Toucan Talks
EP20 - Steering your Business to Success with Q4 Marketing Strategies
Elevate your marketing game this Q4! Join us as we share how to enhance your strategy by aligning business goals with ideal customer profiles.
We guide you through creative content ideas that resonate with your audience. Plus, discover the synergy of merging marketing and sales funnels. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a newbie, get ready for insights that will take your strategy to new heights!
We hope you enjoy this minisode!
Access the full webinar here.
Get more from Toucan Talks!
Watch on YouTube
Follow on Instagram
Subscribe to our email list
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Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co
Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.
Elevate your marketing game this Q4! Join us as we share how to enhance your strategy by aligning business goals with ideal customer profiles.
We guide you through creative content ideas that resonate with your audience. Plus, discover the synergy of merging marketing and sales funnels. Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a newbie, get ready for insights that will take your strategy to new heights!
We hope you enjoy this minisode!
Access the full webinar here.
Get more from Toucan Talks!
Watch on YouTube
Follow on Instagram
Subscribe to our email list
//
Meet your hosts and learn more about Kickstart Collective at kickstartcollective.co
Kickstart Collective is a creative marketing agency based in Wilmington, NC. We offer our clients a creative advantage through creative content and marketing strategies.
Welcome to the Two Can Talks podcast brought to you by Kickstart Collective. Join us as we talk to local Wilmington business owners about what has led to their successes, challenges and more. No question is off limits as we bounce from topic to topic.
Speaker 2:And this podcast is brought to you by Kickstart Studios. Kickstart Studios is Wilmington's newest video podcast studio, equipped with multiple camera angles and an in-house producer. Creating a high quality video podcast has never been easier. Don't let the tech and gear learning curve hold you back from jumping into podcasting or creating video content any longer. Our team takes care of it all for you, so you can focus on the message you want to share. You simply show up record and receive the final product. No more wasting time setting it up and breaking down the gear, setting up lights or doing sound checks on your own. Our in-house producer will have everything set up and ready to go for you. Check us out at Kickstart Studios.
Speaker 1:This mini-sode for Two Can Talks is from a recent webinar that we did on creating a marketing roadmap for Q4. So this is a little section out of that. If you guys want to listen to the entire webinar, you are welcome to head over to our blog, our marketing resources on our website, and you can get access to the full episode. So we hope you enjoy. When you're building out a campaign, this is kind of the things you need to do in terms of getting started. So, yeah, like we were talking about, the first one is going to be knowing your business goals. So let's just take this on like a quarterly basis, because I think that is easy to talk about and it's a good timeframe for you to run a campaign, but it's not too long to where it's going to get tired out.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, you need to define what your most important business goals or objectives are for the upcoming quarter or season or whatever it is, and then from there you can align that to what you need on the marketing side. But knowing for it to be effective which is what we want you need to know from your business what are you trying to achieve. And then next is defining your ideal customer. So if you registered for this webinar, you have a lovely worksheet to take you through that. So I don't know. Elsa, do you want to talk a little bit about the customer side?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean there's a lot of information that you can go through to dial that in and figure it out, but you do want to get specific. You can start out with demographics, but then you also want to go through their behaviors, their interests, their pain points and their needs. Like what do you have that you can? What problem do they have that you can solve for them? How can you help them and just get that as specific as possible to where you imagine one person Like, oh, this is my ideal customer. And then just expand and again to go back for a second if we're looking at this within a quarter.
Speaker 2:We're not asking to find your ideal customer for your whole business. We're asking in this quarter if you're pushing to sell like a service, let's say, for example, like a plumbing service or, you know, hvac service, you're you know, hey, it's summertime, there's going to be a lot of HVAC systems that are breaking down, so we really need to push our service. So what is our service? You know customer look like. So that's where we're going to identify those people. So it helps. So look at it in smaller chunks. That way we're not just, you know, because your business may, you know, service lots of different people, lots of like tons of different demographics, kind of all over the place. But if you are looking at it in in these smaller chunks, then you're able to narrow it down a little easier.
Speaker 1:For sure, yeah. So then, once you've defined your goals or whatever the you know service or product is you're wanting to push for that next one, the product is you're wanting to push for that next quarter, the customer that is perfect for what you have to offer specific to that. Then comes the fun part, which is aligning your content. So, again, depending on the business, this can mean a lot of different things, which was fun. But you need to know that audience, what's going to resonate with them. And then where, like where are they If it's, you know, on social, if it's a TV ad, if it's print, whatever that is, and then start thinking through your content in terms of that. So this is where a lot of the creativity comes in. This is where we like to include our creative director.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, we're going to dive into content like more specifically. Next, on slide number six, which is align your content.
Speaker 2:Can I just say I haven't. You're seeing, are we on that slide, Josh? Slide number six yeah, I haven't seen Sam with a beard like that in a while.
Speaker 1:So I'm a little shocked. You know what's the value, so Of the beard.
Speaker 2:Of the beard.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of value on that beard.
Speaker 2:I know, I know the little winter is coming. Sam, grow the beard.
Speaker 1:So, when you're thinking about aligning your content, obviously your business goals and your customers needs need to be aligned and it needs to provide value. And we'll jump into like what is value in just a second for your customer. But this is a portion where, if you're maybe not right now, but if you're taking notes to go back and do this and just brainstorm like five to 10 different content angles that would resonate with your target audience for this season. And, to be specific, so is that some sort of you know download white paper very specific to your industry and like current trends, if you're thinking like for this quarter, is there like an end of the year recap you could do? Is there like projections of some sort looking into 2024?
Speaker 1:Is it a tool, is it a webinar? Like what is the content that in the topics that would resonate? And then, once you have you know five to 10 of those, then narrow it down to what's going to be most valuable for your audience in this specific season. So, hopefully, step one, all those should be related to your business anyways. So then you're going to take this step further and be like, okay, what is valuable? So what is value to your customer is going to vary.
Speaker 2:A lot.
Speaker 1:So that is why, when we put mess halls image up here because it's one that, from you know, from our perspective, based on the business, it might be tool or white paper or webinar, like very in depth content that your customer needs or they just might need to be entertained.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can I just go over a few different things?
Speaker 1:Like this is example type.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So we'll break it down for a few different kinds of businesses. It's not going to include everyone's business, but let's take, for example, the bearded man on the screen here, if we're still on that. So we got Sam, we got mess hall. Mess hall is a restaurant. They sell burgers, they sell chicken sandwiches, they sell tops, they sell breakfast milkshakes.
Speaker 1:Milk shakes Absolutely.
Speaker 2:But for their customer base, which is broad right, it's broad. There's anyone from a 16 year old to a 65 year old going there to get a burger no-transcript, they're not directly like. They're not selling like a service where they're coming out to your house. They're not. They're not selling like a disposable, like plastic product. They're selling food. So their main thing is getting people Interested in what they're doing. So the way we get people interested in what they're doing is like with their brand. What aligns really well Is like comedy. So we do stuff like that just people find entertaining because we just want to get people to say, oh cool, that's mess all. Look, they made this funny thing that has to do with milkshakes all over, you know a bunch of shirtless guys.
Speaker 3:You know if you haven't seen that.
Speaker 2:Check it out.
Speaker 2:They see them in public and they're like Somewhere, but you have a shirt on right now. So anyways, for them entertainment value is huge because it's just capturing people's attention. Mm-hmm, now let's move to like, maybe, someone in the real estate industry. Real estate industry, they're working with individual buyers of houses or individual buyers of, you know, commercial properties or what you know, whatever it is. So really what they want to do through their content is educate people. They basically want to express like hey, I Can educate you because I am a market professional. So this is it's a little different angle, because they're I don't assume real estate agents are gonna be wanting to make videos of them dumping milkshakes onto their heads. I don't know, maybe they.
Speaker 1:Unless it's part of the brand. Yeah, we'll do it.
Speaker 2:We'll make those videos, but you know, what's gonna be found more valuable for their client is gonna be education. And then One more time let's go with maybe you're selling a product that you can buy offline, so this is gonna be really important to grab someone's attention quickly and express, like what is this product? Why do I need this product? What problem does this product solve for me? So that's gonna be way more into the like the ROI thing Rather than just getting people's attention. So you can do, you know, with the specific, you know Campaigns. You can do it a lot of different ways, but it's really Important to sit down and think like, hey, who broadly is my customer base? And then, within this campaign, you know what's gonna work best. That.
Speaker 1:I explain that. Okay, yeah, you're gonna great.
Speaker 2:Okay, thanks for sure, I can just tell me if I did it wrong.
Speaker 1:No, you're good, I think we're gonna get set I don't know if it's the next slider a few slides, so notice, that's one Talking about Taking that and like building out the funnels, which I think is what you were kind of getting to the end getting there. We're getting there Um getting there. But yes, back to, you know, the content side. You're gonna narrow it down and then From there is when you actually have to put the creative into action and we got to put a plan together and create it.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then you got to distribute. So ultimately, the goal in most cases unless it's just purely brand awareness, which is a good goal and a lot of times that needs to, you know, for a quarter that might be what you need to do, but ultimately, eventually we want these campaigns to generate leads and again, and this will help drive the content and the Campaign strategy itself but you have to think from your business perspective, like what do you consider a lead? Is that an Email capture? Is that something in a contact form? Is that somebody walking into your store?
Speaker 2:picking up the phone.
Speaker 1:Picking up the phone email email, like you need to know, like what do you consider a lead? Because if you don't know that, then we don't.
Speaker 2:You don't know hard for us, and it's hard for us to send you something if we don't know what to send, or even if you're doing it yourself Like you need to connect the dots from okay, what am I putting out there on social or email or wherever?
Speaker 1:How is like, if it's not clear for you, then it is not gonna be clear for that person to make that next step, would you?
Speaker 2:I'm just pushing the mic closer to your mouth.
Speaker 1:Do you not know where you want my hands? So what do you consider a lead? And then, what contact information do you need? Do you need, again, phone number, email, or do you just need that Body walking into your store? You don't necessarily need a contact info, but, hey, if you capture their email address or you know, give them something great Um, and then from there the medium and channel that's gonna resonate best with your audience. So we kind of talked about this on the previous slide, but that might be a webinar, it might be some sort of lead magnet. It could be a blog post with, you know, an email capture. It could just be a really good social media post with then some clear call to action for the next step For them to take, to become more of a lead than just a follower on social Um. So I think you want to add on that I think it goes back to.
Speaker 3:you also have to know where they are, because your audience isn't really using social media or online. You might have to go more traditional route, but if they are only online, going a traditional route might not work. Yeah, so that's true. God knows where they're at. Yeah, I know where they're at.
Speaker 2:Mailers we're only doing mailers from here on out.
Speaker 1:We've done it to direct mail a few times actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I think you know. This is a segue, but paired with and again I lean more on the digital side, just with my life been experience and credentials, but anyways, paired with a strong digital marketing strategy, I think direct mail.
Speaker 2:It works.
Speaker 3:It works. They're fun to design too. They're fun to design, yeah.
Speaker 1:So direct mail, it could be an option too. I left off postcards on your channel.
Speaker 2:Geez Good thing, I can hear Gosh Okay.
Speaker 1:So when you're thinking through your content that you're creating, I think, people that have like a sales background, this might come slightly more naturally in terms of building out funnels.
Speaker 2:But for people like me, explain it like I'm five.
Speaker 1:I feel like you understand the funnels.
Speaker 2:Maybe you better. I'm just trying to be helpful here.
Speaker 1:We're getting there. So, basically, whether it's a marketing funnel or a sales funnel, ideally they would align. But you're going to have your top of funnel and these are going to be your. I'm going to call them audiences for the sake of marketing lingo, but your cold audiences. They could also be cold leads.
Speaker 1:These are people who might not have ever heard of you. They might not have ever heard of your brand, your service, your product. If you have a common product or service, likely they've heard of that. If it's something new, they might have no idea. And so when you're building content for them, this is going back to like that main goal might just be awareness. They might just need to be introduced to who you are, what you offer. But there's no real ask from those people. So you don't want to be like, hey, here's who we are by this right now, to people who've never heard of you before. Like if I walked up to you and I was like I do marketing, like here's a package for $5,000, I want you to sign this, you're going to be like, no, I don't like you, like that's weird, so don't do that, don't do that online, maybe, maybe, maybe you just like you know, you've, I've been stalking you and you just, I know you know that only happens when you come.
Speaker 2:Well referred.
Speaker 1:Yes, um, which in that case would ideally not be a cold audience.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:So that would be warm or even hot. Um so, but at that point you're either letting them know about something, you're providing them some sort of valuable content. Again, that could be a blog post. That could be a video video educational video, podcast, podcast, even a really good social media post that has something educational. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Or entertaining, yeah, um, milkshakes, milkshakes. I'm going to go back to that Like example, like five times.
Speaker 3:How can we forget?
Speaker 2:No one will ever forget that if they saw it.
Speaker 3:Yes, don't you'll never forget it. I haven't seen it go to mess halls Instagram, so you know, what we're talking about yeah, yeah, scroll back.
Speaker 2:Shout out at mess hall I am.
Speaker 1:Yes, um, but I mean I feel like that actually. I know we weren't planning on talking about specifically, but is a good case, so it's a good example yeah. So that piece of content, it is educational. It is even for people that follow them that aren't totally aware that they sell milkshakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That video itself, which was the bulk of that campaign, was awareness, yep, and then middle of the funnel and I'll explain that and then we can talk about milkshakes back into this. These are your warm audience, so they know who you are, they know what you offer, they're familiar with you. So you can start talking a little bit more about how you are going to kind of introduce where your product or service jumps in as the you know, introduce the need, whatever, and that's okay to have a small ask or call action on that. So at that point you might capture like an email address or you might say, hey, go to my website to learn more about the service or whatever. It's okay at that point, because they're familiar with you, to have something that kind of drives them closer to making a purchase decision. So in this case, if we go back to we'll just use the same example.
Speaker 2:Sorry, everyone, you're tired of hearing milkshake Go get a milkshake.
Speaker 1:With that video, we are also running Facebook and Instagram ads and there was a Email capture. Email capture. Sure, we set this up together. Yeah, there was an email capture for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was.
Speaker 2:There was an offer for a discount for a milkshake.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kind of like an incentive to get people to want to sign up.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so you give us your email, or give them your email address, and then you get the coupon. Essentially, so that's a small ask. It's an ask for an email address. It's not like we are asking you to walk into mess hall and buy, you know, tim burgers to get.
Speaker 3:A milkshake or something and you get something of value from it.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah exactly, so there's value. Which is definitely an important thing is if you're asking someone for contact information or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:There needs to be value. And Something else thinking about just in general is, even if you are offering, like a free download or a free webinar or whatever, there's still needs just because it's free, there still needs to be value associated to that. Because, for example, if you're watching this, you're taking, you know, about an hour of your life to watch this. So if it doesn't have any value for you it's even if it's free it's not valuable. So think through those things, especially as you lean more into capturing like a lead lead. So your bottom of your funnel, that audience is hot.
Speaker 2:You've narrowest part of the funnel. It's smaller.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're literally bottom.
Speaker 2:It's literally a funnel.
Speaker 1:So you're taking people from your warm audience and pushing them towards you as a solution, and so, to whatever need they're having whether that's a new HVAC unit or they need a milkshake because it's hot, or whatever it is you are the solution. At that point, you're capturing the lead, depending if it's e-commerce that is going to be your purchase at that point. For service based businesses, sometimes that's like an actual hot lead. So, yeah, in this case, and sometimes this especially, we'll start to move off of purely online if you're not an online business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that may be scheduling an appointment, making a call to schedule an appointment, for if you're like a service provider or any kind of industry where you're like in person service, that might be just literally picking up the phone and say, hey, like I'd like to get a free consultation, or you know? Yeah, I'd like you come out and quote my roof.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or I'm going to walk into your restaurant and use this incentive that I got to actually purchase. And hopefully some tarts and a burger with that. But you know.
Speaker 2:I maybe, just not sure oh yeah, just gonna check.
Speaker 1:So, just as you're thinking about your content that you're building out, like, where is that four pieces of content going to fit in this funnel? And then how are you going to move people down and provide more and more value until, ultimately, they need to pay for whatever it is you're providing? So free and valuable is good, so at some point you got to.
Speaker 2:And it's real just to kind of tie back with like the very beginning. It's important that we're really specific on our audiences for this, because the goal is to narrow down who is a good fit, you know, for your business. You're not trying to take a person that is at way outside your demographic and squeeze them down the funnel, like that's not going to work. They're going to bail out in the middle of the funnel. So that's why it's really important to find that audience properly at the beginning of the whole process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. And I think, especially if we're thinking about this in terms of, like, quarterly campaigns or campaigns that aren't yearly, the more specific you get with the audience and more specific the content is specific to that person's like, need or pain point, then the quicker you're going to push them down this funnel. And you have to be realistic too. Like is your sales process three months.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In which case start today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, start thinking today. I mean, each business has a different buying cycle. Yeah if it's food, it could be instant. Yeah, be the same day. If it's e-commerce, it could be same day. But if it's a, if it's a roof that's going to cost you $25,000, you know, they're probably not just going to click through that day.
Speaker 3:It also saves you, as like the marketer, time, money, effort when you do make it specific, because if you don't you kind of just like cast in a wide net, hoping that you catch something? Don't know if you will, yeah right, but when it's specific, it saves you money, saves time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So the difference between talking to a bunch of people in your middle of the funnel warm audience versus people that are hot audiences or leads and ideally too, you've educated them at some level, so there's less time and explaining that you have to make Thanks for tuning in to another episode of 2K and Talks brought to you by Kickstart Collective. If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe. Wherever you watch podcast and follow Kickstart Collective on Instagram at Kickstart Collective.