Introduction: 0:05

Welcome to the Small Business Marketing Huddle. Our show is all about taking action. We equip you with the marketing knowledge and confidence you need to make real progress. So let's huddle up and listen in to the latest episode with your host, Lily Richmond.

Lily Richmond: 0:31

Hey, this is Lily. Thank you so much for joining me in this episode today. Now, if you're already subscribed to the show, thank you so much. You definitely make this huddle an awesome place to learn about all things marketing. And if this is your first time here, don't forget to hit the follow or subscribe button in your favourite podcast player, because today, like in every episode, I'm going to cover a marketing topic you've really got to learn if you want to master your marketing. And, as always, make sure you listen until the very end, because I'm going to give you the inside track and an easy to follow worksheet on how to create a compelling product or service that people actually want to buy. So let's get started Now.

Lily Richmond: 1:14

Today's episode is a little bit different because it's going to kick off a series on where to start when you're just starting out, and this idea actually came from a listener who asked me will you be doing an episode targeted to those who are just starting their marketing journey, when it's a brand new business and they literally don't know where to start? And I thought, hey, that is an awesome series of episodes that I could do, and particularly at the start of the year, when there might be a few of you out there who are brimming with a new business idea and you don't know where to start. So you asked and I'm going to deliver. And on that note, actually, if you do have a marketing topic that you would find helpful for me to cover, definitely get in touch. You can find out how to do that in the episode show notes, so definitely check that out once you've finished listening. Now I put a lot of thought into what marketing tasks are absolutely critical when you want to start strong with a new business, and I wanted to distill this down so you can focus your energy on the most important things. And I know from my own experience that starting a business is really exciting, but it's pretty scary too and at times it is really overwhelming. You know you go from having the nugget of an idea to having to work out your I don't know your legal structure, how you're going to develop a product, what roles you need to hire, opening bank accounts the list just goes on and on and on. And I totally appreciate that you might be in a space where you're doing this for the very first time. You've never had a business before.

Lily Richmond: 2:57

Going into business for the first time is, it is a full on thing, and feeling a bit all over the place is totally, totally natural, but together we're going to make sure that, when it comes to the marketing aspects of your new small business, you know exactly what you need to do, and we're going to filter out all of that stuff that just doesn't matter at this point so you can focus. So there are going to be seven different topics that I'm going to cover over the next seven episodes, and today we're kicking off with how to create a compelling offer that people just cannot resist. And why are we choosing that first as a topic? Well, I really think that you need to be able to spell out what it is your business brings to the world. And, second, you need to make sure that the world actually needs and wants what it is that you're going to offer. Otherwise, being brutal, you're actually wasting your time and money if you develop a business around a product or service offering that people just aren't interested in buying. So we need to make sure that you get that right and, to be fair, this is one of the foundation or bedrock pieces of your marketing, whether you've started a new business or whether you've been in business for a while. So, without further ado, let's get into it.

Lily Richmond: 4:20

So what does it mean to create a compelling offer, and why is this an important first step for you? Well, I like to think about it this way A compelling product or service makes your ideal customer go oh, I've got to have that. This is just what I've been looking for, right? It solves a problem. It meets your customer where they are and it says this is how I'm going to make your life better. That's a compelling product or service offering. Now you might fire back at me and say that's all well and good, but there is huge competition out there in the space that I want to operate, and there are plenty of people doing what I'm about to start doing. How on earth am I going to break through? And this is the way you do it.

Lily Richmond: 5:07

You be compelling in what your offer is. You've got to create that offer that gives your ideal customer a reason, a really good reason, to choose you over your competitors. And this is a key thing. It's a key question that I ask consulting clients. So what? Why is your ideal customer going to choose your business over your competitors? And you can probably detect I get pretty passionate about this particular topic because it's really simple but so often overlooked. So we are going to sort that out today.

Lily Richmond: 5:44

Now you don't have to be inventing something new with your business right. You don't have to be zany and out there. You don't have to be inventing something. You've just got to create a product or service with solid reasons, you know and I mean solid, right Things that you can prove and you can hang your hat on on why someone would choose you to help them solve their problem. And this is why I'm starting with your product or service offering. First, you've got to understand what you bring to the marketplace. Now I've got to caveat all of this that your first entry point into your marketing might not start here, with your product or service offering.

Lily Richmond: 6:22

You might not have come up with your product or service idea first. You might have actually identified a target market that you want to go after and you've really got to come up with a product or service that meets something that that market needs. It's totally cool to start with the customer first, before the product, but what I've tended to find in my experience is that most business owners have an idea of what it is they want to offer first, and then the market gets defined and refined after that, but that might not be the case for you. So if you want to start with the customer first, then you'll want to listen to the next episode that comes out and that might make that first step more clear and easy for you, and then you come on to product. There's no single way to do this. You can listen to the episodes in whichever way you want to. They all work perfectly fine together and you'll probably need to come back to them. There's no one single way to do any of this marketing like, but I'm just going to give you those key tools so you can actually work it out for yourself. Now, getting a really clear picture of your target market and your ideal customer are really important and they are very much linked to creating that compelling product or service offering. So once you've defined your target market and your ideal customer, in the next episode you might need to come back to this episode or the tasks from this episode to refine your compelling offer, because once you really get into the nitty gritty of who your audience is, you might need to refine your product further. But let's not focus on that today. That's what we're going to cover in the next episode and really what you offer and to who they are intimately linked. But I really need to break this down and make it simple and digestible for you. And another aspect of developing your product or service for market is your pricing, and pricing is a big old, meaty topic that we're not going to cover today here either. That's going to be in a later episode in the series too. So park pricing for now.

Lily Richmond: 8:25

I always think you need to have a market with something compelling to sell and then you can work out how you need to price it. Now, what are some of the benefits that you would get by focusing some of your time and energy now on developing a compelling product or service offering? I think there's three key things. Firstly, your ideal customer is going to connect with it. The second is, you are much more likely to win customers, sell more products and get repeat business. And the third thing is it helps you be super clear and really intentional about what it is that you are really offering. Yep, it helps you just focus on those basics of what your business is here to do.

Lily Richmond: 9:10

Now, okay, you understand why it's important to have a compelling product or service offering. How on earth are you going to come up with it? If you listen in, after the break, I'm going to give you five actionable steps that you can take to make sure that you're creating a product or service or business idea that people actually want to buy. Okay, it is time to grab some space your favorite refreshment and take some action Now. I've created a worksheet for this exercise because, yet again, like some of the others, you don't want to have to write all these tasks down while I'm talking, and it can be a little bit overwhelming and you need time to think. So pop into the episode show notes, where I've dropped a link to grab it.

Lily Richmond: 10:00

Okay, first up, number one you need to take the nugget of your product or service idea and get your head around what it does, who would use it and why and just freeform brainstorm this right out as many points that are coming to you as possible what it does, who would use it and why. Second, you need to look at what else is out there in your marketplace where you want to serve. Who else is doing this? How are they doing it? What do they do well? What do they not do quite so well? Where are the gaps? What are some opportunities that are maybe being missed in your marketplace? This is your market research, and a really good way to do it, I find, is put yourself in your customers shoes. Pretend that you are them shopping for what it is that you are going to offer.

Lily Richmond: 10:52

Okay, task number three I want you to have a good think about the things that are important to your consumer, the things that they consider when they're buying your product or service. What's on their list of priority features and benefits? Now, don't worry that you don't know exactly, maybe, who that ideal customer is. Yet we're going to get to that. Keep it broad for now. Anyone who's in the market to buy your product, what's important to them? Put yourself in their shoes, like you did in the market research section and list out the things what's important to them when buying this product or service. The fourth task I want you to do is to have a think about how you're going to stand out against that competition that you have assessed in action.

Lily Richmond: 11:35

Number two what is it that you could do differently? And it doesn't necessarily have to be that you do anything different. It could be that you're doing something better, but this one I always think it's easy if we consider an example. So think about our pizza takeout example that I've used in a previous episode. In your town there are probably plenty of pizza joints and they all make a living. There's plenty of space in that market. You just have to identify what that unmet need is and go for it. So maybe your pizza takeout service let's put yourself in the pizza takeout owner's shoes Maybe you're going to source all of your toppings locally and they're going to change seasonally so that you're reducing food miles and supporting other local producers in your town. Now that is a totally different concept to a big global chain like a, let's just say, a pizza hut, for example. So you just need to think about how you are going to stand out. That's number four.

Lily Richmond: 12:36

Number five. I want you to now look at those outputs from the four tasks that I've just explained and I want you to summarize it by filling in the blanks of the sentence, and it goes a little something like this my product or service is, explain what it is in the blank, and then consumers will choose my product service, business over my competitors because blank. Now give yourself permission to take the time to sit and work through these tasks, and then you've completed item one of how to get your marketing started when you're just starting out in business. That wasn't so hard, was it? You've got this on to the next stage.

Lily Richmond: 13:25

Thanks for being part of the huddle today. I hope you enjoyed the episode and you got some value out of it. Now don't forget hit subscribe, because next time we're going to delve into the second topic on where to start with your marketing when launching a new business, and that's by defining your target market and your ideal customer. This is a biggie of a topic and it's actually super, super helpful to revisit, even if you've been in business a while. And, as a quick reminder, visit the episode description to get access to my worksheet that's going to help you complete the five tasks that I've talked about today, or you can head directly over to my website and grab it there. That's at marketingondemandco slash startup one. Thanks for listening and I will catch you at the next episode of the Small Business Marketing Huddle. Now for the legal jargon. This podcast is for information and education purposes only. We make no business performance claims or guarantees in the information shared. The podcast content is general in nature and does not constitute advice for your unique business situation.