Marketing Guiding Statements (Part 2) - How to Identify & Understand Your Audience

We know how passionate you are about your products or services, but sometimes it's easy to fall into the trap of making yourself the center of your brand's story. The truth is, if you want to make sales and connect with your target audience, you need to put your customers and their needs at the center of your brand's story.

That's why we're excited to bring you part two of our marketing guiding statement series. In this episode, we're going to get into the nitty-gritty of identifying and reaching your audience.  Think of it as an audience overview—we'll cover everything you need to know about your ideal customer.

At Priority Pursuit, we believe that great businesses come from serving customers well. So, let's put that into action and get to know your audience even better!

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:

• 6 simple steps to creating your ideal audience overview
• Why your customer should be the hero of your brand story
• Creating clear marketing messaging that resonates

Other Mentioned Links & Resources

 Learn more about Treefrog services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com

Learn how to write your Marketing Guiding Statements:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/marketingguidingstatements

Learn more about the book, Building a StoryBrand:
https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers

Learn more about HoneyBook:
https://www.honeybook.com

Receive $10 off your first three orders from DoorDash:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/doordash

Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426

Follow Treefrog on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers

Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn 

Transcript

Victoria Rayburn  0:00  
To understand your ideal customers and to be able to serve them well, it's important that you understand how their problem makes them feel so that your messaging can provide reassurance and guidance that puts an end to their emotional turmoil.

Victoria Rayburn  0:19  
Hey there, you're listening to the Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love. I'm your host Victoria Rayburn. And guys, Today, I am very excited to dive into part two of our marketing guiding statement series. In this episode, we will be discussing how to identify and understand your target audience. Now, if you tune into our last episode, so part one of the series, then you are already familiar with the idea of marketing, guiding statements. Marketing, guiding statements are simply written guidelines that position your brand and business as a trusted partner. And the process of writing these statements allows you to get the information you need to write clear, concise, effective messaging in a story based framework. So these are important, because once you know what your marketing guiding statements are, you have the messaging to create any kind of copy, you know exactly what to put on your website. You know what to share in social media, you know what to include in Google ads. Basically, you have everything you need to have clear messaging that actually converts and marketing guiding statements are also very important, because they help make sure that your messaging is customer focused rather than braggy. or salesy. Again, like, I feel like every episode that we've done on this so far, I'm really excited because I know how effective it is. But guys, long story short, before you have a marketing strategy, you have to have clear messaging, and that messaging has to form connection, and be created around your ideal audience. And today, that is exactly what we are talking about. No, marketing, guiding statements are built with a story based framework. Basically, story is the best way to help people remember things. And so then as a result, as a small business owner, you can use the story based framework to craft your marketing messaging, and make people much more likely to remember what you offer, and much more likely to take action. So I do want to discuss how to identify and understand and connect with your ideal audience today. But before we do that, would you just need to talk a little bit about story. We talked about this in part one of this series, but I want to dive a little bit deeper, because story has always been the best way to keep people's attention and to help them remember things. So quick question, What did you study in history class as a freshman in high school? You probably can't remember I mean, I don't. However, can you recall a seemingly random story that your history told you about his or her personal life, like how he found out he was diabetic at 19 years old after eating pecan pie, his girlfriend's mom made and then having to be rushed to the hospital. You know, Mr. Better if you are listening, History class was great. But that is the story that I remember. Now this might seem like oddly specific, or the night example may seem oddly specific, but the fact of the matter is we as humans love and remember stories. While very few of us can retain less than facts discussed in statistics, we are 22 times more likely to remember information when it is presented to us in a story like framework. As a small business owner, again, you can use this to your advantage by creating marketing messaging that follows the story based framework. If you've ever read building a story brand by Donald Miller, which we highly recommend you do, and we will include a link to that book in the show notes. You're already very familiar with this concept. However, if you hadn't, or you just need a refresh, there are two very important things that you need to remember as you write your marketing guiding statements. And as you write your ideal client overview as you write your audience overview. So first, your ideal client must be the hero of the story. As a small business owner, you do a lot and you really should be proud of your achievements. However, as business owners, we can't go around telling potential customers, how great our products, services and accomplishments are. Because when we only talk about our businesses, what we offer that we know we're good at what we're doing, we just come across as authoritative and salesy and nobody likes that. For example, we all dreading real dread running into that one person who only ever talks about themselves and thinks that they have all the answers essentially When we put ourselves in what we have to offer at the forefront of our marketing messaging, we make ourselves the hero of the story. However, in order for your marketing to actually work, your customer needs to be the hero, and you need to be the guide. We are going to talk more about this in just a minute. But for now, it's important to understand that people make buying decisions, first based on emotion, and then based on facts. And as a result, your messaging needs to show your ideal client empathy, that you understand their struggles. And it also needs to foster a relationship with them. Because once you have your potential customers trust, they'll want to learn more about your products and services, and they will be much more likely to take your advice and work with you. So in summary of this specific section, to utilize the effectiveness of story, your messaging needs to position your ideal customer as the hero of your brand story, who uses your product or service to solve their problem and achieve success. Now, the fact that your customer needs to be the hero may be hard to hear, because we all naturally like want to be Superman or Superwoman and save the day, or at least we think we do. However, in reality, the hero is the one who needs help completing your mission. But the guide in a story is more wise, more powerful, and has all the answers not a likable guy does not say that they have all the answers. Please note that but anyway, the guide might not be the one to go on an epic adventure. But the guide does help the hero save the day by giving them a plan that the hero can use to reach success. You don't want to think about Star Wars for instance, Yoda has all the answers everybody else. I mean, the hero changes based on what movie you're watching with. But like Luke, for instance, he is struggling, he's trying to figure things out. But Yoda trains him helps him all as well. It was all wise and all knowing. But as a result in your marketing messaging, you want to humbly insert yourself as the guide who solely exists to help your customers solve their problem and find success. As you create your marketing guiding statements, you want to be sure that you are one showing your ideal clients empathy, just that you understand them, and that you are there for them before you show them your authority. And then too, you want to empower your ideal customer to solve his or her problem by giving them a plan of action. And then three, you want to refrain from talking about how awesome your products or services are, until after you've established a connection by showing empathy. I'm not saying never talk about your products and services. That's not it at all. But you most definitely do not want to sell before you have served, good rule of thumb and all kinds of business things. But anyway, like we said, before, marketing guiding statements need to be developed before you can implement a successful marketing strategy. But before you start writing your marketing guiding statements, you have to make sure that you know who your ideal customer is, in order for your marketing guiding statements to be effective, they need to be written specifically for the person you your business serves. So in this episode of  Priority Pursuit , we are going to talk about how to identify reach all things, all things. Audience overview, essentially. And I just wanted to make sure we touched on story first, because it is so important to stay in that mindset. I mean, within marketing, but within your business in general, like we are there to serve our customers, and great businesses only come about if customers are served well. Okay, so yes, in order for your marketing guiding statements to be effective, they have to be specifically written for your ideal customer. But how the heck do you do that? You've likely heard the importance of creating an ideal customer avatar or a marketing persona before and more often than not, this practice includes writing down a few facts about your dream customer and giving them a cutesy alliterated, nicknamed, you know, like marketing, Margie, or Blushing Bride, Bethany, whatever. And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't panic. I feel like a few years ago, like this was just small business owners, we're getting a lot of content about creating your ideal client avatar. So don't let any of this stress you out. But to help you truly understand your ideal customer, you need to dive deeper than just their like demographic information. Yes, that is important. And you need to write though what we call an audience overview. So if you complete the six steps that we're going to go through today, you are going to have an audience overview that helps you identify better understand and better serve your best customers in create perfectly clear marketing messaging that inspires your ideal customer to work with you Okay, so first step, the first thing that you need to do when it comes to writing your audience overview is you need to know who your ideal customers are. And this is, if you've done an ideal client avatar in the past, then this is very similar to that, guys. Like I said, we're going to dive deeper, but we got to start your start top level first. So yes, you need to know who your ideal customers are. So for example, how old are they? What is their income level? What's their gender? What do they value being what is important to them? What are they interested in? Where do they live, if that matters in regards to your products or services, basically write down anything that everything you know about your ideal customer, so that you can imagine them as a real person. Now, sidenote, if you've already worked with your dream customer, you can use that customer as a basis for this process. Just think about them, write down that information, essentially, like you want to do this. Like if you've had a customer who is like so great that you wish all of your customers were just like them, just use them as an example, then you need to determine how they would like to be communicated with, for example, are they on social media? If so, which platforms? Do they read blog posts, watch long videos, or prefer shorter content? Do they read emails, do they want phone calls, are they likely to use the chat feature on the website to be sweet? In this step, we are identifying who they are. So we are familiar with like who they are on paper, like kind of like a little bio situation. And then we can determine how they want to be communicated with because this matters in marketing, and you want to make sure that you get this on paper. And this will when you get to the point of implementing your marketing strategy. Once you know how your ideal audience wants to be communicated with, you can then better prioritize your time and resources and make sure that you are showing up where your ideal clients are showing up. But that's conversation for another day. Sticking to this for now. So if you don't have answers to any of the questions that we just went over, as current clients who enjoy working with, like they said, you can use somebody as a basis. So you've already had your dream customer, or you know, even if you've had somebody who's like almost your dream customer, just about there. But if you aren't currently working with your ideal customers, reach out to people who you'd like to work with and ask them these questions. Chances are, there's somebody just within the network of people, you know, who you were thinking, like, oh, I would love to work with that person, or I would love if they bought from my business. Just reach out to them. Let them know that, hey, I'm asking you because I wish all of our customers were as amazing as you. And I can guarantee that they will be more than happy to answer your questions. Or if you use social media.

Victoria Rayburn  12:42  
Well, everybody uses social media, not if you use social media. I mean, you can use social media to ask questions and connect with those who you think might benefit from your products or services. You know, we all have those friends who you know, basically like post polls on Facebook, or you can use your Instagram story to create polls and ask questions, use social media to like literally get free information and do with those responses, what you will, chances are somebody will respond who is close to your ideal client. And you can use that as a basis. Now if these tactics don't work, like seriously, no worries, sometimes the best thing that you can do is like make an educated guess about who your audience is. And then make updates and changes as your small business grows. And as you discover who you best to serve. So if you are listening to this, right now, I'm pinging it because like, I don't know who my ideal audience is, like, maybe your business is brand new, and you know what you want to offer, but you're still fine tuning things. Like for instance, if you are a photographer, maybe you're still trying to decide like what kinds of things you even want to photograph, don't panic, I would say that as somebody who has been in business for myself, since 2018, like my ideal client has changed, it probably changes a little bit every two years. Just because you the more you work and like the more people you work with, just the more you identify, truly want to work with. So it is okay that this is a refining process. But moving on to step number two, the next thing you need to do is to determine what your ideal client wants to accomplish. So this is guys where we're starting to dive a little bit deeper than the typical client avatar. So for example, Edie  Treefrog  our ideal client is a small business owner who wants to build a life and business that they love. And, oh, this is, you know, an amazing, amazing thing. Sorry, IHC really caught up in that I'm so glad to be part of the Treefrog team again, and to play a small hand in doing that. But to complete this step like you literally guys, you just need to know what your ideal customer wants as it pertains to your products or services. Now, no matter who your ideal customers are, they want something maybe they want to save time or money Need, perhaps they want to feel more independent, maybe they need a comfortable pair of shoes, they want something. And then I also just want to throw in here really quick is like, it's okay, if they want something that was like a first world, something. I think a lot of times when small business owners start thinking about their messaging, and they start thinking about their marketing, they get caught up, because like, Oh, my goodness, I'm not like solving this huge, huge problem, but like we're talking about your audience is probably just a second. But don't get too caught up on that your audience, they have a what, they have something that they need, that is going to make their life better in some way or another. And they are so so stinking lucky that they are finding you so that way your products or services can help them with that, because remember, if they're your if you're the guy anyway, moving on to number three. So now this is where we truly dive deeper than the typical client, Avatar. We're not just listing facts anymore. But in order to write effective next shooting, you have to understand what problem your ideal customer is facing. So not just what they want, but what their problem is. So with that in mind, what is preventing your best customer from getting what they want, what makes reaching their goal seem impossible, like so maybe it's lack of time, lack of knowledge, finances, a mental block, or even like having to break a societal stigma, like maybe it's their own mental thing going on. Maybe they're like afraid that what people think in the world like all kinds of things, but basically what is the biggest problem the biggest obstacle that they are facing? So for example, at Treefrog , our ideal clients problem is that they don't have time to learn all things, marketing, nor the time to implement a marketing strategy themselves. And just as a reminder, they want to build a life and business that they love. Marketing is necessary to do that. So yes, this is the block for them just time. But in this step of creating your audience overview, you simply need to figure out again, what is the most pressing issue or the biggest obstacle your ideal customer is facing, so that you can help them overcome this obstacle? And reminder, it's okay if your small business solves a first real problem. Your customers may not have critical urgent needs, but they do still have one's desires and a problem you can solve.

Natalie Franke  17:28  
What would you do with an extra 45 minutes every workday that would save you 16 hours a month, or roughly eight days a year and over the course of your career, we're talking about over one year of your life saved all that time back? Well, many independent businesses that are spent far more than 45 minutes a day on administrative tasks. And with honey book, you can get that time back and then some honey book lets you easily manage projects, contracts, invoices, scheduling, and client communication, saving you time and allowing you to better serve your clients. For a discount on your first year of honey book, visit honey book.com And subscribe with the code  Priority Pursuit  45 minutes a day adds up quickly use it to focus on what matters most.

Victoria Rayburn  18:21  
We've been there more times than we care to admit. So thank goodness for DoorDash we love DoorDash because it saves time allows us to support small businesses and enables local hardworking people to earn income as Dashers. Basically, with every DoorDash purchase, we know we're putting money right back into our local economy without having to sacrifice work or time with family. Now the fourth thing that you need to do is understand how your ideal clients problem makes them feel. Because when you know how this problem is affecting them emotionally, you have the opportunity to help them overcome their challenges and guide them to an actual solution. So for example, at  Treefrog , our ideal client has a lot on their plate already. And while they know marketing is important, they feel completely overwhelmed by the thought of having to handle their own marketing like this is just Oh, it's so overwhelming. You know, they're trying to do their own. They're trying to offer their services offer their products and they just don't have time. I mean, I know you understand this too is you are a busy small business owner. So it's really pressing and can be feel really daunting. But when it comes to writing your audience overview, in short, understand your ideal customers and to be able to serve them well. It's important that you understand how their problem makes them feel so that your messaging can provide reassurance and guidance that puts an end to their emotional turmoil. Next, you need to create or position your current products and services as a coach Your solution to your ideal customers problem just for the record, I'm not saying like, I mean, you can't, it's really wise to create a product or service around specific needs. But you can still do this with the products and offers and services that you have. So for the record, you need to show how your products or services can help your best customers reach the results that they want. If we continue to use  Treefrog  as an example, the solution to our deal, our ideal clients problem is to outsource their marketing to a small business marketing agency. So basically, for this step, all you need to do is write down what your customer needs to do, in relation to your product or service to solve their problem.

Victoria Rayburn  20:46  
And then guys, last but not least, step number six of writing your writing your audience overview, you need to determine what will happen when your customer follows your advice. In other words, what will they get in return by deciding to work with you or purchase from you? Maybe it's more time and maybe it's more money, maybe it's more confidence? Whatever it is, what will they get? For treefrogs ideal client success can be summarized with a statement like when you choose a partner like treefrog, you can breathe, knowing your strategy is always helping you generate new business, allowing you to fully focus on other important areas of your business and life outside the office. Sounds pretty great, right? But as we wrap up this portion of the exercise, you simply need to answer the question, what's in it for me, for your audience by reminding them what success will look like if they follow your advice. So tell them how great and wonderful their lives will be. And again, it's okay if you're not solving a first year, if you're if you are solving a first world problem, life will be so much better if you know your ideal customer has more time, or more money or confidence, their lives will be better as a result of working with you. And you just need to understand how it will be. So that way you can translate the all of that into your marketing messaging. Now guys, if you complete steps one through six, you have everything you need to write a truly effective audience overview, which like aka is a highly effective ideal client avatar. While you can leave this information in its coinciding sections in the guide that we have for you, which I'll discuss more at the end. Or you know, you can just write these questions on a piece of paper or like more realistically on the Google Doc and put this information below. We highly recommend combining the information and writing your audience overview in paragraph form, because the process of combining this information will help you one better understand your ideal customer in to better see how each step of this practice connects to the next, which will be very helpful when you start writing your marketing guiding statements. As if you can write your audience over you get it all on paper, you're going to be pulling a lot of these elements out and that it's going to make writing your actual guiding statements even easier. So to show you what we mean, I am going to walk you through one of our audience overviews. Now again, and this is just want to clarify there is like no right or wrong way to write your ideal client avatar, we recommend doing it in paragraph form and including all the information we discussed, just so that you can easily refer to your audience as you write your marketing guiding statements as you market your business moving forward. And just so you can really like get these ideas all fleshed out in your mind. Now I am just going to share one of our audience overviews with you from treefrog. We actually have three audience overviews that our team refers to. And this is simply because we offer multiple products and services that are suited for small business owners and leaders in different phases of businesses. So like for example, we have some products resources for small business owners for like solopreneurs or DIY in their marketing as they start their businesses. And then we also have products and services for like quote unquote, larger or more established small businesses who are ready to outsource all of their marketing to a marketing agency. So you may have to write a couple different audience overviews. If you have multiple products or services, and if you have different ideal clients for these products or services. So for instance, if you were a photographer, and maybe you offer both wedding photography and family photography, I can guarantee you that like your brides and your parents, they have very different needs. And so you'll probably want to go through this twice. But basically like you need to do this for every product or service you have. And there will probably be some overlap. But just so you know exactly who you're serving. It's really important to do this. And I just say that in that I'm going to share truth frogs have one of their one of our audience overviews with you. But we have three, you might need more. So anyway, one of our audience overviews, we refer to this particular ideal client as a scaling focus entrepreneur and bear with me, I'm literally going to read this with you for you. And if you tell the guy that we talked about at the end of this episode, you can see this word for word. But scaling focus entrepreneurs are business owners, CEOs or shareholders within an organization who have ambitious business goals, and a thorough understanding of their businesses, industries, etc. These entrepreneurs have a lot on their plates. Being business minded, they know marketing matters, but they don't have time to dedicate to keeping up with marketing trends or creating marketing strategies, let alone time to implement their strategies. While scaling focus, entrepreneurs often contemplate adding a marketing manager to their team, a single person will have the know how or hours to implement all aspects of an effective strategy. As a result, scaling focus entrepreneurs need an agency partner that can assist them in meeting their goals. Scaling focus, entrepreneurs want clear, concise, regular communication that allows them to feel informed about and confident in their marketing efforts. While these entrepreneurs want their marketing agency to take lead, and use your expertise, scaling focus entrepreneurs want to be in control. And they are always the final decision makers. Scaling focus entrepreneurs are also natural problem solvers, and highly innovative motivated. As a result, they regularly consume content, mostly articles and short videos, and attend events such as conferences that help them improve their businesses. That said their time is their most valuable resource. As a result, the best way to reach and connect with scaling entrepreneurs is through content that is to the point answers questions quickly and provides clear action. Because again, Galen focus entrepreneurs time is more is their most valuable assets. And then if you do download our guide, you'll see that underneath we have our audience overview, we just have a couple of little sections of bullet points. So we have a demographic section, where we identify that in our case, for ideal client or a client, they're both men and women. And they tend to be at least for the scaling focused entrepreneur between the ages of 35 and 60. And then we also include a list of our services that are just most applicable to them, because it's really helpful for our team to be able to think about this as we design bundles, and think about what kind of content we are producing for these individuals specifically. So for scaling focused entrepreneurs, that tree frog services that are most applicable include website design, digital marketing, packages, consulting, and then a full partnership. So guys, again, there is not necessarily a right or wrong way to write out your audience overview I would recommend including the six things that we discussed. But if you can get all of this on paper, or in a Google Doc, you're just going to feel like your ideal client is more real, you're going to understand them more going to be able to create connection with them because you understand them. And as a small business, creating connection with your ideal clients is so important, because people are much more likely to invest in products or services when they feel connected to that business. So this is part two of our marketing guiding statement series. We cannot wait to dive deeper into this topic with you guys. But for now, if you are listening and just thinking like okay, this is great, I really really want to knock my marketing guiding statements out as quickly as possible, we do have a little something for you. If you go to tree frog marketing.com/marketing guiding statements, you can download this whole series, meaning you can access all of the episodes about this topic that have yet to air. And then you will also have access to a download that walks you through how to identify your marketing guiding statements, step by step with even more examples than we went over today. I know that this might seem like a daunting task, but Kelly has done an incredible job of creating a process that walks you through exactly how to do this. And we cannot say this enough guys, before you start implementing a marketing strategy of any kind before you start messing with reels and tick tock videos and starting your email list like those marketing, your marketing strategy, these marketing tactics, they only work if you know who you're trying to reach and what to say to them. Otherwise, you are sincerely wasting your time. So if you have yet to identify your messaging, if you have yet to write your marketing guiding statements Please, please, please go to treefrogmarketing.com/ marketing guiding statements. Again, you will get access to all of these episodes, which will slowly but surely be rolling out to the rest of the world over the next couple of minutes. And you will be able to download a guide that walks you through everything you need to do. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of primary pursuit. always so much fun hanging out with you guys, especially when we get to talk about things that really have the power to change your business things that really have the potential to make your marketing actually work like guys, if you do this, your marketing will actually work. This defining your marketing guiding statements. This should be a priority. Thank you guys so much for tuning in to another episode of  Priority Pursuit . As always, we're over here rooting for you and your priorities, and we'll talk to you next week. Bye guys.