Marketing is actually pretty simple. You’re just getting the word out about the product/service you have so that the world can see what a better place it is with you in their lives. The execution for said marketing gets a little more complicated with humans involved. You see, we love to make things complicated. We get caught up and over think and end up confusing the customers that find our brand. Which is why I’ve taught marketing to sustainable brands around the 4 C’s of Marketing– Clarity, Content, Connection, Cohesion.
Clarity in Marketing
Everything starts with clarity in your marketing. The very first thing I do with a brand when we work together is to get clear on who you are as a brand and the specific group of people you serve. I walk through exercises that bring clarity to the problems your brand solves, the pain points your customers are facing the how to build the hero’s journey around your business. Much of this insight comes from StoryBrand who’s slogan is “When you confuse you lose”.
By understanding your unique value proposition (What makes you different from your competition) and getting clear on your niche audience creating your marketing materials becomes easier. As you plan content or build ads, you can ask the question “Does Sally, our customer avatar, care?”, “Will this bring value to Sally’s life?”
Clarity is the first step on the road to amazing branding and marketing because if you don’t know what you offer or who you serve, your customers won’t. To take this even deeper, if you can’t explain what you do in a sentence then you aren’t clear enough in your brand. My rule of thumb, is to simply what I do so much so that a 3rd grader could understand.
Content is King
The second “C in the 4 C’s of marketing is content. You need it to grow. Whether that’s blogging, a newsletter, creating videos or using social. You need to be building content in order to get discovered, provide value, and gain trust. Through these steps you’ll be able to create lifelong customers.
Now, the important part about creating content is that it’s good. It needs to be adding value to your customers life. You don’t just create for the sake of creating or publish a post because you promised you’d publish 3 posts a week. Ask yourself how this adds value to your customer’s life, and then how will this add value to your brand?
The great thing about content is that it’s reusable. Write a blog post and use a blurb as a caption. Film a video and post it to IGTV and Youtube and then embed it into a blog post. Link blog posts on Pinterest and turn value-drive newsletter copy into blog posts and captions. If you are creating content once and not repurposing it, you’re making life a lot harder on yourself. Find a way to use an piece of content at least 2 other times. I’m sure you’ll find that this saves you so much time in the long run and most people won’t ever notice that its been used before.
Connection or Community
This is why we’re here. Here on earth, or here growing a business. The goal is to connect. So whether that’s responding to comments on your blog or on social, replying to email responses on your newsletter, Showing up at a networking event or going out and finding your customers and connecting with them on their platforms, you need to connect.
You can’t add value to someones life if you aren’t connecting. And you’ll never build trust or gain a lifelong customer if you aren’t connecting.
Reach out to the community you are building a be a part of it. Provide free insight, answer questions, talk about things you both love (like puppies, who doesn’t love puppies?) and build connections that make your brand feel like a human and not the corporate machine we’re all so sick of. Find a way to get to your people and start building a relationship with them!
Cohesion brings it all Together
The final “C” in the 4 C’s of marketing is Clarity. Clarity and content are the foundations of your marketing. Connection is what allows your brand to grow. Cohesion is what will keep you in front of your audience again and again.
The greatest compliment someone can say to you is “I saw your post in my feed and I new it was you.”
Your brand should bring the same voice, the same color palette and the same type of content to your viewers wherever you go. Whether it’s using photos from the same shoot across platforms or bringing your brand colors into your creative. You want your customers to know that the content in front of them is from you without having to search for your brand name.
This is when a brand book comes in handy. A digital book for everyone in the company as well as partners to use to make sure you stay on brand. This book includes your colors, fonts, image examples that fit the brand. Copy that highlights your elevator pitch, who you are, who you’re ideal customer is, all versions of your logo and how to use it, etc. Basically, if you’ve ever come up with a rule around how you want your brand to look, it goes in this book.
BONUS: Confidence
With these powers combined….. you get confidence. Confidence in your brand and in your marketing efforts. No more wondering if things are working but actually being able to see people look and speak about your brand differently. There is no questioning whether or not you should do something because you have the framework set up with your brand and customer guide along with your brand book to create clarity around your brand.
The 4 C’s of Marketing are here to remind you of how to create a foundation for your brand strategy. They bring clarity to you and your customers which makes your job so much easier. There’s still a lot of work that needs to go into this to make it a success but that’s what I’m here for if you have any questions along the way. Or if you’re really committed to creating a brand strategy that works, sign up for a 1:1 strategy package and let’s start deep diving into your business so that you can get clear, create content, connect and create a cohesive brand that will build you, lifelong customers! Sign up today for a 1:1 strategy package!
