Blazing Your Marketing Trail: Part 1 - Preparing for the Trek
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash
You’re a small business owner and you’ve decided you need to do some marketing. Embarking on your marketing journey as a small business requires a solid plan and clear direction. Before you blaze your marketing trail, though, it’s important to get oriented and check that you have what you need for the trek.
Definition of ‘Marketing’
A critical aspect of getting oriented is being clear from the outset what we mean by the term ‘marketing.’ We at Rinehart Marketing have a particular perspective based on our own market focus. We work primarily with small business owners and solo professionals who sell products and services in their local communities directly to consumers, called the B2C space for short (versus selling to other businesses, or B2B). So with that clarification, here’s our favorite definition:
the set of strategies and tactics that help you establish, sustain, and deepen the connections with your clients in order to meet your business objectives
We love this definition because it is client-centric and broader than simply a focus on generating demand for products or services, which is what many folks think of when they think about marketing. Your marketing efforts need to encompass keeping your current customers connected & loyal as well as finding ways to deepen those existing connections, not just finding new customers. This definition also includes not only promoting products and services, but your branding as well. Which leads us to reviewing the essential ‘gear’ for your journey.
Branding Essentials = Brand Strategy + Brand Identity
The gear you take with you on your journey is designed to sustain you and keep you on track. When you have your branding essentials dialed in, they will help guide and ground you, and ensure all of your marketing efforts keep you focused moving forward toward your goals.
Branding plays a crucial role in shaping perceptions, building trust, and creating memorable experiences that strengthen relationships with your clients over time. Your brand encompasses the intangible assets of your business and defines the emotional relationship with your audience. Your brand is everything you do: it embodies the promise you make to your target audience, the values you hold, and the vision you aspire to. It is the way your customer perceives you. In order to maximize the results from any marketing strategies & tactics, your branding essentials (brand strategy & identity) need to be solid.
But First…Your Business Name
Before diving further into branding, though, let’s touch on your business name. If you are starting a new business, or rebranding an existing business that includes renaming, you must do some business name due diligence. Take time to search the name(s) you have in mind online and see if there are similar, established businesses. Check if they are in the same market, have any trademarks or copyrights on their products or business name, and how heavy their search presence is online. Take time to search state business databases for name variations and availability. Then conduct domain name research, trying multiple variations on the business name and see what surfaces. You would hate to invest time and money building out your brand essentials - especially your brand identity - and then discover your business name is not unique enough or might infringe on another’s trademark!
Ok. Back to branding. Your brand strategy spells out the who, what, where, when, why, and how of your organization’s communication of its brand. Developing your brand strategy involves a thorough process of crystallizing your purpose, mission, vision, values, target audience, competition, personality, and unique contribution to the world. These are the components we like to include in a brand strategy:
Brand Essence: Purpose, Mission, Vision & Values
Brand Personality/Archetype/Voice
Target Audience > Personas
Positioning & Why-to-buy
Key Messaging
Let’s drill down on each of these key components.
Brand Essence
When we talk about brand ‘essence,’ we include the core aspects of your business, starting with your purpose. Your mission, vision and values are an outgrowth of the WHY of your business (your purpose for existing), the inspirational story behind your business, and the need you see in the marketplace.
Purpose (why)
Simon Sinek’s book “Start with Why” is a seminal text to help you get clarity about your purpose. He elaborates on the role of the limbic brain in decision-making & emotions, versus the neocortex as the reason & language center. He underscores the importance of communicating about your brand from the inside out, not the outside in.
“People don’t buy WHAT you do. They buy WHY you do it. What you do simply provides the proof of what you believe. It is not the reason to buy.”
~ Simon
We couldn’t agree more.
Mission (what/how/who)
There are lots of different ways to formulate your mission and vision. We find it most helpful to think of your mission with a focus on TODAY. Your mission captures the WHAT and the HOW and the WHO of your business. Once developed, your mission is your guidepost, helping you remain clear about what you say “yes” to and what you say “no” to in your business.
Vision (where)
The focus here is on TOMORROW. It captures what you want your business to become, and what you want to see happen for your clients and the world because of your work. It is designed to inspire growth, both internally and externally.
Values
Your values summarize the guiding principles behind what you do and who you are in the marketplace. They capture what you care about. These values should naturally flow out of who you are as a business owner.
Brand Personality
Brand personality is what makes your business human in the eyes of your potential clients. It’s communicated through tone of voice, visuals, and even your business policies. Anything you do to inform your audience about what the experience is like to be your client can benefit from conveying consistent personality traits. We love this brand archetype quiz combined with our own survey to get at a synthesis of your brand personality.
Your Target Audience > Personas
It’s critical that you know who you are targeting and who your ideal clients are before crafting your marketing strategies. And most likely, you have a pretty good sense of this if you have your brand essence figured out. But it is worthwhile really thinking about who your solution MOST resonates with, who has the strongest need for your product or service, and also who you most want to serve. If you have already found success selling your products or services, it’s best to start with your existing or previous clients.
When you are developing audience personas - we recommend starting with 3 - they need to be distinct enough from one another to help you hone in on their unique profile, pain points and needs that your solution meets. Build your personas around a mash-up of your current or previous clients, capturing details about their challenges and how your business or service addresses them. You can also conduct surveys, interviews, and market analysis to gain insights into your audience's demographics, preferences, pain points, and behavior patterns. Having these personas built out will help you visualize your ideal customer as you craft any marketing content and ensure it resonates.
Positioning & Your Why-To-Buy
Another critical aspect to your brand strategy is your positioning. What is your unique contribution and position in the marketplace, and how do you distinguish yourself from your competitors? Be sure to conduct market research in your category, understanding who your competitors are and how they are reaching their target audience. If you’ve been in the market for a while, ask your current and previous clients why they chose your solution over your competition. They are a gold mine of information that will enlighten you about your advantages in the marketplace. Leverage this research to complete an honest assessment of your business and your competition by performing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.
A corollary to this process relates to keyword research. It is very helpful while you are doing this broader investigation to include research around the terms your customers might use to find your services using search engines. You will learn how your services might be classified, who shows up in these searches, and how they are promoting their businesses.
Once you have completed this process, distill down your brand positioning relative to your primary competitors in your category by filling in this statement (this is an abbreviated form of your unique value proposition):
Compared to other [insert category] providers in the [region], [business name] has the following unique advantages:
[insert advantages - key differentiators]
Other providers focus on:
[list competitors’ focus]
Key Messaging
As a final aspect of your brand strategy, we love taking your brand distinctives, selling points or themes, and summarizing them into key messaging pillars. These pillars, with their supporting bullet points under each, will ensure message consistency across all marketing efforts, another foundational element as you embark on your journey.
Brand Identity
Building on your brand strategy, your brand identity is what brings your brand to life. It takes the essence of your brand and makes it visual with a cohesive and versatile set of assets, including your logo, color palette, fonts, monograms, and taglines. To ensure consistent application of your identity, a brand guide that outlines usage of all of these assets is critical.
Summary
We trust you feel a bit more oriented about your marketing journey, with a working definition of the word ‘marketing’ itself. And this review of your trek essentials - a robust brand strategy and identity - should keep you grounded, focused and well equipped for the trail ahead!
Read Part 2 on how to prioritize your route.
It can feel overwhelming to try and do all of this foundational work on your own, but you don’t have to do it alone! We absolutely LOVE walking small business owners and visionaries through this brand strategy and brand identity process, helping them gain clarity about their why, what, who, and how and then bringing their vision to life. Reach out if you’d like a trail guide for your journey.
