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I’ve been getting asked a lot lately “what is an in-telligent MARKETER”? I thought it might be a good idea to take a step back and re-introduce what is an “intelligent MARKETER” and the five key compo-

I want to back up for a minute.

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nents that need to exist to succeed in effectively mar-keting a small business.

Intelligent marketing doesn’t mean you have to know everything there is about marketing. Intelli-gent Marketing is:

1. Creating a Brand Iden-tity and reinforce it with consistency.2. Positioning your brand

in the minds of the con-sumer so that it is easy to identify what makes you different.3. Implementing a mar-keting strategy that allows you effectively:

- Create awareness for your brand Capture leads- Nurture those leads to build trust, authority and provide value

- Covert those leads into sales- Delight your customers- So that you can receive more referrals and positive online reviews

4. Creating a sales system that allows you to be more efficient and effective to grow your business.5. Automating your mar-keting and sales efforts to save time, be more ef-

fective, offer more value, close more sales and grow faster.

In this issue of intelligent MARKETER we will dis-cuss the importance of the five key components and how they affect the effec-tiveness of small business marketers. ...

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Intelligent marketers know that a strong visual brand helps them effectively con-vey their brands personality. Branding is more than a logo or color scheme, it’s a voice and message that defines your brands promise to the world.

I am a designer. I believe that design is important...but I see too many people complicating branding. The essential aspect of creating an ef-fective brand is simple:

1. Create a color palette 2. Determine your brand fonts 3. Create a logo 4. Decide on your brands voice 5. Be consistent

Create a Color PaletteThink about the message you are trying to send and choose colors that send the correct message. Here is a quick chart on the feelings and emotions that color can create:

- RED: Associated with energy, way, danger, strength, power, determination, passion, desire and love.- ORANGE: Associated with joy, sunshine, tropics, enthusiasm, facination, happiness, creativity, deter-mination, attraction, success, encouragement and stimulation.- YELLOW: Associated with joy, happiness, intellect, energy, warmth, stimulates mental activity.- GREEN: Associated with growth, harmony, freshness, money, fertility and safety.- BLUE: Associated with trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, faith, truth, calmness, and purity.- PURPLE: Associated with royalty, luxury, ambition, dignity, creativity, mystery and magic.

As you can see colors have many meanings...and shades of colors can provoke different feelings, emotions and messages. It is best to consult with a pro-fess ional designer when choosing your color palette.

Also keep in mind that you want simple yet powerful colors. Be sure to stick with no more than four colors as a general rule. One primary color, two complimentary (balancing colors), and

one final color that you use to call attention (I call it the CTA - Call-to-action color). Too many colors can be distracting and

lose your brand’s message.

Brand Consistency

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Determine your Brand FontsYour font choice should reflect your brand’s personality. Error on the side of simplicity choosing only 2 - 3 fonts is plenty otherwise it can be distracting to your audience.

Create a LogoKeep in mind that the best logos are simple and versitle. Social media has changed the way businesses design their brands logo. Make sure that whatever de- s i g n you choose will easily translate in the online environment. Intricate images or small lettering is hard to read once scaled down. Truthfully, no one really cares about your logo. I know this might seem contradictory to what we are talking about here but bear with me. Your audience will notice your logo long enough to mentally say “yep, that’s the company I know and trust (at least that’s the goal). Your audience does not pay any attention beyond that... so get over yourself (and your logo)...don’t make your brand about your logo make it about a real and authentic message.

I could go on about this but we have a lot to cover so let’s move on :)

Decide on your Brands VoiceYour brands voice is the style of writing that you choose to communicate to your audience with. Do you want your voice to be informal or formal? Is your brand funny, quirky, intellectual, or stiff? If you are an entrepreneur your brands voice

w i l l likely take on your own personality. A small business may choose a voice that emulates the makeup of the team. In today’s marketing world your brands voice play a

critical role in how effective you are in reaching your audience and building trust in authority.

Be ConsistentNow that you have your color palette, font(s), logo and voice be sure to use them across all of your marketing both online and offline. Use your CTA color to call attention and make your logo present but not the center of attention so much so that it distracts from your message. Be consistent in how you communicate. If you hire someone to help you with your copy be sure they understand the voice of your brand so that they can communicate in the same way.

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Your positioning statement identifies your target audience, the category you serve, the specific benefit your brand provides in relation to the near-est competitive alternative.

When I say “Heinz” you likely think; ketchup.

When I say “Ford” most think trucks (well they asked for it after all...”Think Ford Tough”).

When I say “Apple” most would agree on innovation.

That’s positioning.

Heinz makes other condiments but they are the leader in ketchup. Ford

sells cars but are positioned as the leader in trucks. Apple choose to po-sition themselves as innovators rather than on a specific product (ie. iphone).

How do you want your audience to know your brand?

It is best to complete the following statement to determine your brands positioning:

“For (target customers), (company name) is the leading (category) that provides (unique benefit).”

If a buyer would line up your brand with your competition what is the one unique benefit that would separate you from the competition?

UNIQUE POSITIONING

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CREATE YOUR

Free Workbook and Video Course

Lifecycle Marketing Strategy

START NOW

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In January’s issue of intelligent MARKETER we discussed at great lengths the Lifecycle Marketing process.

Lifecycle Marketing is the marketing and sales process that businesses should execute as a strategy to move a target-ed audience from being a prospect, to becoming a client, and then becoming an ambassador for the business.

Lifecycle Marketing process has six stages to the process:

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Delighting your customers

STAGE 1:

STAGE 2:

STAGE 3:

STAGE 5:

STAGE 6:

STAGE 4:

Creating Awareness for your brand

Capturing Leads

Nurturing those leads to build trust and authority

Converting those leads into sales

Asking for referrals and online reviews to build reputation

If you’d like to learn more about creating a Lifecycle

Marketing Strategy specific to your business CLICK

HERE for my free training program and workbook.

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Sales

SYSTEMThere are many moving parts when it comes to creating an effective sales system. Those moving parts are unique to the type of business and their structure.

There are three key areas of the sales system that cannot be ignored regardless of the type of business:

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Sales are driven by targets and incentives. Tracking and mea-surement tools helps to motivate and energize the sales team while driving sales efficiency. The ability to analyze your sales, leads and pipeline help you understand your sales teams per-formance, identify inefficiencies and opportunities to achieve

higher results backed by sound insights and processes.

Many small businesses speak of “scaling their business” for growth. Operating a business at scale means optimizing re-sources to drive greater results. Implementing a sales system

plays a large role in that objective being reached.

Sales PIPELINEA sales pipeline is a step-by-step process that sales reps go through to convert a prospect into a paying customer. A sales stage is created for each step in the sales process. The sales rep is responsible for moving prospect’s from one stage to the other based on the interest level of the prospect. The number of stages

depend on the length of your particular sales cycle.

Lead Scoring System

Track and Measure

Lead scoring allows sales reps to focus on the hottest leads so that they are able to prioritize their daily calls. Scoring is set based off the criteria that is pre-determined. Prospects will range between a lead score of 1 - 5. Prospects are scored based

on the criteria that is defined.

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SALES AND MARKETII know this is cliche’...... but it’s true - small business owners wear many hats....actually too many hats more often than not. The

key to growing your business is scaling (we talked about this briefly in the Sales System article).

The key to scaling is to:

1. Become more effective2. Automate processes

There are many activities in your business that can be automated but the two key areas prime for auto-

mation are your marketing and sales activities.

Marketing is important and time-consuming. There are again, many moving parts from creating content,

managing your social media, and email marketing. Here are the 3 tools I could not live without:

1. Hootsuite - Hootsuite allows you to ac-cess all of your social media platforms in one place. You organize the information on all those platforms into streams for easy viewing. Hootsuite also allows you to create multiple posts from one place and sched-ule your posts to go out at a scheduled time in the future. This is a huge time saver!

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If you want to grow your businessyou must streamline the processes that are taking up most of your time so that you are able to scale. Not

only will automation help you scale it will make your business more efficient and effective as well.

2. Project Management -I currently switched from using Basecamp to Trello for my project management tool. I really like Basecamp it’s easy to use and they have wonderful training tutorials for beginners. I switched to Trello because it gave me the flexibility to better manage the types of tasks I have in my business....plus I also like the “look and feel” of Trello more than Basecamp. Both are great tools though!

3. Infusionsoft -Infusionsoft is the single BEST INVEST-MENT I make in my business each month. Having Infusionsoft is like hir-ing your BEST employee. Infusionsoft is your CRM, Marketing, Sales System, Shopping Cart and Appointment Calen-dar all-in-one program.

Hootsuite - Project Management - InfusionsoftNG AUTOMATION

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A P P SBoostingB U S I N E S S

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Organize anything, together.

Trello has everything you need to organize your projects and tasks. This tool can be used to not only manage projects but also help you organize your marketing activi-ties like your marketing calendar, editori-al calendar and posting calendar. Use the tool to manage yourself or a team of peo-ple who will help you to get things done!

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Ask Your Marketing Coach

#AskYMCThis month’s question comes from David.

David: “Misty, I am really struggling with managing all the tasks of marketing. As the owner, I have a lot of things that I have to do to keep the business going. I know marketing is important but how do I get it all done?”

Misty: Hey David! You are not alone in this challenge for sure :) I think it’s pret-ty safe to say that all businesses struggle with time management. I can personally tell you that the best thing I could have done for my sanity in my business was to start using a project management tool to help me manage my tasks.

I started using this tool very early on in my business (even before I had a team working with me). I think many small business marketers think that a proj-ect management tool is only good for teams....but that’s not true. I started off by using Basecamp and recently switched to Trello. Both are very good tools...I would recommend either...you decided which is best for you.

Using a project management tool will force you to organize your thoughts and assign yourself due dates...the result - you will get more done! Trust me, it’s worth the learning curve and discipline. Let me know how it goes :)

www.yourmarketingcoachonline.com

Thanks for reading!I’d LOVE to hear your thoughts and feedback :)

Hit me up at misty@yourmarketingcoachonline.com