How Going Back to Basics Could Strengthen Your Marketing Strategy

It’s officially that time of the year when your newsfeed fills up with posts referencing the trends you should have on your radar for the upcoming year. From the latest technologies to crowd-pleasing viral tactics, it can start to get a bit overwhelming. Can you relate?

While we’re keen trendspotters ourselves, we thought we’d do things a little bit differently this year and, in line with our philosophy of keeping things simple, advocate the benefits of a more back to basics approach.

In this post, we’ll walk you through three foundational elements of marketing strategy so that you can revisit and refresh them ahead of the new year.

Value Proposition

The most basic, yet arguably most useful tool in your marketing strategy is your value proposition. This simple statement should communicate your entire business in a nutshell, which is often easier said than done!

Our favourite method for crafting a value proposition was created by leading management consultant and author of “Crossing the Chasm,'' Geoffrey Moore.“For (target customer) who (statement of the need or opportunity), (product/service name) is (product category) that (statement of benefit).”

Here are a few examples of this value proposition template in action:

1. “For busy freelancers who are tired of wearing too many hats, Zenith is a cloud accounting app that takes care of the numbers while you can focus on your zone of genius.”

2. “For financial services firms who want to hire top graduate talent, EthosMax is an AI-based aptitude testing solution that identifies the top 5% of graduates who are the best fit for your organisation.”

3. “For travel agencies who are ready to start their digital transformation journey, KoTrak is a digital presence auditing tool that will open your eyes to your agency’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.”

Could your business benefit from a more refined value proposition? Why not try creating a few different statements using this template and see if you can find a more captivating, yet simple way to communicate the core of your business in the future.

Target Audience

Diving deeper into the “who” element of your value proposition will help you connect with your prospects and customers on a much deeper level.

We’re big fans of creating marketing personas, which are fictional characters that you can create to mirror different members of your target audience. Once created, these personas can be reflected upon when it comes to creating new marketing materials to ensure they have the best chance of resonating with your target market(s).

We recommend building out your avatars by considering the following key questions:

• What is their background?

• What is their current professional situation?

• What are they trying to achieve?

• What are their biggest pain points?

• What is their ideal resolution?

• What stage are they at in the purchase decision-making process?

• Who else do they have to answer to before making a purchasing decision?

• What are their most common barriers to making a purchasing decision?

Key Messaging

The world is a noisy place with numerous businesses vying for the attention of your target audience on a daily basis. In order to make your business cut through the noise, it’s ideal to have a defined set of core messages that you use to communicate with your target audience(s).

Rather than sending many mixed messages, having a set of simple messages that you repeatedly reinforce will mean that your business is more likely to build up awareness and recognition in a shorter period of time.

Your key messaging should build upon the promise you make in your value proposition. Let’s take one of the examples from earlier and show you 5 key messaging phrases which can support it.

“For busy freelancers who are tired of wearing too many hats, Zenith is a cloud accounting app that takes care of the numbers while you can focus on your zone of genius.”

1. We do the numbers so you don’t have to.

2. Why drown in paperwork when you can have an accountant in your pocket?

3. Spinning too many plates? We’ll take the one with all the numbers on it!

4. Freelance accounting made simple.

5. All your freelance accounting needs in one app.

Why not try this exercise for your business now and see how many statements you can generate, before whittling your list down to the top 5?

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Could your business benefit from going back to basics? Get in touch with Philip Martin to discover how DMA Partners can help you create a winning marketing strategy for the coming year: philip.martin@dma-partners.com.