Photo credit Kelly Sikkema @kellysikkema
A physics class faced their final exam.
The students stressed over it, realizing the semester’s worth of difficult material. The professor, sensing despair in her class, offered a truce.
She allowed them to bring one sheet of paper to the exam by explaining, “Whatever you can put on that sheet of paper, you can use for the test.”
In the days leading up to the exam, students worked tirelessly on their one-page “cheat sheet.” They wrote in microscopic letters, cramming information on the front and back, jamming equations into every nook and cranny. Many proudly displayed their scribbled work of art to others.
But on test day, one student arrived with a blank paper.
His peers gasped. Why would he not be more prepared? He certainly couldn’t have all the information in his head!
As the teacher passed out the exam, the class positioned their papers on the desks.
Except for that one student.
Instead, he placed his empty paper on the ground beside his desk, then motioned to someone standing in the hallway. A woman walked in and stood on his paper. The other students, shocked, recognized her as a world-renowned physicist.
The test began, and the expert whispered all the answers into the student’s ear.
“That’s not fair!” someone nearby objected.
But the professor shook her head and said with a smile, “Well, maybe not, but your classmate is following the rules. Whatever you can put on that sheet of paper, you can use for the test.”
In the end, the clever student was the only one to score an A+.
A Marketing Cheat Sheet
Sometimes a cheat sheet isn’t wrong, in fact, sometimes it’s smart to have one. Especially if it contains expert advice.
As you run your business, what if you had a marketing expert daily whispering in your ear? Someone saving you from wasting money and instead guiding you to maximize leads and sales?
The “Genie”10-Step Marketing Cheat Sheet
Well, the next best thing is our “10-Step Marketing Cheat Sheet.” Consider it a 1-pager with all the right stuff, gleaned from years of marketing lessons and a lot of genie magic.
What are the 10 steps?
Your Target Audience
Your Elevator Pitch
Your Logo
Your Website
Your Messaging
Your Blog
Your Profitable Product
Your Email Campaign
Your Media Selection
Your Sales Conversion
Here are questions to ask yourself regarding these core areas. Consider it an X-ray of your current marketing, without staring at bones, joints, and organs. Yuck.
#1 Target Audience
Can you describe your most typical customer?
How can you serve the smallest niche?
Does your website content speak directly to them?
Are you using images they can relate to?
What are their wants? Their problems? What makes them angry?
#2 Elevator Pitch (One-Liner)
Can you describe your business in one sentence?
Can you clearly state the problem of your target audience?
Can you clearly state your unique solution?
Can you clearly describe the fairy tale ending of working with you?
#3 Logo
Is it simple?
Does it tell a story?
Can a 5-year-old sketch it?
Does it work well on multiple platforms?
#4 Website
Are you making the customer the hero?
Do you have a great hero banner photo?
Is your headline easy to understand?
Do you have a lead magnet for gathering contact info?
Do you showcase an easy 1-2-3 process?
Do you show your expertise through blogs and/or videos?
Do you strategically place call-to-actions throughout your site?
#5 Messaging
What makes your message stand out from competitors?
Are you using your target’s “language?”
Are you avoiding cliches and the same industry lingo?
Do you have clear and bold call to action?
Do you know what your target wants?
Can you describe your process in 3 easy steps?
Are you answering the objections of your target audience?
#6 Blog
Do you answer your target's common questions?
Are you using short paragraphs?
Are you effectively using headlines, bullet points, and images?
Are you linking to more of your content?
Do you have a call to action?
#7 Profitable Product
What is your most profitable product?
Does your marketing lead to it?
Do you have an intro product (for free or low cost)?
Does your intro product naturally lead to your profitable product?
#8 Email Campaign
Do you stoke curiosity in your subject and preview lines?
Is your content educational and entertaining?
Are you utilizing stories?
Are you frequently emailing to keep your list warm?
Do you link to other information?
Are you sending at the right days and times?
#9 Media Selection
Are you marketing in the areas where they congregate (physical and virtual)?
Is your target market a specific age group? A particular gender?
Do they share a geographic location?
What’s their favorite website? App? Radio and TV stations?
What do they do for fun?
#10 Closing the Sale
Have you considered a tiered offer?
Have you considered a timed promotion?
Have you considered a promo code?
Have you considered free shipping?
Have you considered a payment plan?
Is there a can’t-miss payment button?
Need Help Answering The Above Questions?
If you leave your marketing answers to guesswork, it’s like lowering your car window and tossing hundred dollar bills on the freeway. Yeah, not smart.
We’ll create a marketing plan for your business that successfully answers all the above questions — with other juicy add-ons as well. We call it the “Grow Your Business Game Plan.”
It’s the most awesome, easy-to-understand, customized marketing plan you’ve ever seen. Plus, if you choose us to do any of your projects, we apply the cost to your first project.
We’ll deliver it to you in an eye-popping, action-oriented design (with an online link as well). And yes, it will make you look both brilliant and sexy at your next board meeting, staff training, or team retreat.
PLUS, if you use the promo code “Plan” at checkout, we’ll take a sweet 25% off the price. Ba-da-bing.
About Me
Hey, I’m Brian, co-founder of Genie Jar Digital. Born a Tar Heel but now a Virginian, I’m a father of five and the husband of one amazing lady. My family has a thing for Golden Retrievers. Given the right circumstances, I can do a mean moonwalk on a slick kitchen floor.
