6 Steps to Cultivating your Brand & Marketing Path for Success | Helping Female Entrepreneurs Simplify Business Marketing

HELLO BEAUTIFUL FRIEND!

Let’s face it, sometimes you just need someone to give you “the steps” to follow, right?

So I’m going to hand over the 6 most important steps I take my clients through below to bring style, strategy, & success to their businesses! K?

But pause for a hot-second with me first and imagine you’re running a marathon…

(Not a runner? Feel free to picture a giant shopping trip instead. Boutique, Anthopologie, Cute Cafe, cozying up at home amongst the shopping bags for the win, wink-wink).

Ok back to our marathon analogy... (full disclosure: I have never run a marathon and prefer at home Beachbody-style workouts or playing basketball with the girls I coach instead, but let's keep rolling with the race example, K?).

When you imagine running that race, making it to the FINISH LINE is where all the glory is, right? Even if the steps leading up to it bring you joy (they should!) you still want to see your feet cross that end point.

You’d do a series of pre-race steps >>>

...sign-up, train, buy a new outfit (because, I mean, you deserve to look cute on your big day!), eat the right pre-race meal, awake early, and then do the dang thing.

And crossing that finish line would feel oh. so. AMAZING. ( Pretty sure at least! )

But let’s jolt things up for a second, and imagine this strange scenario instead: what if you just jumped in and started the race HALF-WAY through?

That would be more than a little odd, right?

Imagine watching your friends run half of their marathon, thinking “this looks fun,” and jumping in for the second half, dopey smile on your face, full of optimism and energy (from that double-chai or fancy latte).

You wouldn’t have trained. And of course, you wouldn’t have a number pinned to your shirt, or really even be qualified. (and you may or may not be missing said cute outfit).

And by no means would you receive any of the glory at the end. (In fact, you might be rewarded with shin splints and some mean looks from fellow runners).

That all seems pretty crazy, right?

But Friend… that’s sometimes how we do business.

We see the shiny objects, we pick and choose from someone's magic steps (in no particular order)…

we buy the trainings about “closing the deal” to take the cringiness out of sales conversations... but we can forget to actually take the time to set things up well - with purpose, depth, strategy, and a path.

And the thing is... if we HAD taken the time to set up well… the whole thing (this marketing spider web of doom that doesn't seem to be producing the results you really want, or this business model that you realize is actually kinda sucking the life out of you, or closing those actual sales) might feel like way less of a mess.

And I do not want to see you continuing to swim in that mess or stuck on the treadmill or lacking deep purpose and joy in what you're doing.

So, you might ask, what does "setting up WELL" feel like?

It might result in one (or all!) of these in your life:

• Going to bed at night feeling purposeful.

• Working with clients or making sales to people we are so excited to serve.

• Actually knowing what to post on social and why.

• Extra income that actually begins to appear, without stress or icky sales conversations.

• Knowing the time spent on our business is genuinely transforming lives and truly matters.

But you have to take the steps to get to those results.

So are you ready for those 6 Tangible Steps?

I’m gonna hand them over to you, Friend, because I want you to take the RIGHT ACTION, beginning to end, so you can cultivate a business with depth and ease!

Here are some of the most important steps I take my clients through…

1. Evaluate You: Your deep purposes and "why," goals that are aligned (not numbers out of thin air), how you can bring more of your gifts & talents into your business, what parts of you you want to share with your audience. (This will make your business FUN!!!)

2. Get Clear on Your Target Audience: Who are you talking to and what matters to them. What are they feeling? What are they motivated by? How are you helping them?

3. Decide on a Marketing Path (i.e. eliminate the 17 paths you're trying, and choose one or two!): in order to design the visuals and plan the messages, you need to know where they’re going to get used.

4. Cultivate Messaging: Words, phrases, categories, feelings that will connect deeply with your audience and... help you know exactly what to post on social media.

5. Add Style: Bring your brand story to visual life with the colors, fonts, and photos that back up what you're really about and make you look in-the-know and professional.

6. Repeat: Put your marketing on repeat (with variations here and there) so that you don't feel like you're starting from scratch each and every time.

This is not to say you’ll ever be “done” working on your business.

Of course not. (Just like you'll never be done browsing Anthropologie - I mean, really…).

You can always grow as a woman, a business owner, a human, a friend,… and each year you’ll want to decide what new marketing strategies or offerings you want to implement to serve with the best of your ability or set your business up to help you feel free and full of joy!

BUT…. if you do these 6 things from the start, everything after is an “adjustment” - not a complete overhaul -- knowing your business brand story and marketing plan is on the right foot.

And from there... success will snowball -- slow at first, but then with more speed.

So here’s to doing the work, Friend, and getting you set up for success!

Need some help along the journey?

Want to get this beautiful, simplified marketing stepping stone path set up right, once and for all?

Reach out using our CONTACT FORM and let me know. I can lean in and listen, and then share with you some of our brand & marketing mentoring & strategy offerings to boil this all down to SIMPLE. And just for you! Cheering you on Friend! -Shannon, here at Feather Blue Studios