Marketing tips from the farm!
11th February
Icy Sheep Land (the Yorkshire Dales, England)
Welcome to the 9th edition of the Geospatial Marketing Academy Newsletter – a fortnightly newsletter by me, Elaine Ball, on all the stuff that matters – geospatial marketing, life, and maybe horses or sheep! A big hello to Fatima, Arno and John. Welcome to my NEWS-letter!
For those who know me, I’m a bit of an outdoorsy kinda gal! My day starts early heading to the farm to feed the animals.
During my early morning routine this week in -3oC 🥶 degrees feeding my sheep, I watched them fondly scoff (eat) their breakfast as fast as I had put it down. Not because they were starving, have you seen the size of them. My goal is to desensitize them that humans are not a threat 🤭
My routine is the same every single day; I pull on my wellies (wellington boots), hike through the freezing temperatures over the hard, frozen ground carefully avoiding the slippery concrete yard, swing the creaky old gate open to the barn, kick out the ice in the water trough then watch them push their way through like eager attendees in the front row of a concert.
Every day I monitor the routine and tweak it to improve my chances of building trust with my sheep.
Slowly but surely, day by day my sheep see me doing the same routine at the same time delivering something that matters to them, I’m earning their trust!
How to acquire buyers
This routine of mine got me thinking about buyers, and about the process of acquiring buyers and how it is done by creating trust in a relationship.
That trust is created through the consistent delivery of content. Content that is something buyers look for and push their way to the front to get a piece of. You know, that information you share along the buyer’s journey to educate your prospects to identify their problem, understand how to fix it and then they’re looking for someone they trust to help them do exactly that and hey, whoa! Here’s someone they trust!
You! Your brand!
Because you have been consistently showing up in the right place with the right help just when they need it.
So back to the story;
Don’t let the sheep pee on you!
My goal is to make my sheep friendly in order for me to easily shear them, trim their feet and give them their wormer easily and without hassle.
Last time i sheared them the big herdwick who was on her back at the time while i clipped her belly (my dad had hold of her) peed, yes peed straight into my dads face! Dowsing him with warm iky fluid. I bet that got rid of his wrinkles! 🤣 As you can imagine I sat there howling with laughter as my dad wiped pee off his face.
So as you can see i have a very valid reason here! Don’t you think?
What Marketers are for!
A marketer is much more than a person who designs nice leaflets or sets up an exhibition booth. A marketer’s true role is strategic. We’re the ones who create the experiences that inspire people to take action. To ask, “What’s next?” And spur an appetite and curiosity for more content. Our role as marketers is to become so valuable to our audience that they can’t wait to see us coming out the barn door with a new bucket of goodness.
If we as Marketers can map out the customers journey, tweak it along the way and strategically place content in the right places, in order to reach our goal, making sales would be so much easier. So what do we need to do?
Six marketing tips you can take from the farm
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Set yourself a goal for example: I created an experience that fosters trust with my sheep in order to reach the goal of ‘hassle free handling’
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What do my customers care about? What do they need? What is keeping them awake at night? For example: a threat to their current status quo: human in the way of breakfast!
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Map out a plan of action. What is important to your buyer and at what stages during his or her buying journey? Think of it in steps. You know the beginning, middle and end.
For example: My sheep wake up and do sheep things – stretch, smell things and each other, walk around the mud and whatever else sheep do. This is them in their customer journey, then their stomach growls and they enter the buyer journey.
They’ve identified a need and they are looking to “buy” some breakfast. That’s where I come in and my consistent daily routine. To be more valuable to my sheep, what can I do to build the relationship before their stomach growls and they’ve identified a need?
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Where do they hang out? Where do they find information? Who influences them? For Example: My sheep live in the barn during winter. I make sure I visit them in order to let them know I’m around. One of the sheep is very friendly and she is an excellent influencer to the others. So I make sure she gets lots of treats and fuss in order to encourage curiosity in the others.
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Build a following of prospects who are desperate to consume your content in exchange for their contact information. For Example: my sheep are hungry and when they see the other sheep pushing their way towards me and the food, they also come and join in.
This is your gateway to your sales funnel flow.
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Is it working for your customer? Track it! Are they finding your content useful, is it satisfying a need? Monitor click throughs, time on site, sign ups to webinars – are they taking action by signing up to find out more? For Example: I know my sheep are getting used to me, they come out of the barn and head straight to the feed buckets – waiting patiently for the food to drop. By spring they will be following me around like I’m their mamma sheep! Eating out of my hands? By tracking the progress, i can see my goal in sight!
Businesses and farms like me have a real goal in mind; for my sheep it’s food to satisfy that hunger need, for me, it’s building a trust so I can handle them without hassle.
Mapping out the journey through content is crucial for success and reaching that end goal.
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Hope you enjoyed life on the farm!
Thanks for reading to the bottom. I appreciate you!
Stay safe. Stay sane. Cover your face (from the nose down)
I’ll be back on 25th February 2021
Elaine