On this episode of The Hayley Osborne Show I am talking about your marketing foundations. Are you clear on what your marketing foundations are? Are you clear on your messaging? Having your marketing foundations in place is the number one thing you can do to set yourself up to WIN in 2024. Listen in to understand how.
I have decided to release a part one part two series of this episode or these episodes this week and next week because it’s a really big topic that I’m talking about today. The topic is how to establish your marketing foundations in 2024. And I feel like I’ve been having more and more conversations with business owners over the last, I don’t know, few months actually, where most, I found a lot of business owners, when I ask them, Are you clear on what your marketing foundations are? The answer has been a majority per cent. No, no, I’m not clear on what my marketing foundations are. And I don’t know what they are. And no, I’m not clear on my messaging. And so, this got me thinking that it was something that I really wanted to focus on and really upskill my listeners, which is you guys, as to how to actually establish your marketing foundations in 2024 because we’re nearing the end of the year.
I really want you to come out of the gates fast. And to achieve all of your goals, your visions, your missions, and everything that you have set out to achieve in 2024, I’ve just come off the back of a really beautiful Planning Day in Brisbane, where I spent with some amazing business owners. And I can tell you that learning and upskilling and learning to learn new things is something that I’m really passionate about in my business. And that’s why I teach what I teach, right? I have been in this, you know, marketing brand story, foundational sort of space for over 15 years now. And it’s my job to be able to help you, the small business owners to create strategies and activities to really be able to have big growth with the least amount of time and effort in your business. And I do that through using all the tools and tips that I have built over the last 15 years, which I’m really proud of.
This episode’s a little bit different, too. I’ve decided to record the whole episode. And normally, I don’t just maintain the audio. But this one, I thought, You know what, I’m going to go on Zoom. I’ve never done this before. And I am going to record the whole thing and see how it turns out. I love this pilot run of part one, how to establish your marketing foundations in 2024. And you know why you should do it. I know everyone’s like, well, I know that I should have my marketing foundations in order, Hayley, but I need to know how to establish them. So, this is what I want to teach you today. So, let’s just get straight into it.
• I want you to ask yourself, are you clear on what your marketing foundations are?
• Are you clear on your messaging?
And whether you’ve said yes or no, you might still need to work on what they look like. So that’s what I want to help to unpack today. But first, you know, if you’re just kind of tuning into this podcast and getting to know me a little bit better if you haven’t started from episode one because we’re up to episode 90 now. We’re almost up to 100, which is cool. But I’ve been in business for over 15 years, from fashion to candles to corporate marketing the world’s biggest alcohol brands and loving what I do along the way. As I said before, it’s my job to create clever marketing strategies for you and help you get clear on what activities you need to do. To have those strategies give you big growth with the least amount of time and effort in your business. And I’m passionate about it. I’m proud of it.
And also, I’m a mum, I’m a mama bear of two very small people. They are 15 months and two and a half. I do love a good coffee and I have an allergy to so I’m allergic to walnuts and pecan nuts. For those of you that didn’t know, haven’t really done a little introduction like this for a while on the podcast. So, I thought that I would get that out there and give you a little sneak peek again into what that is. I speak fluent Italian, which most of you may not know. But now that there are a lot of people listening to this, I was like, I need to revisit this because it’s nice to kind of showcase who I am and what I do, and my background. So, you know, I have a sweet tooth, which is going to be the death of me. No, I balance it out with exercise, but I do have a sweet tooth.
I started a fashion business back in 2009. And that was the year that Instagram started. So, I really had no idea how to run a business. I really didn’t. I was really young, I was confused. I second-guessed myself, I had massive impostor syndrome in this business. And I had no idea how to put myself out there. And you know, I had national stockiest, I manufactured overseas, I was nominated for emerging Designer of the Year back then, and realised I didn’t really like the industry. And I wasn’t passionate about the way that I needed to release a collection six months in advance and design it like further like before that.
So I lost my passion, and I shut everything down, including all that social media, which at that time was just a Facebook page because Instagram was new. And so I didn’t have a website, that everything grew really organically. I started out in markets and kind of just blossomed from then. But I knew that if I was going to do everything again, I had to be more strategic. I had to start using my corporate job to really upskill in this new social media game. And that’s when I really propelled in my career in corporate. And I had to come up with if I was going to have another business with a really different strategy that tailored small business, like myself, that was, you know, modern.
I started in 2018, 2019, 2020. I’ve been in business for six years running this business, which I could easily understand as well, and I could teach other businesses how to grow because marketing and corporate is one thing, and then Marketing for Small Businesses is another. And yes, you get to play with so much money, and you know, you have these great ideas and beautiful campaigns. But then how do we have and tailor that for a small business.
This is what led me to, I guess, create this successful business attract new clients every week through my social media and marketing efforts, consistently drive my monthly revenue, follow a strategy that I’ve built for myself, and share this with you guys, who are my clients to make sure that you’re a success, because it is a beautiful thing that when you succeed, I succeed. And I want that for everyone. And it’s my mission. I know that small business owners are the backbone of our economy. I want to impart my knowledge to every small business owner who wants to hear it so that we can live in a greater economic climate for the future and so that my children can grow up in a beautiful economic climate as well. And I think that’s really, really important.
What are I guess, the three common mistakes I want to talk about that stop your business from seeing the growth that you want?
The first one is definitely what I see. And I found a lot of business owners are confused about what their marketing foundations are.
The second one is I see so many business owners really overwhelmed with how fast the digital world is moving. And that’s not a good place to sit in. But how do we overcome that and go from that feeling of like, oh, my gosh, isn’t another new thing and go into that feeling more of leaning into everything that’s new, and really positioning yourself with that thought process of Done is better than perfect. I think that would be beautiful. So, we’ll look at that. I know it moves fast. But you know, business owners are nimble, and we’re efficient. And we do things at the speed of light. And so we will move just as fast as this digital world is moving.
It’s my job to teach you that and I do teach that through the different avenues within my business. I’ve got my membership, Superhero Marketing. I have social media strategies, which I do for individual clients, so you can come in and work with me to get that up and running for you. And marketing strategies as well, which is, you know, really important to keep up to date with everything that’s at your fingertips.
The third one is, you know, I see a lot of people unsure because they’ve got no marketing structures.
So they’re kind of like the three sorts of common mistakes that I see across the board when I work with business owners, but I wanted to bring this podcast to you because I know that you are ready to learn because you’re listening to this and you are leaning into learning, and you’re ready to implement and also take action. So those are the things I really want you to do. Because if all you do is learn, but you never implement and take action, then that’s not going to get you anywhere fast at all. I want to talk about two today.
Part One on how to establish your marketing foundations. But I want to take you through strong core versus weak core and what that looks like. Stick around because I have a lot to say. A framework that I use inside my business is called maps. And then, I want to take you through a ranking, your marketing foundations exercise and what the ingredients are a great foundation. So, I really, really want you to understand how to establish your marketing foundations for 2024. And when you win, I win, so I don’t want you to forget that. I really want you to have the best year in 2024.
• Who is your target market? So, the audience that you serve?
• What is the problem that you solve?
The first part is that really great marketing foundations are understanding what I like to call my maps framework. I use a framework inside my business called Maps. And that stands for and yes, it’s an acronym, but it stands for market audience problem and solution. Okay, so the market slash audience’s kind of the same. And then you want to think about the problem that you solve. Who is the market that you serve? Who is your target audience? Are they women who are the age of 20 to 25 and have the problem that you solve? Is it helping them show up as their most authentic self in their life and the transformation you provide so they can move forward in their careers in their business? Like, right, so you do kind of get it. So when you have that first part framework, that’s basically your transformation message, when you can articulate what that is and do it well, that sets up a beautiful building block for everything else that comes from that. So again, I’ll just repeat that market audience problem and solution.
• What is the solution or the transformation that you provide?
And once you have that succinct answer, you have to actually crown yourself. I’ve said this a little bit lately. But what you need to do is what I mean by that is, put your crown on and wear it and own it. And if you can’t remember what it is off the top of your head, write it on a Post-it note, stick it on your mirror, and then repeat after me.
I help business owners. That is my target audience. What do I do? I help them to create marketing strategies and activities. That is the problem because they have trouble creating activities and strategies to market their business. And the transformation or the solution I provide is to have the biggest growth with the least amount of time and effort in their business. Okay, so once you nail that for yourself, then I believe if you can’t articulate that without reading it, stick it on the mirror, stick it on your fridge, and read it over and over and over again out loud until you believe it and then set yourself a test.
If you’ve got a few parties coming up over Christmas for your family things, if someone asks you what you do, I never say Oh, I’m a marketer. Because then the like, oh, yeah, what’s that? It’s the same as marketing and sales strategy. They’re all kind of like icky words, right? But if I say I help business owners create marketing strategies and activities to have big growth with the least amount of time and effort in their business, the person I’m talking to always says cool, how do you do that? Right? And that is the opener. So think about what that looks like for you. And really crown yourself to articulate that and that is the beginning of what makes a beautiful foundation. Okay, so then your messaging builds on that.
Are you clear on your messaging, or will you figure out what that looks like for you? Then I guarantee you will be. And what I’ve found is that when you are so close to your business, you don’t see it anymore, right, and you don’t know what you don’t know. So sometimes the quickest trajectory that you will have is when you have someone come in, to give you a hand, to figure out what those foundations look like, like myself, I can come in and give you a hand, and that can get sorted out. And very, very quickly, when you start to kind of sift through those clouds to get to that sunshine place that you do feels right. And that your intuition loves for you to be able to build a solid business with some really great marketing foundations that are going to set you up to propel in 2024 because you’re true to who you are. Your messaging is bang on with your personality, your vision, your mission and your objectives. Trust me, I’ve seen this so many times play out beautifully when everything is aligned.
When you’ve got that first part of establishing your marketing foundations, it’s a really nice place. And honestly, if you’re listening to this, and then you go away and do the thing, please do the thing and send me a message on Instagram because I really like to know when I help people. Otherwise, how am I going to know? Oh, leave me a review. That is so beautiful. And it really helps to push this podcast out. So I love that for you. And I love that I can help you in this way. And, you know, this is something that I work on time and time again with my clients. And when we get to the other side, it’s such a beautiful feeling. So that’s the first part.
The second part of learning how to establish your marketing foundations for 2024 Is your messaging. Right? So, that involves your storytelling, which is your brand story. What does that look like when you have a strong brand positioning? So, you know, you’re clearly conveying your brand story and your value proposition. The strong positioning leads to your target audience’s preference and purchase. When you’ve got this strength when you land in someone’s inbox, or you appear in their feed, or whatever that looks like, they are going to preference you and purchase from you over somebody else within a heartbeat.
Because your messaging is succinct and down pat, your storytelling connects with your messaging. And it also connects, obviously, with your brand story. It’s such a beautiful place to be in when you can have preference and in your positioning over your competitors, right, because you’ve got this down pat. And it does take work to understand who you are, what you do, what your messaging is, what your story is, what is your brand story, it takes work. So have a think about what that looks like for you. And that arises in the form of knowing who you are, knowing what you stand for, and why it matters to your audience. Okay, and so when you’ve got that right, you’ll be on your way to nailing your messaging.
The third part of this puzzle is brand awareness. Okay, so how strong is your brand awareness? Basically, that means, In layman’s terms? How aware? Are your target audience of your business? How aware? Are they? What are you doing in your world to make them aware? This is the third part. We’re kind of like stacking, right? A really good foundation with one on top of the other because if you’re if you build a house that has a terrible, a very shit slab, concrete slab, and you try and build a beautiful house on top, the chances are the next storm that we have, your house might fall down. It’s the same as your business. Right? We’re starting with the foundations, and we’re working our way up, which is the most important part. What I was saying about brand awareness is how aware your audience is of your business, which is your brand.
• How much work have you done to raise awareness that you exist?
• Do your customers recognise your brand name and associate that with what you do straightaway?
Answer that question and you’ll probably have a really good answer hopefully. Do people recognise your brand name and know what you do? And I know that awareness is an intangible asset, but what you can do to track that building brand awareness and what that looks like is through social media with some good insights. So, you know, even, let’s say, from social media for the moment, but even looking at how many people are subscribed to your email list, or how many people you have in your database, is a really good way to measure your brand awareness. Okay, so obviously, the bigger your database, the more clients or people, customers and your ideal clients are aware that your brand exists. That’s brand awareness.
If you didn’t know, I’m trying to break it down easily because, you know, this is my zone of genius. And I want this to work for you. Because I know that it works. And then, when it comes to social media, how would you measure how aware people are of your brand? Your business brand awareness is through likes, followers, saves, shares, and how many members you have in a Facebook group, which all calculate how aware people are of your brand. And then you know, if people are mentioning your brand in social media posts, so your business in social media posts, and, you know, if you have a space for people, your ideal clients, to comment at the end of your blog posts, that’s a really good way to measure brand awareness.
Even if you’re in a startup business, or even an established company, where you’re entering into a new market, your brand awareness is probably going to be quite low. Your marketing strategy, going into 2024, will, most likely. I would recommend that you focus on more top-of-funnel activities, right? What can you do to reach the most eyeballs with the least amount of time and effort? What’s the top-of-funnel activity to increase your brand awareness, it’s if you have a blog, it’s creating a blog. A blog will increase your search engine optimisation, which will help you appear on page one of your website. And then it will also enable you to have people linked to it. And what it also does is organically, you’ll create keywords with whatever blog you talk about that’s relevant to your industry.
That just helps with getting your website ranked and also appearing in search results, which is really important. And then other top-of-funnel activities or PR things right, so public relations, like appearing in different types of media, getting featured on podcasts, like, what can you do to have the most impact with the most eyeballs that are your target audience with the least amount of effort. And that’s something that I help you with to create? Because, you know, we all do so much work in our businesses that if you’re not having the most impact with the least amount of time, then you’re clearly not doing something right. In your business. How can we leverage that? How can we make it better? How can we amplify that and optimise it to really get you the biggest eyeballs with the least amount of effort from you? Essentially, one interview on a podcast or one feature across, say, Forbes, for example, could count as 300 social media posts. I want you to ask yourself, why aren’t you doing this in your business and what is holding you back from growing? And if it’s the, I don’t know what to do, it might be time that you reach out to me, for example, to help you get to the other side quicker. Because if you’re in the same place this time next year, procrastination is not your friend. It’s time to lean in and learn. So and also like invest. I work one-on-one with my clients to help them do this. And I cannot tell you the amount of light bulb aha moments that just let me up completely lock me up.
Now, I want to also say actually, before we move on to brand awareness, so if I say to you big brand names like Dove, like Lego, like Victoria’s Secret, right, you all know and can associate their brand with their brand personality. And you’re all very aware of that brand, right? If I say let’s just focus on Dove, for example. When we think of that brand, they’ve done a good job of building out what it looks like to be innocent. That’s kind of the word behind Dove. Then, if we look further, an innocent personality type might be someone like Forrest Gump. Really innocent. He really personifies Dove. And then if we look at, still around that innocence, and we look at messaging and we look at Dove, were like free to be you and me, like freedom, gentle, kind, innocent, which has Dove, so they’ve done a really good job of working on their brand awareness. This is the same for startups, or even if you’re a well-established company but you’ve so far only had a word-of-mouth strategy, this is a good exercise for you to concentrate on the top-of-funnel stuff. You can increase your brand awareness to get more eyeballs for your business.
The fourth thing that I want to talk about is bringing the brand to life. Who is your ideal client? Who is your avatar? Okay, and I’m not talking about the movie. I’m talking about bringing the brand to life. So, you know, small businesses that have a deep understanding of their buyers are able to target their ideal clients more effectively through their marketing activities and show up in places that they visit. Okay, and this doesn’t have to be physical; it can be digital, and most likely, it is digital.
• Where do you show up where your ideal client is?
• How are you appearing in their world?
• How are you effectively targeting them with your marketing activities on a personal level and influencing their buying behaviour?
What is a marketing? Avatar? Now, it considers the goals of your ideal client, their pain points, their preferences, and their demographics important.
• Who?
• How old are they?
• Are they married? Are they single?
• Do they have kids?
• What motivates them?
• What are their relationships?
• Where do they live?
And understands like who they are, what they do, what they consume, where they hang out, and what’s a day in the life is. And this is how you start to establish how you are going to interact with your ideal client through your marketing and sales process. Have you actually done any of this work at all? Who is your ideal client? And I guess just answer this in your head or send me a message on Instagram. And if you haven’t, it might be time to visit this space. Because, you know, when you don’t know who you’re talking to a new, and I’m not saying the real niche, but I am saying understand who you’re talking to, it’s like you’re going to just be throwing spaghetti at the wall. So, you know, how do you best reach them? Where are they hanging out? And are? Is this person understood clearly by you? Okay, so who is your avatar?
And so that brings me back to that original question, which is, Are you clear on your marketing foundations? Are you clear on your messaging? I went through four points now to help you start to build a really good slab to build a nice house, which is your marketing house, and your brand awareness house and all the things and when you get those parts and pieces, right, it will help you to establish your marketing foundations in 2024. And that is the end of Part One, guys, of how to establish your marketing foundations in 2024. We’re established in them now so that you can hit the ground running in 2024 because I want this to be your best year yet. And I am out to make sure that you do so if you’ve loved this episode.
