Introduction:
When you learn marketing, you’ll realize that it is not just an act of buying and selling — it is a form of art. It deals with understanding people’s psyche, behavior, or habits and incorporating it into your marketing strategy.
Oftentimes, you will hear marketers say that marketing is constantly changing. It is because we’re continuously adapting to new technologies and massive updates in marketing channels. You see that from traditional marketing, we now embrace digital, social media, and paid ads. And maybe in the future, we will witness more as we look forward to the evolution of Artificial Intelligence and Metaverse.
Despite that, we also believe that marketing develops as time goes by. There are still permanent recipes we must remember to achieve a great marketing plan. Remember, even after many years have passed, the core foundation of marketing will stay the same. And if you don’t know what these foundations are, it will be hard for you to level up your brand or your client’s brand.
I. The Recipe for Knowing the Whys of the Brand.
Apple will not be the best smartphone just because they are selling phones with an apple-bite logo. You buy it because it gives you a sense of security and offers the best user experience. Nike is not just a brand selling good shoes. It inspires people to see a world where everyone is an athlete. And they deserve the best shoes as they navigate their fitness journey. Louis Vuitton promotes sophistication and luxury, where affording their bags defines success and exclusivity.
You see, the whys of the brand create the brand’s purpose. Before you start your business journey, ask yourself. Why did I do this? What do I want to envision for my brand and my customer? Earning revenue or increasing sales is not enough reason to justify your brand purpose. Yes, it is given when starting the business, but the brand’s purpose makes you stand firm in the business industry despite the ups and downs of it.
If you’re still starting your marketing journey or business plan, you are familiar with what marketers term ‘whys of the brand’. To make it simple, it is the reason why your brand exists. Building a brand is not just a mere selection of a logo, brand color, or product/services you want to offer. It is much bigger than that — a brand gives you a story.
Adding to that, the brand purpose is what makes your audience stay loyal to you. It is because it is rooted in your core values, principles, and vision. So, to make your brand stand out from your competitors, ensure that your brand purpose has an authentic, meaningful, and positive impact on your customers. This is also helpful in creating your marketing strategy and brand positioning.
10 Possible Questions to Define Your Brand Purpose:
- Why does my brand exist? What is the driving force behind my brand’s existence?
- What pain points does my brand solve, and why it’s essential to the market or for my target audience?
- What core values and principles does my brand stand for?
- What makes my brand unique and stand out from my competitors?
- How does my brand aim to make a meaningful difference and positive impact on the market or world?
- How does my brand align with my personal or organizational values?
- Who are my target audiences and how my brand resonates with them?
- How do I want my customers or clients to feel when interacting with my brand? What vibes or experiences do I want my brand to give off?
- What are the long-term goals for my brand?
- How do my brand purpose, values, and vision align with my business strategy and goals?
II. The Recipe for Finding the Right Audience
Now that you know your Brand Purpose, it’s time to determine your Right Audience. The Rule of Thumb in Marketing: The more specified your ideal audience/customer is, the for you to attract or target them. One misconception business owners have is to decide on having a broad audience because it means more sales and profit. However, this can be super challenging because it makes your marketing strategy less effective and increases competition.
It is impossible to make everyone your prospective buyer. Even necessary products, such as food and clothes, choose a target market to cater to. Also, the more general your target customer is, the more difficult for the marketing team to tailor successful marketing ideas. Aside from it being hard to position your brand in a large crowd, it can also be costly because you spend more money and effort on a large audience.
So how do you know your right audience in marketing? Do market research.
You already picture your target audience when doing your brand purpose and pitching your product/services. You just need to specify it clearly. And to achieve that, you need to create profile demographics and psychographics. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Who do you think will buy your product? Try to picture it as a person. Is it a girl or a boy? What age range do you think your customer is? What is their work or characteristics? If your product/services target certain preferences, try to research other factors such as their income, location, status, or relevant attributes. How do they think? What lifestyle do they have? What are their desires and pains?
For example, If I am the marketing head of a Baby Milk formula, my target audience will be mothers. Mothers who don’t breastfeed their newborns and take care of their 9-month-old up to 3-year-old children. These Mothers can be in the age range of 25-35 and living in urban areas. Having this simple profile of your target audience guides you in knowing what platform and marketing strategies you should implement in your business venture.
III. The Recipe for Finding the Right Strategy
You’re now finished with your brand goals and target audience. Can you now start posting your content and try paid ads? The answer is NO. Even how tempting to start after a long time in market research, you need to establish first a framework for your marketing plan. Choosing the strategy for your brand is a vital part of your marketing journey. This is the core foundation of your marketing success. If your marketing structure is vague and unorganized, then it will be hard for you to set up the game.
Every brand has a unique strategy to show up to its prospective buyers. So, before positioning your brand to its audience, you need to create first your marketing goals. Brand goals and marketing goals are completely different. Brand goals are a long-term vision for your brand reputation and image. However, marketing goals are more focused on your marketing efforts and aim for specific outcomes in a short-term timeline.
Some examples of marketing goals can be increasing brand awareness and community engagement, web traffic, lead generation, increasing sales, or expanding into new markets. If you’re handling a brand that is not yet launched, then it’s okay to focus your marketing goal first on increasing brand awareness and community engagement. Starting small is a good and sustainable step in your marketing strategy. And, if your brand is already thriving, then observe what areas of your marketing strategy aren’t working and revise a new goal.
After planning your marketing goals, it’s time to determine your marketing channels. Marketing channels are the platforms companies/marketers use to communicate and promote their products/services. Remember that not all people engage in all marketing channels. So, you should choose what marketing channel you think your target audience uses the most. It could be in traditional advertising, social media, email marketing, SEO, content, influencer marketing, and many more.
After that, it’s time to outline how you will position your marketing message. Allocating a budget and measurable timeline is important in this part. You want to make sure that your marketing strategy will be helpful in your return on investment (ROI). And because marketing strategy takes consistency to see remarkable results, its budget needs to be sustainable for you. On the other hand, setting a timeline lets you monitor and track if your marketing efforts are working. It guides you to analyze your strategy and make improvements to the areas that are not giving you the desired outcomes.
Important advice: There is no perfect strategy at the start. So, don’t be afraid to experiment and revise your initial plan. As you start to post content and engage with your target audience, you will observe new ideas that your audience mostly engages with and resonate with. Try to add that to your marketing strategy. Also, it’s normal that you may experience failures or ideas that are not working for your brand. Learn from your mistakes and adapt better strategies as time goes by.
Remember, marketing is an ongoing process.
IV. The Recipe for Finding the Right Content.
Even though your content strategy is related to your marketing strategy, creating content is still a different part that you need to plan ahead. When we talk about content, it can go in 2 ways — visually or in a written manner. Examples of visuals are logos, content design, and images. While for written, these are captions, content ideas, and long-form content like blogs.
First, let’s talk about the visuals. When people read any type of marketing content, the first thing they notice is the design. The design makes people easily grasp the message your brand conveys and influences them to read more. This is why a brand must create a visual that resonates with its brand identity.
To make a consistent brand design, you must prepare a brand kit. A brand kit is a compilation of your visual assets that helps you position your brand identity and personality. The brand kit is composed of your brand’s logo, color palette, fonts, mood board, brand voice, and other necessary elements. It is important to have a brand kit before publishing any content because it guides you in your creative direction and building your content template.
Despite that visual makes your brand easy to notice, it will be useless if your written content is flawed. The message of your publicity is still the heart of your content strategy. The written content is deeply rooted in your brand message and information related to your services/products. To make your written content consistent, try to list down the five primary content ideas that surround the brand. For example, if you’re handling cosmetics like makeup, then your content can be about the benefits of your cosmetics, beauty or aesthetics, how to do skin care, self-love, and user-generated content (UGC) from your customers.
It is important to only make content that is relevant to your brand. Aside from your product, your content is the one that connects you to your audience. And most of the time, your content helps your customers distinguish you from your competitors. So to avoid tarnishing your own brand, make sure to double-check what content you will publish in your marketing channels.
Now that we are embracing the digital era, making your brand available online is vital — especially in social media. So don’t forget to leverage your brand’s online presence in these types of platforms to easily target your potential customers. Aside from your official website, your social media accounts are a free space that displays your brand. By consistently posting content, you make people aware of what you offer while also building connections with your potential buyers.
Similar to your marketing strategy, building the right content takes consistency to know the sweet spot of your brand. As marketing may change or adapt to new trends, always monitor and update your content strategy every 3-6 months to ensure that your brand stays connected to its audience.
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Summary:
Now that you have learned the foundations of great marketing, you are already aware of the things you need to build before launching your brand. This gives you a map of how your brand stands out from your competitors and engages with your target audience. But please bear in mind that targeting your right audience and making them buy is not the end of your marketing plan. You want to make sure that these current customers will buy again or will avail of your services the next time. So, ensure that your brand will be open for feedback, change, and intentional community building.
Because the success of a great marketing plan doesn’t lie in your performance in preparing it, but in its sustainability.
