Episode 84 of Landscape Digital Show reveals how to create marketing that moves a target audience to take action. 

The purpose of marketing is to move an audience to action.

That’s marketing’s job.

It starts with attracting an audience. And that requires a deep understanding of who its members are, what they want, and everything that influences their experience of acquiring it.

Describe Your Audience in Writing

Start with the end in mind before you start investing in marketing.

Nearly every business has more than one audience. There are customers and future customers you wish to attract. Those two audiences have different needs.

To serve these customers your business must attract team members, some of whom are leaders and others followers. That’s at least two more audiences, and there may be more, such as potential investors or business partners.

The trick is making marketing that shows you know them better than they know themselves. That’s not easy to do if you are casting a wide net. So segment your larger audience and create marketing for each group within it.

You have to figure out how to sneak into your customer’s mind. So segment your larger audience and create marketing for each group within it.

Describe each audience in detail so that it feels like a real person. This is what’s known as an audience persona, and it should be committed to writing so everyone instantly gets it. 

The truer to life that audience persona is the better your marketing will attract the people it represents.

What Are The Outcomes Your Audience Wants?

Now consider what gets these humans to take action.

Some buyers want a landscape company that is experienced, certified, and guaranteed. Others prefer edgier ones that are innovative and technology-based with exciting new offerings.

Which are you?

People today are doing their homework and checking you out from head to toe. Like you, they are fishing deep for exactly what they want.

Nobody is going to buy a product or investigate a job opportunity if it’s not clear what the benefits are for taking action and what the risks are for not doing so.

This means your business has to be attractive. It’s dating 101 that starts with intimately understanding the target you want to attract. That must be reflected in all of your communications.

Of course, there is more to marketing than websites, so you have to break down your message so that it plays well on social media and the other marketing channels you use.

How do you want to be perceived? That is your business persona.

Your business persona is the counterpart to an audience persona and is better known as your brand. That brand is everything that is said about your business, including and especially what your customers are talking about.

You’ve probably heard that people don’t buy products or services, but the outcomes they promise. Ah, now we get to the brand promise and how that aligns with the outcomes your audience needs and wants.

Making a sale is one outcome, but there are many others that must happen to pave the way for it, such as estimates, proposals, and presentations.

This is where content marketing enters the picture.

Does Your Marketing Make Customers Happy?

Let’s keep this simple. Anything that promises to improve one’s life or lifestyle gets people to take action.

Happiness is the way.

If you care about people and put that ahead of what you want you’ll get what you want too. That’s why content marketing is such an invaluable marketing practice.

Content marketing is the practice of consistently delivering marketing content that establishes authority, likability, and the capability to solve relevant problems, ultimately with products and services that earn profits.

For most landscape industry business, that content resides on its website.

When the right people visit your website you want them to take one of five actions before leaving.

1. Buy
2. Try
3. Call
4. Email
5. Follow

Only a small percentage of your audience is ready to buy now. It’s your job to continue nurturing relationships with the rest by using content marketing to build your brand story in their minds with case studies and other stories that sell.

I’m now going to mention the word strategy because that’s what we are talking about here. I’ve waited until now because it’s a word most people associate with work and deep thinking.

Marketing is work, but it’s also a path to getting what your business wants by helping enough other people get what they want when they want it, and in the way that works for their budget or lifestyle or whatever.

Get to know your respective audiences and what they want and design a marketing experience to help them get it.

If you take anything away from this recipe for business growth I hope it is the idea that marketing today is more than attracting leads and pushing them down a sales funnel.

Marketing nowadays is getting people to take an action that is right for them. Some people are afraid to take a leap, so just help them close a small gap and they’ll appreciate and remember you for it like a friend that did them an unexpected favor.

Marketing tools, such as CRM systems can help with this if you teach those systems how to guide the process that keeps people happy during their journey with your business.  

Planning to make customers happier doesn’t have to be complicated.

• Make some lists.
• Prioritize everything.
• Get a few easy wins.
• Stay in there to get your share of the big fish.

I know you’ll get the job done.

Show Notes

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