What are you catching with your marketing message?

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Kat Nesbit, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

Running into a lot of great intention from many of you lately and yet, seeing you spinning your wheels a bit, trying to take the fastest and fuzziest path to success, I want to share an email I recently sent to a client (I hope you don’t mind, Joe.)

He had emailed me his action agenda for our session and stated, "I would like to plan and execute an advertising campaign very soon to boost our sales in the 4th quarter. This campaign needs to have a unified clear message to attract new customers. We will take advantage that were named Best Pharmacy in 2 local papers. it can include: Newspaper direct mail door hangers website yelp social media educational events at the pharmacy advertise with doctors.” My response went mostly like this:

Hi Joe,

What you’re currently proposing is not a marketing campaign. It is venues for marketing your campaign. My questions to you:

What problems do you want to solve?
Who do you want to solve them for?
What activities would you like to participate in to show your unique value and style?
And then, in what venues will you market these activities and this theme? (what you suggest in your agenda)

Side note: Who from your team would you like to join our session (and ongoing conversation) who will be spearheading and/or managing much and/or many of these activities?

MAJOR side bar: The above list of questions should be top of mind for you and your team at the beginning of every marketing cycle, annual BD planning sessions and be an ongoing relevant quarry in any industry starting now.

And so, an example:

Solution ~
We help BHRT PTs with all their side effects and kick behind at it.

For whom ~
We do this for women aged 45 to 65, roughly $80k income, mostly retired, socially very active, technology so-so.

See how this definition of audience begins to define, by it’s expression, the how of getting to your audience? Given what we’ve just stated, you’re not going develop a heavy Twitter campaign, right? If $80k is low income in your area, consider including the YMCA as a venue. If $80k is high, strike that and look at the local country club.

Possible Activities ~
This will be our marketing cycle subject for Q4 of the year and some activities we will now explore are:
have some OTC sale items, rotate 3 (1 per month?)
offer a class (maybe at a local retirement home) on the subject,
JV with a local Dr and offer something,
JV with that spa in our complex to do a ‘pretty lady’ event – details to come,
offer free consultations all Q long for women in this traffic-graphic (demographic/genographic/socio- economic range, etc…)
and… (I suggest 1, maybe 2 – depending how much JV assistance you can get – and no more) ‘events’, one ongoing sale, one ongoing service; as you know 1 to 3 at most activities per department. Your team can gather greater traction when you build around a theme. They get greater learning and deeper conversations because they’re handling just one problem. You too! Got it?

Your Value Proposition ~
What makes us different is our east/west approach to healing and your body.
What makes us unique is the highly personalized regimen we will design for you and you alone.
Venues ~
We want to market the
theme through -, – & -,
FB
Local gossip rag
on and, on

And we will be selective in our messaging ensuring we brand, inquire, solve a problem and offer a call to action easily executed by our audience. Probably no marathon training or kickboxing lessons give-aways for this campaign.
More specifically, we will promote….
the JV events through -, -
the retail sales thru -, -, -
get the doctors list, blah, blah and such.

Our employ incentives will be …. (refer to activities and events)
Because our now defined goal for this project is … From blank to blank by when? Our games and score boards will be… (if I just lost you watch this video NOW) Our team will be… Now let’s look at delegation.

I really hope that this example begins to shed light on the fact that as you answer your questions around marketing within this structure, you begin, by natural de-selection, to make many of your decision for execution. Lets look at this list again.

What problems do you want to solve?
Who do you want to solve them for?
What activities would you like to participate in to show your unique value and style?
And then, in what venues will you market these activities and this theme?

Ok, GO! And good luck with your ideas!!
As always, I’m here for a shout out, a yelp for help, a full session and email. You choose and we’ll talk soon.

By the way, in case you haven’t yet heard, my dear friend and colleague Laurie & I are starting our first JV Mastermind in less than 10 Days!!! The Rainmakers have a just a few seats left so if you have ANY interest, I suggest you learn more on my LinkedIn page. Just look me up!

Coach Kat Nesbit