Is Your Marketing Recipe Cooking Up the Right Results?

strategy

Nov 29

Have you ever made lasagna from scratch? It’s laborious but worth the effort. It’s what I make for my family when I want to love on them with food. Different people have different versions of the recipe, but the basic ingredients of pasta, tomato sauce, seasonings and cheeses mixed with egg remains the same. Once I had homemade lasagna that a friend made with boiled eggs in it. She had the right ingredients in her dish but she cooked them up in a way that changed the results.

My friend ended up with something that looked and smelled like lasagna, but the purpose of the eggs was totally missed when she boiled them. You’re supposed to mix the raw eggs with the creamy cheeses so that they bind everything together. With this process, they don’t lend an eggy flavor to the dish, but instead make the texture of the cheeses very pleasing. Finding boiled eggs in lasagna changed the flavor and the experience of the meal. Let’s just say that if I was at a restaurant, it wouldn’t be something that I would order again.

Picture Your Marketing as Lasagna

Imagine for a minute that your marketing mix is a dish of lasagna. It’s piping hot and the scent of oregano and tomatoes is filling the air. (Hungry yet?) To get to this point, you had to mix the right ingredients in the right way, using the right processes. You can make modifications to your recipe to make it better. (Like adding more cheese!) Other modifications will make it worse. (Like adding boiled eggs.) How do you get to the perfect recipe that will make your dish so good that people will come back for more?

Find Out What People Want

When you want to find out what your dinner guests like, you ask them. You can do the same with your target buyers to find the approach that is going to connect their need with your solution. If you have created buyer personas, you’ve already taken a key step in figuring out how to reach your target audience. The best insights, however, are going to come when you interview people and let them tell you the story of their buying journey as you guide them with open ended questions.

Talk to People! Everyone?

You don’t have to talk to every client to get the insights you need that will help you prioritize the marketing activities that will get the best results. Make it a practice to talk one-to-one with clients and you’ll find that the time you take to have an open-ended discussion results in the kind of insight that you can use to improve your business. By talking with both recent and longtime clients you can gain intelligence that will allow you to:

Create more products and services that they need.
Avoid costly mistakes about new products and services
Get more ideas for how you can support your clients
Gain a strategic advantage over your competition

Stop Guessing About Marketing Tactics

Instead of guessing how you are going to reach your next new client, buying insights allow you to learn about the triggers that change the status quo, and initiate a search for a new solution. That will help you decide how you are going to build awareness. Will you focus on SEO and Google Adwords, or would it be better to allocate resources to in-person events?

You’ll find out who is involved in the buying process, and what information they need to help them make a decision. When there are multiple people involved, your message can be specially tailored to them, addressing their needs and success factors, as well as overcome common objections. Your tactics might include materials that enable sales such as demos and content that helps prospects envision the success that will result from choosing your company.

Listen Better to Get a Better Message

In addition to choosing marketing tactics, focusing on your clients allows you to get the right message. If you’re talking jargon and generalities, it will be hard to stand out from the crowd. When your message speaks directly to the needs, challenges, and experiences of your target, you have a better chance of attracting the right type of client. Like that perfect pan of lasagna, you’ll keep them coming back for more.

Let me help you with your marketing and we’ll mix up the right message with the right tactics to help your business grow. Get in touch.

Lori Creighton

I work with small businesses to improve their recruiting outcomes by creating an 'always on' employer brand. By shifting from job-specific promotions to a value-driven message based on employee experiences, a brand narrative is crafted that resonates with what employees value most in their workplace. Eager to share what I’ve learned, I offer my insights and strategies to marketing peers through resources and courses, designed to enhance their employer branding efforts and integrate recruitment marketing into their skill set.