Your Biggest Marketing Problem is Not What You Think - Hint: You're Not Talking to Your Ideal Clients

If you are a purpose-led expert service provider, you probably feel challenged to talk about what you do in one or two sentences.

It's hard!! I know.

The problem is that our potential clients need to hear our message in a clear, simple way. This helps them quickly recognize "Oh, this person has something valuable that I need."

This inspired me to look for better ways to help my clients create their marketing message. And guess what? I discovered by interviewing my customer's ideal clients, I could turn those interviews into powerful, clear marketing content!

The best thing? Your marketing content is based on what your ideal clients love about you!

Read the BrandScript I created for my own business (based on interview my ideal clients) here.

If you find the Marketing Root Work podcast valuable, please become a subscriber! 

My mission is to change the way small business owners market themselves and it’s very important to me that I reach as many people as possible.

Transcript

Your Biggest Marketing Problem is Not What You Think 
 

Speaker: Hi, everybody. This is Judy Murdoch, and this is the Marketing Root Work Podcast. And today I'm going to be talking about your biggest marketing problem is not what you think. And here's a hint: you aren't talking to your ideal clients. So 

In recent months, I've been busy testing a new service that's transforming how I help my clients. Before diving into marketing content and planning, I conduct interviews with their favorite clients to uncover from the perspective of their clients why the business owner is so awesome. Now, initially, I hesitated to include client interviews in my services. 

I worried that these interviews would take up valuable time that should be dedicated to developing and implementing marketing plans. However, I kept encountering the same issue. My clients struggled to describe what they do in a compelling way. So what happens is it's hard to turn complex work into a tagline. 

It's really hard to try to do this for ourselves, for our own marketing. I work with purpose-led expert service providers who often believe that their work is too complex to summarize succinctly, and this hesitation is understandable. My clients have years of experience, extensive education, and a deep appreciation for the nuances of their work. 

Meanwhile, the people they want to connect with are often stressed and overwhelmed, and I can relate. I receive a lot of newsletters and emails from talented, thoughtful business owners. But if I can't quickly skim their content, I often move on to the next email. And even though I intend to revisit these messages when I have the time to give them the attention they deserve, they frequently end up in the delete folder So this led me to a pivotal idea. 

Why not let our favorite clients explain why they love working with us? So I set aside my reservations and decided to interview clients first to see if I could leverage their insights to create effective marketing. So what I am learning is, yes, you can turn what your favorite clients love about you into great marketing. 

Huzzah. Um, I am using AI models. I'm using Claude and NotebookLM to analyze client interview transcripts and organize the insights into marketing content. Specifically, I'm using the StoryBrand Brandscript framework, that is what they use for marketing content, to structure the raw client transcripts I particularly favor into StoryBrand, because its framework is grounded in the elements that make content compelling, the hero's journey. 

The StoryBrand Brandscript transforms client feedback into a clear, succinct outline that you can immediately apply to create various marketing assets, such as offers, one-liners, social media posts, and more. And you can see a sample. You will not be able to see this on the podcast, but I did create a sample. 

Um, and if you go to the newsletter, you can actually, um, get the link to see the brand script I created for myself. Um, one other comment I want to make about brand scripts is that some of you might be surprised by how sust-- how succinct brand script language is, but that's the whole point. Simple, compelling language that engages your audience. 

So once you have that brand script, the next step is to create a marketing plan. And to clarify, the brand script serves as a framework for generating your marketing content. As I said, including offers, web content, social media posts, et cetera. And I am actually guiding four beta clients through this process, helping them create marketing strategies based on the interviews with their own favorite clients. 

If you're a purpose-led service provider, I have no doubt that your current and former clients think you're amazing. I also know that our best clients want us to succeed. And my The Word of Mouth Jumpstart Program to date is my most effective way to help you achieve this. I appreciate you. Judy Murdoch, word of mouth marketing expert, writer, and artist.