As a business owner, you know that marketing is an essential part of a successful business. It makes sense that that's where you started when you wanted to grow your business - you spent your time trying to figure out the right way to market your business.
Although this is extremely important work, it’s not the best place to start. First, you need to make sure that you are absolutely clear about your business model.
Having a solid business model gives you the information that you need for the next step: crafting your memorable marketing messages. Then, once you have a concrete business model and clear marketing messages, it will be much easier to choose and effectively implement your marketing strategies.
Let’s take a closer look at how they’re all connected and how they naturally flow from one to the other.
How your business makes money is called your business model. It is the foundation of every business - that is why it’s crucial you start here.
To form the basis of your business model, you need to be able to answer the following questions:
Once you have complete and clear answers to these questions, you have a strong foundation for your business model.
Next, your business model should include all of the revenue streams you have, each product and service, how many people buy them and the price for each of them. Pricing is part of how you position your business and will influence how you talk about your business (that’s coming next).
Think about it: if you’re out there talking about your business but you’re not clear about your offers, it’s not going to be very productive.
Once you have a sound business model, it will be much easier to create the next piece: your marketing messages.
Your marketing messages are how you talk about your business. They will flow from the newfound clarity that you have about your business model.
All of this means that you will only connect with people who are the right fit. This not only saves you time and energy but also the time and energy of the people for whom it’s not a match. Everyone wins.
Once you have your compelling marketing messages, you can turn your attention to your marketing strategies.
The ways in which you connect with your ideal clients are your marketing strategies. If you’ve taken the time to gain insight into your business model and used that to create strong marketing messages, then figuring out your marketing strategies will be a much smoother process.
Another benefit to having clarity about your business model and marketing messages is that your confidence will increase.
You will feel empowered as you take action to implement your marketing strategies and connect with your ideal clients. You will be able to answer questions about how you can help people and talk about the benefits of your work with joy and ease. Plus, you will never have to discuss pricing again because your prices are on your website, and you can invite potential clients to take a look at your offers before you have a conversation.
Now, you can see how these three concepts are connected and why the order in which you approach them is so important. I hope it’s apparent how helpful it is to start with your foundation - your business model - and then work on your marketing messages before finishing with your marketing strategies.
Marketing your business shouldn’t be painful, and it can actually be fun once you find the strategies that are aligned with your strengths and who you are.
Schedule some time to dive deeper into these three fundamental parts of your business and you will reap the reward of more clients with less frustration and stress.