back later to refine it until your Platform rings true for you.

WHO is your target market?
Think of your best clients — list the qualities that make them ideal. This is your wish list, so no holding back. If it’s important that they are pleasant to work with and have the means to pay you well — say so now! What is their specific title or profession? Can they be categorized easily? List every important quality you can come up with. Consider geography, gender, age, income level, values, interests, etc.

EXAMPLE: My target market is small business owners who provide professional services such as accounting, architecture, engineering, IT, coaching, consulting. They operate their businesses with a high degree of integrity, they value building relationships with their clients and they are interested in growing their companies. Also, they are enjoyable to work with and they appreciate a good laugh!

What PROBLEMS do your potential buyers face? List 5 distinct problems, issues, pains, predicaments, challenges, worries, fears – even if they seem unrelated to the services you offer. Write these succinctly and clearly.

How does your service SOLVE these problems? For each of the 5 problems/pains listed, spell out your solution – what results do you produce; what can your clients expect to get out of your work with them? Don’t just list your services here. Instead, specify the end-result benefit they will receive.

EXAMPLE: If the problem is, “They never have enough time,” your response to that might be, “My services take the pressure off my clients and give them less to deal with.” (Notice that this could apply in just about any industry!) The solution is not your service per se, it is the time-saving result your service translates into.

What EMOTIONAL gratification do your clients get from your services? Sounds corny, but no matter what your business is, if you are serving people, you need to be able to tap into the emotions that motivate them.

EXAMPLE: Your clients feel a sense of "pride" because they have improved skills; "confidence" that they will provide better outcomes for their own customers; "relief" that they will more easily meet some legal requirement, "joy," etc.

What are the UNIQUE advantages of your service over your competition?  Let’s talk about differentiation – what makes you stand apart from your competitors? What makes you memorable, special? This includes your distinct blend of past experience, your personal philosophies and ways of working with people, your approach, your values, and simply, just the way you are. One great place to start – what are some compliments you frequently hear from other people?

TIP: It can feel uncomfortable to boldly claim your own special qualities. It helps to take the focus off of your modest self and consider your clients – how do they benefit from your specialness? Put yourself in the shoes of the Jimmy Stewart character in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” What would be different about the world if you were not here? Seriously ask yourself this question, and your special attributes will emerge for you.

ELEVATOR Speech. Now that you are thinking so deeply about your business, your clients, and how your services bring value to them… take a stab at writing a direct, 25-word-or-less description that clearly conveys WHAT you do and WHOM you serve. Bring in some of the emotional gratification you provide and the uniqueness of who you are.

Example: “Using my unique blend of marketing experience and coaching skills, I help business owners build a thriving business without squeezing the life out of their lives.” (Oops, that's 26 words. See? You don't have to be perfect, just take a good shot at it.)

You have now created the essence of your Core Marketing Message. Take some time to continue honing and refining. When you read through it, you should feel that it hits the mark and it paints a picture of your ideal business.

As you write letters, brochures, website content and other communications, draw from this Platform – speak to your market as if you know them personally; appeal to your market’s pains and predicaments; show them how you solve these problems; highlight the emotional gratification they will feel when they use your services; show them clearly what makes you and your offerings unique.

2005 © Martha Carnahan, of MC3 Strategies.
Please visit Martha's website at http://www.YourBrilliantLife.com for additional resources on how to build a thriving business without squeezing the life out of your life!

What Marketers Do...

Source: http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/intro.htm

• Marketers help design products, finding out what customers want and what can practically be made available given technology and price constraints.
• Marketers distribute products—there must be some efficient way to get the products from the factory to the end-consumer.
• Marketers also promote products, and this is perhaps what we tend to think of first when we think of marketing. Promotion involves advertising — and much more. Other tools to promote products include trade promotion (store sales, coupons, and rebates), obtaining favorable and visible shelf-space, and obtaining favorable press coverage.
• Marketers also price products to “move” them. We know from economics that, in most cases, sales correlate negatively with price — the higher the price, the lower the quantity demanded. In some cases, however, price may provide the customer with a “signal” of quality. Thus, the marketer needs to price the product to (1) maximize profit and (2) communicate a desired image of the product.
• Marketing is applicable to services and ideas as well as to tangible products. For example, accountants may need to market their tax preparation services to consumers.

Marketing refers to that process by which the explicit and implicit needs of customers are identified and addressed through personal communication and diligent efforts to (a) elucidate and supply demand, (b) develop profitable long-term relationships with customers on the basis of mutual benefit, and (c) expand the number of customers in concert with the capacity to address the identified demand.

The essence of marketing is partnership. In this case, partnership means identifying with your customer and providing service of uncompromising quality in return for an optimal profit on your investment. Achieving such partnership is complicated by the fact that marketing in general, and online marketing (a.k.a. eMarketing) in particular, is not a face-to-face endeavor. Your customer will want to know why she should buy from you, why he should trust you. These questions will be answered by your capacity and passion to communicate, your commitment to reciprocity, your dedication to service and fair play. We're not talking about a quick path to riches here, but about a way of thinking, an ethos of "salesmanship". See Increase Sales by Building Credibility.

Your Marketing Ideation
A crucial part of the effort to establish an online business involves your marketing ideation. Are you focused on single-instance transactions that necessitate a large volume of traffic to your Website, or do you want to build relationship with your customers and develop a loyal customer base?

Relationship Marketing vs. Transaction-Based Exchanges...

In The commitment-trust theory of relationship, a seminal paper by Robert M. Morgan and Sheldon D. Hunt, "relationship marketing refers to all marketing activities directed toward establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relational exchanges" (22). This emphasis on the continuity of relationship represented a significant shift from interpreting the transaction as the basis of exchange, a paradigm developed in the United States around 1960.

As Arthur Gingrande writes,

Before the era of mass marketing, customer service was personal and tailored to the individual. Selling and product customizing was done on a one-to-one basis, and the salesperson and customer usually knew each other personally. But, at the same time that automation, computerization and mass production grew, and as customer support shifted from the storefront to the back office, customer service became an increasingly impersonal process. It turns out that the very agent of depersonalization — the computer — also has the power to collect enormous amounts of personal data, to analyze and synthesize them, and then mine the results to draw valid conclusions based upon discovered patterns of individual human behavior. As a result, over a relatively short time, the capabilities of the computer and the Internet have combined to enable [us] to dramatically reinvent and personalize the concept of customer service, which for so long has been based on the mass marketing paradigm. [Read more]

Roger C. Parker, author of Streetwise Relationship Marketing On The Internet, presents an instructive 5-Stage Customer Development Cycle in this context:

Source: An Introduction to Relationship Marketing, efuse.com

1. Awareness:
   This happens even before a person's first visit to your site. Do they hear about your business from a friend? Do they see a link from another site? Do they read about your business on another site or in a magazine or newspaper? Do they find your site on a search engine? Do they see your Web site address on your business card, newsletter, or even invoice? People don't just magically appear at your site. You have to work to get them there.
   
   It's vital that you obtain your visitor's e-mail address. People don't usually just volunteer their e-mail address. You need to find an incentive that will motivate them to provide you with their e-mail address. One of the surest ways to get someone's e-mail address is to give something away. That may sound expensive, but it doesn't have to be, especially if you can give away something electronic they can download.



2. Comparison:
   Before a person can consider buying something from you, they have to compare your product or service with those from your competitors.
   
   Meaningful content and credibility are the keys to success at the comparison stage. The more information you can provide, the higher the likelihood you'll make the sale. The comparison stage also provides you with an opportunity to learn more about your Web site visitor's needs and, in doing so, be better able to fine-tune your offering to their needs.



3. Transaction:
   The transaction stage is where money (or credit card information) changes hands. Unless you are giving products away for little or no profit, the transaction stage will only take place if you have played your cards right during the awareness and comparison stages. The transaction stage should be viewed as the beginning, not the end, of the relationship. The transaction stage sets the stage for the highly profitable stages that follow.



4. Reinforcement:
   The reinforcement stage is where you add value to your customers' purchases by showing them how to maximize the value and pleasure their purchases can provide. The reinforcement stage presents you with an opportunity to position yourself apart from your competition by thanking your customers for their purchase and paving the way for future purchases. It's where you begin the process of creating word-of-mouth ambassadors for your firm out of satisfied customers. This is a big part of what eFuse.com itself does!



5. Advocacy:
   Advocacy is the final stage of the Customer Development Cycle. Advocacy takes place when you provide your customers with the tools, or feeling of community, they need to become your promoters, motivating past customers to drive new visitors to your Web site and pre-selling your firm with word-of-mouth recommendations, the most effective form of advertising ever devised.