Factors To Consider Before A Launch… You Can’t Take Off Without Them!
As Donald Miller likes to say, branding and marketing are the two wings of your business’s airplane. And he is totally right.
You can have the most badass marketing, but if your brand messaging is unclear, your marketing is not likely to take off. You can also have epic branding, but without marketing, no one will ever discover it.
To piggyback off of Donald's analogy… your audience is your destination.
You take off from one location, but if you don’t know where to land your plane, you will likely end up in the ocean, stranded on a deserted island, and making friends with the local sea life.
If any of these three factors are off, your sales and business will suffer.
Branding
Your brand has to be clear as soon as a customer lands on your website. And by clear, I mean they have to know what you do, what you’re about, and who you serve.
Customers need this information quickly, or they will bail in the blink of an eye. They need to be able to see where they fit into your brand. Knowing your brand values, identity, and mission is vital to have a clear brand.
Here are some questions to help you get some clarity…
What? How? Why?
What is your brand? Be specific in defining what your brand is. A coach, a supplement company, or a writer… is not specific enough. What your brand is and what your brand is about should set you apart from the other coaches, supplement companies, and writers out there.
How does your brand help people? How does your brand do things differently? There are plenty of nutrition coaches… so how is your nutrition coaching business different in how you serve your clients?
Why do you do what you do? If your why is… “Well, I know nutrition and want to make lots of money….” I would question the longevity of your business. That's a surface-level why and not something that will be a driving factor when things get hard. Because things will get hard. Anything worth doing is hard to do.
What is your deeper why? What is the why at the heart of your company?
This may not even be something you say outright to your customers, but it will matter because it will be layered into your messaging. This will be the undertone in your copywriting and will help to attract an aligned audience.
Audience
Understanding who your audience is or who your ideal audience will be (if you are a new business) will help you target your marketing.
It’s not enough to know that your audience is women ages 24-35. That’s a lot of freaking people!
What I’d like you to do is to get super specific. Make a whole ideal customer avatar. Not every customer you gain will fit her description, but when you speak directly to her, enough people will resonate with your message and see themselves in your copy.
Instead, maybe your customer looks like this…
Jane is an ambitious millennial who is career oriented and hasn’t taken the time to fully care for herself in the past. Recently she has become more health-conscious and wants to improve her nutrition and exercise habits. She is also hella feminist, so anything diet-culture-related is out. She vibes with real talk, no BS, and loves a good pop culture reference.
Now that is someone you can speak directly to. Talking to Jane will help you have clear messaging in your marketing.
Marketing
Now that you know who you are and who you serve, you have a better idea of how to launch your marketing.
This will give you a good idea of what type of lead magnet you should use, where to place ads, and how to communicate throughout your funnel.
Chances are your ideal client, Jane, will be big on social media. Maybe having an ad campaign on social media will be a good strategy for you then. She is a busy lady, so a lead magnet that helps her create delicious and nutritious meals for the week in less than two hours might be right up her alley.
You can see how having a clear audience and branding can help you design your marketing strategy.
It also helps you write to a specific audience, understand their unique pain points and offer a solution that helps them resolve those issues.
Where Does Copywriting Come In?
Many people look at copywriting as some sort of magic wand. Like a copywriter will come in, sprinkle magical words, and make you tons of money.
As a copywriter, I may look like a fairy, but I’m not magical.
Without clear branding, a solid marketing plan, and a clear audience, I can work my butt off, write the best damn copy you’ve ever read, and still miss the mark.
Sometimes, I think I have a good idea of a business's who, what, where, and how. Then the sales page flops or the email doesn’t perform, and I beat myself up for failing my client.
Listen, I love my client. If I partner with someone, I genuinely want them to succeed. I work hard to do everything I can to make that happen. Write the copy, support them with strategy, brainstorm ideas with them… I don’t just do the words.
But, sometimes, things go wrong. Some things are out of my control, and I can’t always see all the factors. A sales funnel might flop because the ad demographics were off, the audience wasn’t specific enough, or the branding didn’t match their target audience.
We live, and we learn. I’ve learned that I can help my clients define their audience and branding more effectively. Before the copy is written and before the plane takes off.
Working together when a brand isn’t clearly defined, messaging is foggy, and marketing is vague helps my clients succeed, helps me write more effective copy, and makes us all a lot more money.
Copy is not just pretty words. Not all of it can be plugged into a system and pop out something that will work. Copy is part writing, part psychology, and part analysis.
If I am not supporting my clients in every way possible, I feel like I’m not doing my job. Some companies like writers that just take a brief and go. But that’s not me. I want to be on that plane with you as your copilot. Support you in every way needed.
If you are looking for someone who does more than writes some pretty words, then we should talk...