Week 5 -- Marketing Plans

Skills Focus This Week:  

• Learn the three M's of marketing.
• Identify your ideal customer and "super fans" to spread your message.
• Craft a message targeted to reach your ideal customer; pack it with the right emotion. 
• Select the best media to reach your ideal customers.

Challenge:   Create a thorough marketing plan around your market, media, and message. 

Summary of Pillars Perspective:  

Skills Focus Discussion Material:  

This week our Entrepreneurs are diving deep into their marketing plans.  To launch this segment, we watched and discussed some videos, including Reg Gupton's on the "3 Ms of Marketing."  Our Entrepreneurs appreciated the simplicity of his approach, and we used it to create a model to work from:

• Market:  identify your ideal customer, considering specific demographic, psychographic, and geographic characteristics.  Also analyze your competition and key differentiating elements.
• Media:  identify at least four different marketing channels you will implement.  Remember that everyone has some type of face-to-face marketing opportunity, which is the most effective alternative.  Consider phone calls, events, email, websites, social media, etc.  Create a strategy with specific actions and goal dates.
• Message:  What is the overall message you are using to connect with your ideal customer?  How can you harness the power of a slogan, imagery, and emotion to connect with your ideal customer and his/her "tribe"?

Our Entrepreneurs also discussed ideas presented by Seth Godin, in his classic presentation, "The Tribes We Lead."  We learned several important principles: 

• Our goal: "to change everything."
• We are at a key moment in social development, transitioning from the factory, big-budget advertisers dominating the world.  
• Leadership is finding "disconnected people who have a yearning."
• Find a few "true believers" for your product and movement, and they will drive the marketing for you.  

Activities:  

We explored how well-funded marketers combine the elements of an effective message, when emotion, visual elements, and slogans are combined in a powerful and memorable way.  Our examples included a McDonald's "Love" ad, (for contrast) Burger King's funny "Eat Like Snake" ad, and Nike's 25th anniversary "Just Do It" ad.  

Guest / Field Trip:  

Neal Staker, Founder of Collaborant.  Neal's entrepreneurial journey started in third grade.  Frequently finding himself in detention for bucking the status quo, he became proficient at writing out "I will not . . ." sentence lists.  He soon discovered there was an underground market for pre-written lists, 50 deep.  Later he became the school's "walking vending machine," selling pencils, combs, and other items vital for school life.  

Later ventures included a flag-pole installation company and a medical testing laboratory.  He learned early on that need creates the fire of motivation.

Neal became a highly successful business consultant and corporate trainer.   A few years ago, he sold his company, PeopleSmart, to the VitalSmarts group.  He recently started Collaborant to help business leaders train their teams in conflict resolution, collaboration, and leadership.  

Neal shared several key messages:  

• You can't be an entrepreneur in any field if you aren't willing to sell. 
• Marketing messages should be as comfortable as a conversation between two friends walking down the beach.  
• Listen carefully to your target audience, and use their language.  
• Good ideas and solutions to problems sell better than products and services.