On this episode of The Hayley Osborne Show I am talking about PART 2 of your marketing foundations carrying on from last week. Having your marketing foundations in place is the number one thing you can do to set yourself up to WIN in 2024. Are you clear on what your marketing foundations are? Are you clear on your messaging?
Last week, I spoke about my map’s framework, which is a framework that I use inside my business to really articulate who you are, the problem that you solve and the transformation that you provide. I really went into detail about that. I asked the question at the beginning of the podcast, and I’m going to ask you again: are you clear on what your marketing foundations are? And if the answer is no, then maybe there is work there to be done.
And if you have big goals and big dreams in your business, to turn them into reality, you know, and live the life that your goals are aligned to, maybe it’s time to really set up your marketing foundations, figure out what they are, put them in place, and then, you know, build on that to attract your ideal client to grow your business to grow your profit to grow your revenue, to be able to create, change and make an impact. And obviously, your bottom line, which, you know, I think we’re not here for a haircut, are we? The other question that I asked is, Are you clear on your messaging? If you can articulate yes or no for both of those, then we kind of know where we have work to do.
I want 2024 to be your best year yet. And I think the starting place for that is to get really clear on what your marketing foundations are. Now, that is something that I do inside of my business in a number of different ways, actually. I do work one-on-one with clients to help them to move forward very, very quickly, in their marketing, setting up their foundations, optimising their content, understanding and aligning what that looks like, and moving through that in a really structured way. We set up your marketing foundations. Then, we make sure that your digital assets, your positioning, and your digital footprint are in complete alignment. Okay, because that creates change. That is then followed by planning and organising optimised content to increase sales. There’s a bit of a three-step process that I worked through to be able to achieve your goals and reach them. And you know, what’s on the other side is beautiful.
What better way to start that journey than laying a great foundation? You have a really awesome 2024. I don’t think that 2024 is going to bring us any crazy surprises. But what I do think is if you are set up properly, you can really start to leverage and create some huge impact in your business because it is all about impact. It is all about brand awareness and creating more awareness around your business and your brand, I should say. That is how you kind of explained it in an easy-to-understand way. So, how do you generate more eyeballs on your business so that you can have a bigger impact and do less with more? First, I spoke about my maps framework, which is market Audience problems and solutions. And when you understand what that is, then you can be better set up in terms of your messaging.
The second part I spoke about last week was messaging and brand positioning. And when you know who you are, what you stand for, and why it matters to your audience, then you can have a bigger impact on more people, okay? Because when you know the answer to these things, then your audience can very clearly articulate. Oh, yes, right. That’s right. She’s that girl who creates activities and strategies for people inside their business to have big growth with the least amount of time and effort. And I love what she does, and I’m talking about myself. So that is the first part.
The third part I spoke about last week is brand awareness. Okay, so figuring out how you can create different forms of awareness, building that brand online, to have a bigger impact, so that people know who you are when you appear in their world, and hopefully getting them to have you as their preference of purchase, if and when they are ready to purchase from you. So that’s what I spoke about. The last part that I spoke about last week, number four was bringing your brand to life through your marketing avatar. If you haven’t done any work around that, have listened to the episode last week, and you will have a few answers to how to do that, what it looks like and how you can start to build on that for your business.
Part two, today, I wanted to talk about your competitive advantage. Okay, so that’s kind of like the fifth part of creating marketing foundations. So, you know, most likely, you’re not the only person in the world that offers what you do. There’s more than one cafe in the world, no matter where you’re listening from. So, obviously, I’m based in Australia. But even all over the world, there are lots of coffee shops, and I often like to use the analogy that there’s enough room to coexist for everybody. But we frequently do the ones that we do for varying reasons.
Number one, it could be location, right? There’s no one that does what they do in my location, and they’re the closest person to me, and I love everything about their business. Number two is that there is no one in my area who delivers the best service, even though there are multiple cafes and coffee shops. That could be the second one. And number three, there’s no cafe in my area that have the best quality beans and product that they do. So, there are three things there that give a bit of a competitive advantage.
- What does that look like for you?
- How are you different?
- What’s the differentiation of your business in the market compared to other people’s businesses?
- How is your brand showing up differently?
- Are you somebody that has no grey area?
Right? You’re pretty black and white? I know that I am. I’m black and white, have no grey area and I call the spade a spade. And is that appealing to your target audience? And is that your differentiating factor?
- Do you have unique product or service features that nobody else does?
How are you articulating those? What’s your competitive advantage? Is that your pricing model? Is that your competitive advantage? Or is it all three? What does that look like? Is it your sales process? Is that the part that differentiates you and gives you that competitive advantage over your clients? Is it your, obviously, quality of products or services? And if it’s not, it might just be because you haven’t articulated properly what they are.
I go through that with my clients. And the results on the other end are usually those light bulb moments. Like why didn’t I think of that? And the reason that usually, comes back as to why didn’t I think of that is because we are so close to our businesses that we can’t see them anymore. And I think I said this in the last episode, too, is that you don’t know what you don’t know.
All right. So it is nice and refreshing to have somebody else come into your business like coach and mentor or even hooking yourself up with membership like superhero marketing or having me as your coach to come in and be like, hey, what about this you’d like why didn’t I think about relevant doing this for a few years and you know, I should have done this sooner, I should have invested in help sooner. And I’ve had those light bulb moments with my own business to where I’m so close to it that I can’t see it what it is anymore.
And what I’ve found tends to happen is you tend to overcomplicate the simplest things that can be easily articulated. And you don’t need to. Okay, so that’s something that I’ve learned along the way. And, you know, what else is your competitive advantage? So? Is it the talent? Is it you? Are you your competitive advantage over your competitors? What is the thing that sets you apart? And think about that, and own it and step into it? And like I said, you know, in part one of this is crown yourself, what is your competitive advantage to your clients, write it down, own it, and showcase that visually and through your storytelling? Make sure when you’re marketing that you’re including that because that is the thing that sets you apart. Is this the thing that clearly differentiates you from your competitors? That’s the competitive advantage. Number six is your database.
I think that there are a couple of things that go into this. It’s the size of your database, as well as the quality of your database. You can have a million people signed up to your email list with a 5% open rate, or you can have a strong and mighty small email list, which could be around 350 people. They are all your target audience. And you can have a 40% open rate, which is a wonderful open rate. If you’re thinking, oh, Hayley, what’s a good one, what’s a bad one? go and have a look at your stats and your open rate, and have a look at their percentage. And it should be sitting around 35 to 40%. And that is what kind of shows a good open rate. If it’s anything lower, maybe you don’t have the right people in your database. And you know, or you could just have too many people. You might need to do some culling. And it’s pretty good to do a bit of a cull every couple of months to make sure that the people who haven’t opened your emails for a year don’t need to be on your database because, chances are, your emails are probably going to go to a spam account. I would remove them and clean up your database to have a small but mighty database of ideal clients who really want to hear from you.
Your database is important. With that solid database, you can really enhance any form of marketing that you do and the strategy that you are putting in place at a deeper level to convert your ideal client and increase the loyalty of your customers. That essentially for you drives revenue and profit.
The next thing I want to talk about is a bit of a clever one, but it’s to rank your marketing foundations. Now, this is an exercise for you to do in your head. Or if you are listening to this in your office or doing the dishes or whatever, get a notepad out and from one to 10, I want you to think about all the points that I’ve spoken about and how you rank them. Okay, as in, if you’ve done the work, or if you need to do more work, and chances are, you’ll probably find the answer that you’re looking for yourself on, you know how much work you need to do. Or if you need to get a helping hand to establish your marketing foundations in 2024. You can align that with the big goals that you have. And I’m sure that you have big goals because I highly believe that you wouldn’t be listening to this episode of this podcast show if you didn’t.
I’ll go through what I am suggesting. Are the things that you need to rank how well in your business are these set-up?
So, the first one, do you understand what your target market is, the problem that you solve and the transformation that you provide? Okay, do you have a transformation message? And if you don’t, then you get to rank yourself at a zero. If you think that you do, but you can’t articulate yourself properly. It’s probably sitting at about a three and you know, if you do but say different things all the time, it might be sitting at about a five. And if you can articulate nail exactly who you are and what you do without saying, I am a marketer. I’m in sales. I am a coach, I am a dressmaker, I am a presenter. No. Okay, then we’ve got work to do.
The second thing I want you to rank is your messaging and your brand positioning. Are you positioned in your market where your audience will take preference over everybody else and purchase from you? They know who you are, they know what you stand for, and they know why it matters to them. Okay, so from one to 10? How much are your audience engaged and understand who you are, and what you stand for? And why it matters to them. Okay? And how clever are you at articulating your messaging, so not your transformation message, the next step up your messaging, in everything that you touch across the board? Okay, so give yourself a ranking from one to 10 on how clear this is now if you can’t understand it. And if you’re all over the place, and you’re not clear on your messaging and where your brand is positioned, then you’re probably at a zero. If you kind of out of three, four, or five, but you know, you could do better then you definitely have work to do. And I will be doing the work because what’s on the other side is beautiful.
The third one is brand awareness. Do people recognise your brand name? And know what you do straightaway? Rank yourself from one to 10. How aware is your audience of your business and your brand?
The fourth one is bringing your brand to life through a marketing avatar. Have you done the work? And do you know who your ideal client is? Okay, so one to 10? Do you know who they are? Then the next one is? Are you very aware of what your competitive advantage is in the market? Do you have a unique pricing model sales process? Are you different with your product? How does it differentiate from your competitors? What’s your competitive advantage? And what would you rank yourself from one to 10? What’s your competitive advantage?
The last part is your database. It doesn’t matter how big your database is. It just matters about the quality of people that are in there and what your open rate is, and if you don’t know, go in and have a look at what that is for you and cull it, or we might need to do some work to build it. And how we build it is very strategic. I just taught a masterclass inside the membership at the beginning of the month on how to build 12 lead magnets for next year. So that is a very clever way to build your database, but you have to give away, you know, part of your zone of genius for free.
There are clever ways to do that. And I’m all about getting that done. I’ve got templates and things inside my business, and I work one-on-one with my clients to be able to do that, as well as sort that out in the marketing strategy. Alright, so that you can start to put all those foundations in place to be able to build your database because when you build your database, your database is actually a warm audience. There are people who have signed up with their first name and their last name because they want what you have to offer. They want to know more about your zone of genius, and they want to be in your world and hear from you. If you have a database, but you do not nurture your database, it is almost like spamming in reverse.
People have signed up to hear from you, but you’re not giving them anything, which is like spamming and we know, and you would know that. We don’t sign up for anything for free these days. Right? We do not give our emails away for anything you would know in retail when they ask you for your email address. You always say no because you’re like, I don’t need another email in my inbox. I run a small business and you would be in that boat for sure. I know that I am. And so, those people that I give my email to, I genuinely want to hear from them. And if I’m not hearing from you, I’m disappointed because I want what you have to offer. And so, you know, it’s like standing in reverse.
It’s important to build your database because that’s your own asset, right? Another reason to maintain it is because you own that asset. People pay big money for databases, not that I’m saying you should sell it. But if you are looking at scaling your business and having an exit strategy, the quality of your database and the number on it, as well as the quality can equal an extra zero on the end of your sale price, okay? Because social media is not our own asset.
We don’t own that space. It is free for us to use if we’re not paying for advertising. But it is an advertising and marketing vessel to communicate our ideas, and our business, Mission values, all those things, it is a vessel of marketing. What sits in the middle are your website and database. And then what sits around the outside are all of the things that funnel into your website. And as I’m recording this episode, I’m doing it will go on YouTube. You can see me doing a little circle with my hand in the middle and then pointing to all these little arrows leading to it.
Okay, so in the middle is your website, and then all around that is so it’s your, your database in the middle all around that is LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, billboard advertising, bus, shelter, advertising, magazine, print media, digital print, media, podcasts, like the things that you’re in and around and on you don’t own. They’re beautiful ways to establish your brand awareness, but you don’t own them as an asset. Creating your database is important. So, back to what I asked you originally, is rank that from a one to 10? And how could you be doing better? And if the answer is I could be doing better and it’s sitting around a three, then I can definitely help you to do that.
Okay, guys, that is the end of part two of how to establish your marketing foundations in 2024. If this has spooked your ears up, and you know that you could be doing better, I would love to hear from you. Feel free to send me a message on Instagram.
