Today we focus on nailing your marketing strategy - what it is and how to develop one. Everything to do with your messaging & pitch. This is often where most ecommerce businesses fall short.
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Welcome to Episode 12 of The Elevatory podcast. Anna Jonak here, founder of The Elevatory. Today we're going to focus on how to nail your marketing strategy. We're here to talk about everything to do with your messaging and your pitch. Because this is often where most ecommerce businesses fall short. The matter of the fact is, they just have no strategy. They develop a product, or curate an amazing product range, they pop up a shop, and then it is crickets generally, most of the time if you've just got a shopfront, and there's not much more to it.
What is a marketing strategy?
So let me talk to you first about what actually a marketing strategy is. And then we're gonna talk about how you develop them. Okay, so first up, it's, it's essentially a plan for understanding your ideal client, your audience, creating a competitive advantage, so you know how to stand out, and helping you to really sell what it is that you have, or what it is that you do, or how you can help the transformation that you can create. Ultimately, that's what it is.
How do you develop a marketing strategy?
Well, you need to get clear on four key things. And I'm going to talk about each of them right now.
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- The first is you need to get clear on the specific problem that you're solving with your products. Okay, now I hear it all the time. I'm not solving a problem. I just sell bags. All right, just using bags as an example. Well, no, you can't just say that it's so much more than that. It needs to be so much more than that. Because we buy based on emotion. We're not just buying a bag because we see it. Oh, that looks nice. There's so much more to it. When you see a bag, your mind goes into overdrive. Oh, who's that for? How does it work? Do I need one? How's it gonna make me feel? Does it fit in with my style? How much does it cost? All of these things? Can I afford it? All right. Your mind goes into overdrive asking all these questions about the thing it's presented with. And we need to be able to showcase this thing as well as we can so that we're showcasing that we're a match for someone's needs, right? We also need to be able to demonstrate that the value outweighs the cost or expense of the product, you know, so does this $200-300 bag outweigh the value I'm gonna get from using it. I literally saw an ad yesterday for this beautiful bag made of cork leather. I'm in pain, because I need a laptop bag, something that I can take on a plane or if I want to go up to the shops or whatever. And at the moment, I am constantly putting my laptop in my kids Smiggle backpack, or trying to shoehorn it into another bag that I've got, and I'm kind of making it rip. So I'm at a point when I know that I need a bag. And I'm looking for the right one. And I've done some Googling. And then I got shown this ad yesterday. And the ad was just genius. It told the founders story, it told the history, it showcased the product features and how it worked. It showed how it was used. I watched this video and I was hooked. I went and looked at the website, $300 US dollars, so it's a bit exxy. And now I'm sitting here and I'm kind of going through the motions of like, do I like this bag enough? How's it gonna make me feel when I wear it? You know, it's just gonna be a game changer when I'm on the plane and blah, blah, blah, alright, we're buying. We're kind of assessing, we're thinking. So we need to be able to make sure that we can showcase how our product is working. It's solving a problem and it is a match for the ideal client.
- Which brings me on to point two, who is your ideal client? All right, who is the person that you are trying to cater to with your bag? All right, is it a mum who's running around with young children, so it needs to have lots of pockets? Is it someone who's in corporate and who travels a lot? Alright, really think about who's the person you want to do business with? Who have you developed your product or product range for? Who is this person that loves doing business with you? It might not be the people you're currently attracting. But essentially, who is this person? That is just loving what you do and you love, right? There's just this match made in heaven. Once you get clear on that, it's like, where are they hanging out? How do you find them? Where are they? What platforms are they on? Are they on Tik Tok on Instagram? Are they buying on Facebook? Do they Google, you know, what are their pain points? So when it comes to your bag and the problems that it solves, whether it's something like throwing your iPhone into a little hand wallet, for the pickup, and you just you can put your cards in it and your keys in it, and it's a perfect size and wraps around your wrist. Versus as I said, we just talked about this amazing laptop bag that I'm slightly obsessed with. You need to show that you know your audience enough and how they're feeling and what they're looking for, and what motivates them, where to find them, so that we can get in front of them. And we can say the right things to them.
- All right, which then brings me on to point three and four, which is about being able to articulate why your product is better and different, and your brand, why your brand is better and different. Okay, now, there are lots of people out there selling the same thing, or for you know, selling similar items. So you need to be clear on why yours is better and different. All right, why is your bag better than the other bag? Why should I buy this one versus that one? If I'm looking at all these things right now, and I'm looking for a backpack, I'm obviously gonna be looking at lots of different things, right? First, you're gonna look at the product features. So that's looking at things like functionality or aesthetic. Alright, so functionality might be waterproof pockets, does it have a charger in there? You know aesthetic, how do you wear it? What kind of colour is it, that kind of stuff, what kind of styles does it come in, and then you've got more of the product benefits. And that's where you're really talking back to those ideal customer wants, needs and desires. You know, providing them something classy, it makes them feel chic, it's different, it helps them stand out. You know, maybe it is the way that it holds all your stuff can create really good safety for your laptop and your phone and all these other bits and pieces. So it comes back to more than around the feelings that you know that the wants and desires versus the actual functionality. Because people, as I said, generally, they're going to buy off the feeling and the need. So you want to make sure that you've got both covered. All right. So that's your product, features and benefits.
- And then it comes down to your brand. Because it might be that you have a wonderful product, and it looks better than others on the market. But if there's other brands out there that are really clear on their brand personality, and maybe their bags are ethically made, maybe they might have a specific product material, and so on, you're going to be starting to assess the values and the vision and the the characterisations of this brand outside of the actual products they make. Because again, we are buying into something, we're not just buying the product, most of the time, we're going to look a little bit deeper. And who’s the person, who's the company, is there a trust here? Do I like them? Do I align with them? Alright, so the focus here is very much on you, your story, your brand's mission, vision and values, causes, support, ethics and attitude, you need to be clear on all of those things, then your store needs to have a personality, because again, it's just going to blend in otherwise, if it's just selling similar stuff, and you've got no personality and no reasoning behind it, and no one's getting to know you, you know, it's going to be very difficult for people to make to make those decisions, we want to make the purchase decision as easy as possible by showing the match
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And by basically getting all of this information in front of people that they need to see as quickly as as easily as possible. And in multiple places. Because all of these insights and information should essentially be peppered through your website copy, your email copy, your social media pillars, and your ad copy and your ad hooks. Alright, this will help you create a really strong message that then is reinforced at every touch point, you'll know how to sell what you have, how to stand out and show it's different, how to gain recognition with your ideal client by talking to their needs and wants and showing them what they need to see or telling them what they need to hear. All right. More importantly, if you have a strategy, and you have a very strong pitch and message, once your customers buy, and they have an amazing experience from you they then become brand advocates. And they can tell your story for you. They can tell people about the amazing bag that they bought, and where they bought it from and about this amazing business owner and their values and vision and how they're made and the product materials. They will do your job for you. If you know how to articulate it and you are repetitive and persistent and really believe what you're putting out there. Then it's easy for someone to pick up the message and run with it and tell other people all about it. All right. Strategy is so important, right? We're buying so much more than a product. We're buying an experience we're buying based on emotion. We're thinking about functionality, we're thinking about how it adds value to our life, and obviously we're doing a cost benefit analysis when it comes to price, shipping objections, you name it. And we need to be able to answer all of these things, build trust and make it simple and easy, so that people feel great when they make the purchase. So you need a plan here. Otherwise, as I said, your store is just going to end up in a sea of other stores and it will be unmemorable, okay, you can't stand out if you don't know how to stand out. All right.
Okay. Now, of course, if you need help formulating your marketing strategy, and building out all your marketing infrastructure that goes along with it, so all of those touch points, bringing it through to email or website copy, social media, and even through to ads, you know where we are anytime you can head to our website at theelevatory.com and booking a chat with us. But otherwise, I expect you to potentially listen to this again and make some notes and have a real think about whether across all of your assets, you really are clear on how you're solving problems, who you're helping, and what makes you special and different. Okay. All right. I'm off to record the next episode. Food for thought.
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