Your Marketing Tells Your Story
Updated: Oct 21, 2022
Build a marketing strategy and plan to acquire customers
Marketing, advertising, and promotion are secondary tools to the passion and purpose behind why you’re a professional agent, advisor, or service contractor, but how you present yourself and use these tools set you apart from the rest. If you want to acquire customers who drive meaningful, long-term growth you need a marketing strategy and a plan to tell your story.
Whether you use direct mail, networking, email, or other marketing, it is best to outline who you’re trying to reach and why. Use these steps to plan your marketing and not waste time and advertising spend by failing to engage potential customers.
Define Your Customers
The plan always starts with your customers. The better you define your customers the more opportunity you have for high lifetime value from them (total sales over time). In your specialty, what do the top 20% of customers in your industry segment look like? Then, ask yourself:
What are they going through in life, home, work?
What’s most important to them as it relates to your product or service?
What problems are they trying to solve?
Do they live in a specific area or type of neighborhood? Need a certain income level to qualify? Own a home? A business? Have certain educational achievements? Hobbies? Interests?
Is your campaign seasonal?
Decide Your Strategy
Your marketing strategy starts with how to engage these specific customers. What do they worry about, why would they buy from you or what keeps them from buying from you (money, time, season, reputation)?
This is about who you want your marketing campaign to reach. What specific type of person or family are you serving and what’s the best way to serve them?
How will you and your product or service benefit your customers in a differentiated or unique way?
What do you want your marketing to produce? Leads? Sales? Phone calls?
Are you asking existing customers to buy more or finding new customers who have never heard of you?
Answers to these questions help you narrow your offer and your message to those most likely to respond. If you’re building a reputation and brand awareness, you want more and broad distribution to customers segmented by your basics: income, homeownership, auto ownership, and life stage, for example.
If you want to engage with customers when they are making life decisions (births, death, marriages, birthdays, for example), think through a strong call to action that has urgency and a compelling offer at the time that their lives are changing.
Where Will You Find Your Target Audience?
Modern data tools help you find most likely customers. Olde School Marketing’s services can slice and dice consumer data in multiple dimensions for optimum response. Whether it’s top-funnel, brand awareness or bottom funnel ready-to-buy, properly segmented consumer data narrows your target for optimum response and minimum investment.
If you want to message by interests, hobbies, geographic area, career position, and more, data can help you focus delivery, distribution, and timing with just the right, relevant message.
What Do I Say?
This is as much about you as it is your customer. How do you present yourself in a way that is relevant and engaging to your
nce? Are you fun, friendly, professional, credible, expert, or an authority? What is it that will build enough trust with the message recipient for them to connect for information and sales?
How will you and your product or service benefit your customers in a differentiated or unique way – especially compared to your competitors?
What communication format will work best for your selected customers?
Direct mail formats carry messages in themselves. Postcards are quick and colorful. Letters with handwritten addresses are authentic and personal. Promotional products offer keepsakes that relate to your product or service and extend brand exposure.
Information you offer customers on your website – brochures, booklets, and other content formats – should give in-depth information and resources to help customers learn more and make informed decisions.
Invest in design that complements your personality and brand and that will give you a consistent presentation across multiple media, from business cards to video productions.
How Do I Get it Done?
Develop a timeline to schedule and coordinate message delivery and your ability to respond to calls and follow up.
Do you need a script for yourself or other representatives?
Would phased delivery help manage resources?
Calculate your primary marketing goals to determine what you need to send out. Use standard response rates and your personal sales-closing rates to determine what your marketing investment might accomplish.
Professional agents and consultants protect and serve people. It’s an honorable calling not to be taken lightly. Being a professional means you know what it’s like to be in your customer’s shoes. It’s not about the cheapest price, it’s about what your potential customer is experiencing when they are making purchasing decisions and when they need you and your services to help, guide, and your marketing tells that story.
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Olde School Marketing helps you tell your story with a free analysis with recommendations on what’s already proven successful or what might be new and innovative for your story.
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