Is your marketing ready for 2021? There are only 10 weeks left in 2020 which means now is the time to make sure you’re ready to hit the ground running when the calendar rolls over to the new year. Today is #10 of 10 things you can do to get your marketing ready. And it all starts with a problem…
Full transcript below.
Full transcript
I have a problem. And so do you, and so do your customers, so does everybody who buys a product or a service. And today we’re going to talk about problems. Hi, I’m Steve Phipps with Wayfind Marketing. And this is your weekly marketing tip.
Now, at this stage of October, there are 10 weeks left in 2020, which is insane that it’s winding up as quickly as it is. So for the next 10 weeks, we’re going to share one tip each week on what you can do to get your marketing ready for 2021. It’s not far away. And this week we’re talking about problems.
Now a problem is significant because that is the crux of every good story. If you don’t have a problem, you don’t have a story. And when it comes to your business, when it comes to sales and marketing, you’ve got to talk about your customers’ problem because that’s what they’re trying to solve. You have the opportunity to be what we call the guide in the story. Again, so your customer’s always the hero, but you, using your products and service can help them solve their problem.
So for instance, for our clients, the problem that they face is they don’t have the time or the experience or the bandwidth to do their own marketing. They know they need it but they don’t have the ability to do it on their own. So that’s what’s called the external problem. That’s the obvious problem that somebody is trying to solve. That’s the obvious problem that your product and service solves.
Now, if you stop there, you can have clarity when you’re communicating, but you’re going to miss opportunities. The second level is what’s called internal, and that’s, how do people feel about that? That can be frustration, that can be fear. That could be exhaustion and stress. So our clients, before they come to us, they could feel overwhelmed. There’s so many marketing choices. They just don’t know which tactic they should use. They know what they do, but they’re not really quite sure how to clarify that message so that it’s clear.
So there’s a lot of different feelings, but then also there’s belief, what we call the philosophical level. That’s the deepest level. That’s what do people believe? And so again, some of the folks that we work with prior to coming to us, the belief might be, this should be easier. I should be able to grow my business.
And so when you understand those three levels, external, internal and philosophical, you’re going to win more business because as you talk about those problems, your prospects and customers are going to connect to that because they want to find out, how can you help them solve that problem?
So this week’s tip, make sure you have clarity on your customer’s problems, external, internal, philosophical. If you want to talk more about this, message me. I’m happy to walk through this in more detail. I’m a certified StoryBrand guide. So we use the StoryBrand framework, which is a marketing and messaging framework based on the structure of story, which just means we communicate more clearly with people by using a structure that our brains are wired to understand. So if you’re not clear on your customer’s problems, have a conversation. Pick up the phone and give them a call, ask them for insight. They can give you a lot of clarity. So again, this week, focus on the problem. Make sure you’re talking about it on your website, in your sales conversations, in your proposals, and you’re going to win more business.
