Marketing 101

Business Coaching and Marketing

By Santi Chacon
Business Coach

The Marketing Message or Your Value Proposition

The market place will ultimately dictate what you need to offer and how you need to frame your message, regardless of this fact you need a starting place. It's only when you continually expose your offering and message to the market place that it will get a chance to be refined. On a side note: once everything is in place the need to work long hours is appropriate to arrive at this conclusion.

I put together a list of questions to help you with clarity. From your answers you should have a good sense about your message. Please don't answer these questions superficially, always measure the questions against what you feel your competitors answers might be (locally, regionally, and nationally). Chances are you serve a market that is saturated with similar products or services, and need to stand apart. If you don't examine your competition in light of these questions, than you will not be as clear as you need to be.

Marketing Message Questions:

• What will your business look like in 10 years? (details, details, details)
• Is your target market B2B or B2C?
• What demographic and psycho-graphic details should you be concerned with?
• What problem, issue, pain, predicament or challenge is your prospects facing that would make them seek assistance?
• What are the warning signs that should encourage them to call?
• What results do you produce when working with clients?
• What do you have that can prove you can in fact deliver the solution?
• What makes you stand apart from your competitors?
• What makes you unique, special and memorable?
• What is it about your business or service that offers a true advantage to your potential clients?
• What are you doing to brand yourself currently?
• How are you going to create traction in the targeted market? Please describe in detail

Now, take all your information and create a marketing message or value proposition (write it down). Communicate with simplicity what you are offering and the relevance of it.

Study the marketing information (i.e. blogs, websites, printed material) of 20 plus competitors. Be thorough when going through this information. You will be able to see and measure your message against theirs. This process should give you a tremendous amount of insight. Take notes, and rewrite

your Value Proposition. You may see that it is different then the one you had first written.

Next, I would recommend starting to design your own website on paper, word document, or power point. You will be surprised of the gaps in your knowledge and message when you do this. Visit the competitors' websites, look at the structure, the tabs, and options.  Call your competitors to ask questions if something isn't clear.  Take them up on their free trial offer, make sure you have a good understanding of what they bring to the market.

It's Note Worthy: as you go through your competitors' information to be aware of your weaknesses as it relates to your offering, it will give you an advantage if you think about how you should frame your strengths in light of these newly discovered weaknesses.

You should be ready to put your marketing message online. From all this information you should be able to create a short value proposition or an elevator pitch.