The 3 Big Questions of Marketing

As a marketing strategist, I work with small businesses. I help them define their marketing strategy and often I help them re-brand, or tweak their branding, or define their branding from a starting point.

In every single initial conversation — every single consult — a point will come when I’ll have to discuss these three essential questions with my clients.

Question 1: Who are you?

Question 2: Who are you talking to?

Question 3: What is your message?

These are paramount. Without these, the ratio of signal to noise in any of the content and the ratio of unengaged followers to actual, committed fans will be too inefficient, too weak.

Hitting the Note

When I was learning how to play the flute and saxophone as a child, I encountered this concept in its literal sense. When you’re not very competent in wind instruments, most of the air will leak through, and the note — the melodic sound — will be tenuous and weak. You’ll tire soon, you won’t be able to sustain the note. As you get better and more efficient, more and more of the air will translate into the note — less and less of your breath will be wasted.

In marketing, I often see entrepreneurs wasting their breath and not hitting the note. Email marketing campaigns that don’t resonate. Long blog posts that don’t compel the user to action. The sad thing is that often, these business owners don’t have a “music teacher” — a coach who will help them become more efficient with their sound. They’ll continue blowing air, or they’ll tire and give up.

To get better at producing the resonant note in marketing, you need to fully answer these three questions.

Who are you?

A common mistake is to try to be everything for everyone. A jack of all trades is a master of none, says the adage — and people will generally believe that if your scope is too broad, your ability to solve their specialized problem might be less than honed in. But the real risk of being everything for everyone is that you then become a commodity — you become just like everyone else, another drop in an ocean of identical drops.

Say you’re a chiropractor. You want to cast the widest net, so you speak of chiropractic in general terms. The whole practice. You have articles about how it helps old folks, how it helps expectant mothers, how it helps athletes. You speak as a chiropractor, about chiropractic.

You’re generic. You’re boring.

Imagine, instead, that you decide to lean on your passion for sports and your love of the outdoors. You write reviews of hiking trails, reviews that other outdoors-loving folks find useful as they plan their outings. You write about a game of stickball with your cousin’s kid, and about a deeply competitive basketball game with your buddies. You rant about sports rules. You speak knowledgeably about sports gear.

Now you’re not a generality anymore.

You’re “the sports guy.”

You don’t have to prove to me that you’re better. Not yet. Just prove to me that you’re different.

Make yourself memorable, recognizable. Help me pick you out of a crowd.

Wear a yellow shirt when everyone else wears a blue one.

Stand out.

Whom are you talking to?

I hate when a band or singer starts a concert with “Hello Portland!” or when a comedian says “How’re you doing, San Diego?” I am not a city. I am not the millions of people around me. I am an individual. Talk to ME.

Before you dismiss me as a narcissist, I am not speaking about my own tendencies. It’s a human drive. We all want to be recognized as unique and special.

How can an entertainer accomplish this from the stage? By not naming me as a city, for starters. By not rubbing it in that the only connection they have to me is that they’re performing in a town I live in. But I HAVE seen this done successfully. A comedian talks toward the audience but speaks as though she’s speaking to ONE person. “You probably had to get a sitter tonight, didn’t you. I bet you’re judging me right now, wondering if I’ll be worth Sally’s $15/hr.” And maybe I got a sitter and maybe I didn’t, but I feel she’s talking to me.

Another way to accomplish the same effect would be to speak to someone LIKE me. The comedian picks someone on the front row — someone I find relatable. Someone who pretty much COULD be me. And speaks to her personally, and banters with her. Not with “San Diego.” With HER.

In marketing, you have to find the person (or people) you’re talking to. Your ideal customer, your ideal client. It could be one person, or two, or three. But not more than that. You want to get them as identified as possible. Age, income, profession, kids, political leaning, clothing style, belief system. Who is this person? What does she stand for? What does she believe in?

This is the practice of creating personas, or avatars.

At a previous company, I had identified our ideal client as Beverly. Beverly was 42, had two children, was middle-left politically, with her religious beliefs competing with her progressive views. She had two children — both school age. She had recently gone back to school to get an online graduate degree. She drove a five-year-old Subaru. She was divorced.

All of our decisions were made based on whether or not Beverly would react positively to them.

Now, you might say, I want to have more than just one customer. But there are millions of Beverlys. There are millions of clients who resonate with what Beverly likes. And just like my example of the comedian with the person on the front row, even if I’m not exactly Beverly, I can relate to your content if I feel that Beverly sounds enough like me.

But you need to have a very clear vision of whom you’re talking to because otherwise, you’ll try to speak to everyone. And you’ll sound like that singer, saying “Hello Portland,” “Good evening, San Diego.” You’ll be talking to everyone and no one in particular, and I won’t be listening.

What is your message?

If you define who you are clearly enough, and you define who THEY are clearly enough, then they will come and listen to you. So you better have something to say. Like Hamilton, you don’t want to throw away your shot. And you only get a few shots — maybe even just one. Because once I’m listening, I need you to say something germane to my life, something meaningful that will enrich, improve, inspire me.

Inspire me. Don’t give me raw information, don’t read to me from a ledger. Tell me something poignant, something that impacts me emotionally.

One choice for your message might be “I have secret, arcane knowledge.” I’ll stop and listen if you come bearing such news. Examples of this are headlines such as “The Amazing Trick That…” and “What You Never Knew About…” — and these are effective, as long as you truly deliver, with some unique piece of information that is both revelational and hitherto undiscovered. (That’s a tall order.)

Another choice is the “Us vs. Them” approach. “What Doctors Won’t Tell You About…” or “Car Makers Keep This Information Secret!” — these are messages that can catalyze readers to action.

What’s in it for me?

The most important thing you need to tell me, as a central part of your message, is WIIFM. What’s In It For Me?

That better be part of your message.

Because everything you say will be filtered through this one narrow focus: How will your message help me?

The Process

Work out who you are.

You probably already know. This is probably more of a sculptor’s job than a painter’s job — more a work of removing what doesn’t belong than of adding new stuff in. Leave the essence. Reduce it down to the essence of you.

Who are they?

Who will walk into your office, your practice, or your business tomorrow morning and bring you the most revenue, the most satisfaction, the most gratifying interaction? Whom can you help the most?

What will you tell them?

If you nail the first two, you will probably find such a torrent of things to say, such a wealth of content to produce, such an urgency in educating them and guiding them, that it won’t be a matter of wondering what to say — it will be a matter of organizing, prioritizing, and tabulating your content.

What’s first? What is the first thing they need to know?

This article is the very first thing I wanted YOU to know.

(I first published this article on Medium. But I'm just as happy you found it here ??. Drop me a note and let me know if you've found it useful!)