(Photo by Sidney San Martín)
A mature business owner knows instinctively that marketing isn’t all about the business owner and it’s also not all about the prospective customer. It’s a delicate balance between the two. In fact there are four layers to your business marketing that you need to clearly understand, articulate, and authentically connect with:
- Mission. This is your (branding) promise for your organization (or non-profit). It states who you serve, how, and why. It’s not laden with gobbledygook words or phrases that you think people should hear. It’s clear and logical.
- Passion. Why you (and your team) do what they do? If you don’t have passion, you don’t have fire, which your prospects can detect. Knowing why people are passionate inside your organization, you can better match skills/needs (what do your people want their organization to do for them?).
- Strategy/goals. What you want to achieve and how will you achieve it? If your goals don’t pass your “mission filter” you probably shouldn’t be doing it – it dilutes your mission/brand promise. Clearly measurable and transparent goals need to be regularly examined and updated.
- Actions. What will you do about the plans? Ideally, match actions with passions. This layer is about what people can do for the organization. Without action, you get no results.
Your customer wants to know the key benefit of your product or service to their needs. But emotionally, they want to connect to your mission, passion, and goals (so they feel that they can trust your work). Done well this strategy produces sweet rewards.