Stop Running Ads: Build Your Marketing Strategy First

Most small business owners do the same thing when they decide they need more customers. They run an ad.

In this episode, Liz sits down with C i Marketing's in-house marketing strategy expert Emily Cook for an honest, practical and at times very funny conversation about why jumping straight to advertising is one of the most common and costly mistakes a small business can make.

Together they break down exactly what a marketing strategy is, why it comes before everything else, and how to start building yours even if you have a limited budget.

In this episode you will learn:

• The difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan, and why the order matters.
• How to define your audience as a real person, not just a demographic.
• What a positioning statement is and the three questions it must answer.
• Why understanding your competitors is not optional. 
• How to nail what Emily calls the barbecue pitch, and why every business needs one. 
• Why consistency is the thing that builds trust at every touchpoint.

Emily and Liz also share the real story of how C i Marketing was born just after the Christchurch earthquakes, and what has kept them going ever since.

Whether you are just starting out or have been in business for years, this episode will give you a clear framework to build your marketing on foundations that actually hold.

The Visual Marketing Podcast is brought to you by C i Marketing. Search for us on your favourite podcast app and hit follow so you never miss an episode.

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Emily

Liz 0:00

Welcome to the Visual Marketing Podcast brought to you by C i Marketing, where we explore how to show up consistently, be more visible, and connect with the right people through your marketing. I'm your host, Liz. Today I am super excited to introduce you to Emily Cook who works alongside me at C i Marketing. Emily is our in-house expert on marketing strategy, and today we are going to be talking all things strategy, and we are even going to give away our secret ingredients on how you can do it yourself. So stay tuned. Welcome Emily to the Visual Marketing Podcast. It is very exciting to have you on your first episode. I'm sure it will be one of many to come. How are you feeling?

Emily 0:45

Um Yeah, I admit I'm a little bit little bit nervous. I think this the second you get a camera in front of you, maybe it sort of makes it all feel a little bit a little bit more corporate potentially than I am. But no, I'm I'm really excited and we're chatting about a subject that I talk about all the time. So hopefully I will do it justice today.

Liz 1:06

We are, and I'm sure you absolutely will. I absolutely love listening to everything you have to say. I have listened to things you have to say for quite some time, actually. We have been working together for a really long time. Um how long has it been?

Emily 1:20

We have been working together for a very long time. In fact, I think you're one of my longest standing relationships, Liz. We um there there is quite a story. It's it's it's a lovely story. It was something um, something uh really positive that was born from tragedy. Um so we started working together just five weeks before the uh Christchurch earthquakes. Um where we landed a job at the same time working for a fantastic company, um, both in tourism, which was just, well, it's a it's our passion. Everybody that knows that that knows that about us. Um, but unfortunately it only lasted for five weeks before we were both both made redundant. So it was a last in, first off type thing. However, something beautiful came from that when I got a call from you only a few months later um to say, was I interested in working with you on a marketing contract um that you had secured and Cirrus International Marketing had been born just before, and I was the first one to jump on that ship.

Liz 2:18

I do recall that that's what it used to be called, actually. You just reminded me we had a different name back then.

Emily 2:25

Thank you. Yeah, yeah. It's um when you think about everything that we have uh done since then. Um it's great to reflect. It's great to reflect.

Liz 2:34

It really is. It's been um quite the journey actually creating this podcast and remembering where we've come from, where we are today, and where we're heading. Um it's such a pleasure having you on board the entire time. And I don't know what I'd do without you.

Emily 2:46

Oh, thank you. You're gonna make me all teary.

Liz 2:50

Um but today we are gonna talk about one of your favorite topics. But I want to actually start with something um a little bit different. I want to talk about uh some ah questions that we get from clients often. So especially new clients that come to us, and they come to us, they give us a call, or they send us an email and they say, Hey, I've got this business, I need a bit of a hand with some marketing, I want to do some Google advertising, or I want to do maybe some social media advertising. And we go, awesome, cool. Like send us everything you know you have about your business. We want to see your website and everything. And that's where things come a little unstuck. So tell me about some of the experiences we've had when people come to us and the first question is, I want to do some advertising.

Emily 3:35

Yeah, and and like like you said, it's an inquiry that we get all the time. And first of all, the passion of these people is is just palatable. It it is it is fantastic. And they realize that they need to do something, that what they're doing isn't quite working. Um so their first thought, which is often the way with so many people, is I I must do an ad. I'm I must I must pay to tell people about you know who who I am. Um, and I I think that most people that we talk to are very receptive to to our response. And, you know, unfortunately for for these sorts of inquiries and and just because of people, that their perception of marketing, they have jumped, instead of starting at A, they have jumped right through to Z. They haven't stopped to think about, okay, before I start throwing my money, who who am I targeting? What do I need to tell them? Um, so I th I think I think that's something that happens quite often. Um so it really is from our perspective a process of sitting down and saying to people, hey, I think a really great uh metaphor that we use quite often is the building metaphor. You're not going to put some walls up in a house unless you've got foundations first. And for us, foundations are key, and that is marketing strategy.

Strategy Versus Plan And Order

Liz 4:49

I love that analogy. It is definitely something that resonates with me as well. Um, and it's something we use quite often. Um, funnily enough, we work with a lot of clients in the construction industry, so it does resonate with them too, which is great. So, marketing strategy, let's get stuck into talking about that. Okay. Firstly, I'd love to know what is the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan, or is there a difference?

Emily 5:14

Yeah, there absolutely is. And I think defining them is absolutely imperative. Um, the difference between a strategy and a plan, your your strategy is your is your roadmap. It it is making sure that you have a really clear path before you jump into doing anything. And essentially your strategy is defining who are my people, who are the audience, who who do I want to engage with my business, and really defining what it is that they want, how you want to be positioned uh as a as a business, um, what your really unique objectives, your your goals, you know, your your big ticket items are that you want to tick off. Um, all of those really important steps that you have to take before you can start promoting and talking about your business. And then to me, the way you define a plan is the exact actions that you are going to implement based on those strategic decisions to achieve your goals. I'm not sure if I actually, I'm not sure if I actually explained that, explained that very well.

Liz 6:17

I think you did. What I'm hearing from you, Em, is that there's actually an order that things need to happen and that a plan actually comes after a strategy, not before. Is that correct?

Emily 6:27

Abs absolutely. So a a a plan would be essentially if you did that first, it is like putting the horse before the cart. No, otherwise. Yeah. As I said those words, it wasn't quite computing. Sorry. It it is about putting the cart before the horse. So without defining those strategic outcomes, those um all of those really important nitty-gritty business things, there is there is no direction without a strategy. There is no plan without a strategy. So basically the walls of the house are not supported, they're gonna fall down. They will fall down, yes. Eve even if you have the greatest amount of enthusiasm, the greatest amount of money, the walls will fall down without a strategy first.

Liz 7:15

So if I'm a small business and I just want to go out there and just start getting my name out there because I really need to start making some money. Maybe I am an entrepreneur, a solo-preneur, even. I've left my corporate job. I've decided to go and do something myself on my own. I've thought I need a hand and I need to get an ad out there. Do I need a marketing strategy?

Emily 7:38

Absolutely. I I think I think that's something that we uh continuously learn is that small to medium businesses need a strategy more than anybody else, probably. You know, you you think about a small business owner, they're responsible for absolutely everything. And often, unfortunately, marketing just kind of gets slotted in. It gets fit fit in wherever they can possibly find time. So if they don't take that really important step of laying out their strategic foundations first, they literally are going to be throwing money away. And these are people who are time poor, these are people who are probably lacking in budget as well. So making really, really smart decisions is what is the fallout from your strategy to decide, hey, this is going to be a great return on my on my advertising dollar, and this is where I need to place the money to get to get the most the most benefit. And it's usually not effort that's the that's the problem. It's actually the direction. You know, the small business owners, we we all we all know them. They are the ones that are doing the absolute hard graft. Um, and so they are they are definitely the ones that that need a strategy.

Define Your Audience With Personas

Liz 8:47

Yeah, I completely agree with what you're saying there. Um, you touched on something really interesting about budget. Now I'm I'm gonna do something really crazy here. And I reckon today on this episode, we should actually give away some information, some tips, and maybe like the structure of a marketing strategy so that if I'm a small business owner and I don't have the budget to come and talk to people like us to a marketing company right now, because obviously, you know, it does cost to come and talk to a professional organization. How can I start this journey just to start getting a bit of income in the door? What recommendations or what structure could you tell these people that they could work through themselves just to start with at least something on paper?

Emily 9:33

Fantastic. I I I love that. As as you know, as you know, I I love I love supporting as many people as as we possibly can. Um and at the end of the day, I think it is our responsibility to make it as simple for as many people as possible. Um, so really I think the the biggest part of your strategy is really defining, well, there is there is an order, there, there, there is a preference. The biggest part is really understanding who your audience are, who, who are your people, who are the ones that want your want your service, want your product, that really need you. And when you start to think about who those people are, you really start to understand what it is that they want from you as well. So it's not about telling, it's not about telling them what they what they want and what they need. It's about flipping that thinking and really understanding them in terms of a person. They're not a number, they're a person. They've got valid feelings, they've got pain, they've got, you know, all those sort, all those sorts of things that that come into everyday lives. And you've got to think about what it is, is it about your offer that is going to make their lives better? Really, the the crunchiest part about a strategy is understanding your audience, deciding what it is that they they need from you, how you're going to deliver that for them, um, and then how you're going to communicate that that with them. Um, hooked up in that is is all the other fancy things like you know, deciding what sort of company you are, what are your values, uh, particularly with a small company, your personal values feed so much into your brand values because it is, it's your business, it's your livelihood, it's so personal to you. So those, you know, thinking about whether or not um is is it uh is it sustainability that is important to you? Is it making a difference? Um, is it being professional? Is it being real? Is you know that what what it what is it that you that takes you as a person that you bring into your own company? Um, because your brand values really define who you are.

Liz 11:38

Yeah, I love that. I want to touch back on the audience side of things. Um you picked up you you mentioned something that I think is really important, and that is that as a business owner, I actually have to get out of my own head and get into the head of the people I'm serving. Definitely. How do I do that?

Emily 11:56

Do you know what it's not it's not easy because as soon as you create a business, you start thinking of it from your perspective. So it's it's not an easy thing to do. But the the best way that I could suggest that you do that is you think about your audience as a person. So it's not just a you know, my target market is is females age 40, you know, 45 to 55. It is trying to really put a personality um in into that and creating creating an audience persona really helps you put yourself into the mind of that audience. So really think about who who they are, you know, what what where do where do they live, um, you know, what their family life looks like, um, you know, what what their educational background is, what their income is, what what their occupation is, what are the fears, what are the objections, what are the things that really impact their everyday life. Um I think as soon as you can start to think of your audience as a person, you can start to think of it, what they need from you in their terms versus what you need them to do.

Liz 13:00

Yeah, I really like that idea of turning that into a specific person and actually imagining them in your own mind or even writing it down as well, is helpful. Um, we often have a lot of people come to us and talk about the fact that they want to market to everybody. What are your thoughts on that?

Emily 13:18

Hey, if we all had millions and millions of dollars of marketing budget, then absolutely. No, I'm I'm just I'm just I'm just being flippant. Um there aren't many examples that I can think of um of a brand who who everybody is the audience. Um if you want to take Apple, for example, you could go, okay, yes, they are trying to appeal to everybody from you know young teenagers um right up to people who are um a little bit more in age. Um however they also have millions and millions and millions of dollars, billions of dollars even in in in marketing budgets.

Liz 13:56

And they have different products that service those different audiences as well. So they would almost have a marketing strategy per product, I'm assuming. Oh, absolutely. And that would be a different target audience for each one.

Emily 14:06

Yes, yes, absolutely. So sorry, to come back to come back to your original question, you you you know I am one to go off on a tangent. Um if I if I'm looking at you slightly confused, it's meant I've forgotten the question. So please feel free to ask it again. Um I can't guarantee I'll remember what it was either. No, okay, we can work together to solve that one. Um yeah, I think I think it's it it is a matter of of challenging challenging people. And I think with a lot of the marketing strategies that that I work on with clients, one of the probably one of the biggest joys from what I do is actually coaching people through their through their marketing strategies. And it is one of those things where as soon as I start to talk about it, you see, you see the lights come on, you, you know, you sort of see the cogs turning and you see that all falling into place. And it is a matter of saying, okay, so let's really challenge that narrative of everybody as my audience and break it down to your primary audience, potentially your secondary audience. Because that comes back to my my um touching on budget. If we if we had lots and lots and lots of millions of dollars, then you could target lots and lots of different audiences. The reality is for most business owners that we work with, budget is a factor. Of course it is, the almighty dollar. It doesn't stretch very far these days. So it is a matter of saying, where am I most likely to get the biggest impact through spending money on that market? So I am yet to meet somebody whose audience is everybody. That's a challenge. Let's put that challenge out to the world. Let's put that challenge out to the world.

Liz 15:44

If you are listening to this right now and you have an audience that is absolutely everybody, come and see us. We would love to spend your money. Absolutely. I'm I'm already thinking of ways to do that. I can see it now. Ching ching. We're joking, by the way. Now, if you're a small business owner right now, you're listening to this, I would highly recommend pause this podcast at this moment. Go and do the work, come back to us and hit start again, and then we're gonna get to the next stage. So I now have my audience sorted. I've got a primary audience at least. I maybe have a secondary audience, but I've stopped there because I am not targeting everybody because I've listened to what Emily has said. What do I do next?

Emily 16:37

Now that you have got the audience in your mind as a person, you have to work out what you need to say to them. So that this this is where this is where your offer uh comes in. You have to decide what to say to them and you have to decide how to say it to them. You think about a really big lawyer, for example. The way that they communicate with their audience is likely to be very professional. Um, it's it's likely to be not overlook overly colloquial. There won't be a lot of adjectives in there, um, there won't be a lot of fluff. Um it'll be very solid, very um corporate way of communicating with them, and that's appropriate for them. Yep. You compare that, for example, to a preschool. So they are trying to attract parents and we know we who who are looking at all of the different options to care for the most precious assets that they have in their life. You can't hit them with corporate speak. They are the people, they want the emotion, they want the feeling. So that is how you need to communicate with them. So thinking about what you need to say to people, but equally important, how you how you need to say your your tone is absolutely vital because if you miss that, people are gonna disconnect really, really quickly.

Liz 18:02

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um and I think that really touches back on that point we talked about earlier about getting out of your own head as the business owner and getting into the mind of your audience. What do they actually want to hear and what's going to make them trust you essentially?

Emily 18:17

Absolutely. And I think I think we are we're living in a world where we are saturated with content. There's content coming at us left, right, and centre. And we're getting reasonably savvy at at deciding what it is that we want to engage in. Um, and I think I think that is so true for tone of voice and and you know what what you're saying to people and how you're saying it to them. Um and at the end of the day, you need you need to cut through that clutter. You know, I thought I think that's a little bit of a sort of buzz phrase that we've been hearing for a while now. Um, and and what you're saying to them in your tone of voice absolutely can achieve that.

Liz 18:52

And I think it's okay to bring in your personality to that. You mentioned that earlier, that your brand is actually greatly influenced by the owner or the manager or the you know the staff's personality. So you can still bring in an element of your personality into communications with your clients, right?

Emily 19:08

Absolutely. And I would definitely encourage people to do that. Um, and I think that anybody that follows um any of our socials, and if you're not, you should be. You know, I think I think our personality, I think our C i personality shines through um really, really well. And and I think that that is what starts to form that connection with with people. That that's the stuff that people remember. Um, but you know, but particularly for us, bringing through that that warmth in our personalities because that that is that is what makes the company, and that is what when people engage with us, that's what they experience. So you don't want to have that disconnect between what you were saying and and what you, you know, and essentially that engagement. Um and that messaging is really important. So you've got to make sure that that messaging is coming through from your social media, through to the way that you answer the phone, through to the way that you respond to your um to your emails. You you've got to have that that consistency um in that brand voice. And that's that's what makes you stand out and make what makes you memorable.

Liz 20:12

That all makes complete sense to me. And we're starting to build quite an awesome structure here around a marketing strategy. So we've defined our audience, we have defined um how we're going to talk to them. We've worked that out. What comes next?

Emily 20:27

So, what comes next is figuring out where these people are. You know, where where are you going to get the most attention? Um, and again, that comes back to the personas because in the personas, you need to be thinking about not just about who those people are and what they want, where do they spend their time? Um, and you know, if you if you think about the day in the life of an audience member, uh they, you know, they start their day, do they turn the radio on in the morning? Do they watch TV while they while they're having breakfast? You know, once once they've done all their all their daily chores, which takes you know a few hours in the morning, whether or not it's just sleepily drinking as much coffee as you possibly can or running around after children, all of those are relevant to understand your audience. And from there, do they jump in the car? When they're in the car, are they listening to the radio? Are they traveling behind a bus? Are they listening to our podcast? They're listening to our podcast. They have already tuned into our podcast. You know, are they noticing billboards when they're driving past? Are they driving past a corporate area of the city that has got a lot of businesses in it, so therefore have their signage out the front? So you sort of see what I'm see what I'm getting at. It's it's it's working out what what the typical day in the life of these people look like, and then what sort of things they're gravitating towards. Um and essentially that is what that is telling you where you need to place your advertising.

Nail Your Positioning Statement

Liz 21:51

Amazing. That is all making complete sense. So we've got audience, we've got how to communicate with them, where to find them. What am I missing?

Emily 22:01

So you're missing, and it's actually part it's actually a part. I probably jumped ahead a little bit when I was talking about the audience and declined to mention a few factors because I think every area of a marketing strategy, a good marketing strategy is really important. The audience is probably the most important part because it defines the rest of it. But if we want to take a couple of steps back, you first of all got to define who are you as a company? What is it that you are doing? What is it that you are offering? Um, so whether you, whether you're a service, whether you're a product, it is, you know, it is that whole, it's like your barbecue pitch, I th I think people have described it to. I think it used to be called an elevator pitch. It did. When did it become a barbecue pitch? Or is that a kiwi thing? I think maybe it is another kiwi thing because we're so good at barbecues and standing around and

Liz 22:47

I think you just made that up.

Emily 22:50

Great. So I'm going to trademark that. If we can just please make sure that that is trademarked. Barbecue pitch.

Liz 22:57

Emily Cook.

Emily 22:59

Yeah. Running with that one. You heard it here first. Running with that one. Um, so your your your barbecue pitch, it is if somebody I love, I love painting this picture. You imagine you're standing at a barbecue. You've got a drink in your hand, you've possibly got a sausage in the other one, and somebody says to you, Oh, Liz, I know that you've got a marketing company. What what do you what is it you guys do? You have got approximately 30 seconds to hook them in with your words. So you've got to think about the a really, really quick way to say, this is what I do, this is who it's for, this is why I do it.

Liz 23:44

Absolutely. And I'm gonna digress ever so slightly. So bring me back to my point. But I know personally, I've certainly found myself in that position in all sorts of different situations. You name it, like I could be sitting at the hairdressers, um, and I'm, you know, getting to chat with um my hairdresser and the person next to me overhears what I'm talking about, and they want to know what I do. I could be talking to somebody at the supermarket, the grocery store. Um heck, I've even had this conversation with people in a sauna more than once. So um you have to be prepared to say the words and sometimes say it quickly if you want to get out of the situation as well.

Speaker 24:27

So there are there are so many questions that have just fallen out of what you've just said. Uh I I feel like we might need to circle back to the sauna conversation. Uh how however I feel like that's a topic for another podcast. So I think we need waterproof business cards. I think you need waterproof business cards. You haven't had this conversation in a sauna before? No, I have not. However, there's a f there's a first time for everything. But yes, your your point is is absolutely valid that it is one of those scenarios where it comes up all the time, you know, particularly for people that are really passionate. And if you're not passionate, you shouldn't be in a business anyway. So, you know, that that that is that is your baby, essentially. And and you're right, that it is something that all businesses need to nail. You you've got you've got to be able to really quickly and really enticingly communicate what it what it is that the business does. So that is your absolute first point of call for a marketing strategy.

Liz 25:21

I actually have a couple of tips on this that I'm gonna chime in here to. My top tip is find out who they are first, if you can, because going back to what you said about understand your audience and the way you communicate with them is if you can quickly figure out who you're speaking to and what their involvement is, you can ever so slightly change your pitch to suit the person you're talking to. For example, if I'm talking about our marketing company and I I'm talking to someone who's a small business owner and they could be somebody who might need our services. I'm gonna go hard with our standard, you know, sales pitch essentially. Um, but if I'm talking to someone who perhaps is like maybe in an admin role or a support role within a business, um, maybe they're a teacher at the preschool or something like that. So they're not a decision maker, but they have influence over the decision maker. I'm gonna tweak my pitch ever so slightly so that it gives them um some excitement about what I do, and they might actually later on think, oh, I could tell my boss about that. So that's my top tip is just figure out who you're talking to first and change the way you're speaking and the things that you say, and maybe just even the language style, make it more or less corporate based on who you're talking to.

Emily 26:35

Anyone would think you work in a marketing company? There's some big giveaways. No, you are, you are, you are, you are absolutely correct. And you know, if again, the audience if you're talking to a lawyer, you're going to communicate slightly differently. If you if you're talking to a you know a a preschool owner, you'll talk slightly differently. You're you're quite right. But the the point the point is the same. You've got you've got to figure you've got to figure it out. You've got to be able to communicate really clearly and really effectively what it is that your business does. And we call that the positioning statement.

Liz 27:08

Oh, I like that terminology. Tell me more.

Emily 27:11

It's it's a good term, isn't it? It it is. And and I think I think a lot of people relate to that. You know, your positioning is who are you? What is it that your business does, who are you doing it for, why are you doing it?

Liz 27:23

Um okay. Can we just say all those things slowly again so everybody can stop and write it down? Grab a pen and write this down.

Emily 27:30

Your positioning statement includes what you do, who you're doing it for, and why you're doing it. And the why part is really hooked more around serving the needs of the who. So you're probably not going to say um we um, I have a um lovely preschool located in Christchurch. We have incredible parents and we cater for two to five year olds, and I'm doing it because I want to make lots of money.

Liz 28:04

Why would you not say that?

Emily 28:06

You're you're doing it because you want to provide uh care for those children. You want to provide a great educational start, all of those sorts of things. You you see you see what I'm where I'm coming from. I mean, hey, we all want to make lots of money, but you're probably not going to tell that to people at a barbecue. Well, you might.

Liz 28:28

Depends how many drinks. If you swap the sausage for oh no, you had a drink in the other hand.

Emily 28:32

I didn't have a drink. It was a margarita.

Liz 28:34

It was delicious. That's a pretty fancy barbecue that you've attended.

Emily 28:37

It is.

Liz 28:38

It's not I need to get invites to your barbecues. I'm not attending margarita barbecues.

Emily 28:43

You don't like tequila.

Liz 28:44

That's beside the point. I could still look cool.

Emily 28:48

True. True. Anyway, gosh, yes, any any everybody listening, I'm sorry, we do digress. This is this is this is how our conversations go.

Liz 28:56

We have known each other for what, 15 years? Yeah. So exactly.

Emily 29:00

Exactly.

Liz 29:01

Um, no, but that's cool. So positioning statement. Should the positioning statement happen before all this other stuff we've talked about, or is it sort of partway through the process? Do we figure it out as we go along?

Emily 29:12

It is it is often one of those things that defining a positioning statement happens a little bit later because it because you are talking about what you do, who you're doing it for, and and how you are fulfilling um, you know, their their needs. Um, but it I think it is, it needs to sit at the top of the strategy at the end of the day. But yes, all of the components will actually help um help make that up. And to really define the who you are part, you also have to really think about who your competitors are and why you are better than them.

Liz 29:44

Oh, that makes some people a little bit nervous. How do we get around that?

Emily 29:50

Friendly stalking. Become very good at stalking. I'm kind of joking, but kind, but actually kind of not. Um what I'm talking about is is your competitive analysis. So knowledge is power. We we all know that. We all see that in our everyday lives. Um, really knowing and understanding who your competitors are, what they are doing, what they are saying they are doing versus what they're actually doing, um, even down to where they're located and how they're pricing themselves is absolutely imperative so that you know that you're not just following along, doing what everybody else is doing, so you can really concentrate on doing what you do better than they do.

Liz 30:35

And why do I want to do that?

Emily 30:40

So that you're unique, so that you stand out, so that you are more appealing than everybody else. You think about you think about when you do a Google search. If you're you know you you're looking, you're looking for somebody that sells margarita mix just to go just to go back to. So I can start attending the barbecues you go to. Exactly. Got it. So you you think about you're Googling to find somebody that that has margarita mix. So there's probably not a lot of people paying for a Google ad for margarita mix, but that that that's okay. We'll we'll we'll um hopefully their organic SEO is is top-notch.

Liz 31:17

Sounds like a good opportunity if you are selling margarita mix. I would highly recommend going to a Google ad, right now.

Emily 31:23

Absolutely. Absolutely. So you're likely to come up with every bottle store, for example, that that sells margarita mix. So you've got to think about, okay, so why why are people going to come to me? Are you competing on price? Um, are you competing on value? Maybe for every 10 bottles of margarita mix, you get a free one. Um, you can't you kind of see where I'm going here. So it's about it's about making sure that you offer something really unique, something really different that meets the needs of those audience, um, the audience that you're trying to attract, so that they go to you and spend their money with you versus the competitors. But you can't decide how you're going to be unique, how you're going to be better than your competitors unless you know your competitors really well in the first place.

Liz 32:06

And that could be something as simple as having a really pretty label. Maybe you're appealing to um perhaps more of a feminine audience who really um love glitter and pink and all that kind of stuff. Personally, if I'm gonna go choose a bottle of something, I always gravitate if I don't know what I'm looking for, because I I don't buy margarita mix and I want to attend your barbecues because they sound way cooler than mine. I'm gonna look in the bottle store and I'm gonna go, I like the look of that one. I'm a glitter girl, so I'm gonna go to, oh, that one's got gold and pink on it. That's that's the margarita mix for me. So there's lots of different ways that you can stand out from your competitors. It could be visual, it could be, as you say, like the offer. So maybe I'm getting something more than I get. Maybe it's a bigger bottle, or maybe it's a higher percentage or a better quality, or there's lots of different ways you can stand out from people.

Emily 32:58

Absolutely. And and I think probably the most obvious one is also price. Um, but there are so many ways to differentiate yourself and provide better value than just having to reduce the price. Um, because the the fear with that as well is it makes you look like you're not quite as good. It's that it's that whole sort of consumer behavior side of marketing. Um, that you know, whether whether or not reducing your price, the perception makes you look like you're less quality. Um, so yeah, so it is it is about really understanding your audience, um, understanding what makes them tick, but also something you can really easily communicate um very, very quickly as to why you're different, why you're better, why you're unique.

Liz 33:41

And that comes back to that second point we talked about earlier about how we communicate. So if we were to um go back and re-evaluate everything we've spoken about so far. So we've talked about who is your audience, who, what is your positioning statement, which comes in throughout the whole process, how are you communicating with your audience? What is your unique selling point? What else did we talk about?

Goals ROI And Brand Consistency

Emily 34:03

We spoke about um where you can find your audience, so where you should be, where you should be trying to target them. Yeah. Um, and then really before you then would fall into looking at a plan, looking at at what marketing actions you need to implement, what do you want to achieve? Awesome goals. Yes. Love that. Yeah. So you could, you know, there's so many ways to view this. You you can think of, you know, things that you want to achieve in the short, um, in the short term, medium term, long term. Um, you can think about putting numbers around things. So, you know, do you want to attract X amount of clients over a certain time frame? Um, do you want to increase the number of online inquiries? Um, do you want to make a million dollars? Yeah, there's all there's all these like really big ticket items. Um, because if you've got a fantastic strategy in place, then looking at your plans, then looking at what you want to do, you don't know if any of it's working, if you haven't drawn that line in the sand and say, this is what I want to achieve, because the rest of it is how am I going to achieve it?

Liz 35:13

Well, everything you've just said really makes me feel a lot more comfortable as a business owner about actually now then moving into a plan. Because if I hadn't done all this stuff that we've just talked about and I went straight into creating an ad or straight into creating a plan for the next year of how I'm going to advertise whatever it is that I sell, I wouldn't even know where to start. But this is, as you say, has given me the entire roadmap of where to actually take my business.

Emily 35:40

Absolutely. And I think return on investment is a term that we hear bounced around heaps in marketing. You can't possibly understand that unless you have gone through a strategic uh process in the first place. You are just literally throwing away money otherwise.

Liz 35:54

And the other thing you can also do with a strategy is you can communicate it to if you have staff members or um contractors who help you out as well, so that they can understand the bigger picture and then they can actually do their job in the same way that you are hoping the whole business is communicating with the world. Everybody's on the same page.

Emily 36:13

Definitely. And then I think I think also the you know, the way that so many companies operate now, we like to feel like we're part of that success. We we we like to feel like we are contributing to to that growth. And I think if you've got a strategy written in a way that that people can understand, you can give it to your staff, you can give it to your stakeholders and say, hey, this is what I want to achieve. Let's all jump on board, and then everything is consistent. And and and people really, really feel like they are valued, I think, as well when you sort of share that that with people because they can be part of that success and they can have that sort of that that tangible input as well.

Liz 36:54

Yeah, I really love that. Um, before we finish up, you just mentioned one word that I think is incredibly important in this whole process, and that's consistency. Yeah. And I think everything you've talked about is going to bring that consistency right throughout all of your touch points to your internal staff, to external contractors, to suppliers, to the people, your clients, your potential clients, the barbecue pitch. Um, and consistency really is key, isn't it?

Emily 37:22

It is. Absolutely, because if you don't have consistency, you confuse people.

Liz 37:26

Yeah, and you want to build that trust, right?

Emily 37:29

You do, and and that that consistency, exactly. The consistency builds that trust because people know who you are, they know what they're all about all about, they know what they can expect, and that's where that trust comes in.

Liz 37:41

Well, this has been such a fascinating chat. Thank you so much for your time, Em. It has been awesome having you for your very first uh episode with us on the Visual Marketing podcast. And as I said, really looking forward to lots of other episodes to come over however long we do this for. Hopefully a long time.

Emily 38:01

Hopefully. I would actually I would love to come back. And and I know that we had a long conversation before we started off camera about how nervous these sorts of things make me. Um, I'm very happy standing in a room talking to people and and and coaching people, and and yet this was something that made me feel very nervous. However, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. So thank you so much for having me, and I really do look forward to next time that we chat about some other insightful marketing bits and bobs.

Closing And Listener Requests

Liz 38:31

Absolutely. And I didn't pick up any nervousness whatsoever. What would be really cool is if anybody is really interested in um learning more from Emily or any of the rest of our team, if there's something in particular that they want to learn, please reach out and let us know because we are designing this as we go. We're talking about real life situations, stuff that we have done with our clients, experiences that we have had in our business and personally and the barbecues we've been to over the last 15 years. So if there's anything you really would love us to talk about, please reach out and let us know. And we would be more than happy to have those conversations.

Emily 39:08

I would love to chat. Thank you.

Liz 39:10

You're more than welcome. Thanks, Em.

Emily 39:12

Bye.

Liz 39:12

See ya. Thanks so much for joining the Visual Marketing Podcast, brought to you by CI Marketing. I'm your host, Liz, and I can't wait to share more episodes with you.