Marketing every day can feel like trying to spread too little butter over too much toast—a crazy whirlwind of department requests, social media posts, and staying up to date with the latest trends. With limited resources and small teams, it’s easy to end up stretched too thin, trying to be everywhere at once.
In Part 1 we looked at the first decision you need to make as a marketing leader to bring order to the chaos. Namely, selecting your marketing framework.
Now, in Part 2 we’ll address the second critical decision you need to make, so you can stay organized, prioritize effectively, and avoid dropping the ball.
Decision 2: Establish Your Order of Operations
Once you’ve picked your framework, the next step is to decide on your order of operations. This is where you prioritize your efforts to ensure maximum impact, especially when resources are tight. If you get this wrong, you’ll spend countless hours and dollars chasing clicks, impressions, and vanity metrics without moving the needle and creating new revenue.
Needless to say, you’ll drive yourself crazy.
That’s why I can’t overstate the importance of starting and focusing your efforts in the right place.
- Start with Your Happy Customers
- How to Engage Your Happy Customers
- See it in Action: JK Moving
- Where Do I Go From There?
- End the Chaos
Start with Your Happy Customers
One of the most effective strategies is to start at the bottom of your funnel or hourglass—your existing happy customers. Here’s why:
- Authenticity: Happy customers provide genuine testimonials and reviews that resonate more with potential customers than traditional advertising.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Engaging with satisfied customers and leveraging their stories requires fewer resources than broad advertising campaigns.
- Word-of-Mouth: Happy customers naturally become advocates, sharing their positive experiences with their network, amplifying your reach organically. If you nurture the relationship, they’ll even send referrals.
- Market Research: Creating content such as testimonials and case studies simultaneously conducts market research, giving you and your team insights into customer pain points and preferences. Improving all marketing efforts.
- Future Campaigns: Honestly, this is my favorite benefit and the one most don’t recognize. Authentic material from happy customers can be repurposed across various marketing channels, enhancing their effectiveness. Meaning, all efforts across the hourglass will be informed and improved. Every tough point will be rich with the voice of your happy customers.
How to Engage Your Happy Customers
Engaging your happy customers is a strategic move that sets the foundation for all your other marketing efforts. Here’s a step-by-step approach:
- Identify Satisfied Customers: Start by identifying your most satisfied customers. These are the ones who have had positive experiences with your product or service.
- Collect Testimonials and Case Studies: Reach out to these customers for testimonials and case studies. Highlight their success stories and how your product or service helped them achieve their goals.
- Create Content: Use these testimonials and case studies to create compelling content. This can be in the form of blog posts, videos, social media posts, and more.
- Share and Promote: Share this content on your website, social media platforms, and other marketing channels. Promote it to attract new customers and build trust.
- Leverage in Campaigns: Use the content as the foundation for your broader marketing campaigns. This authentic content will resonate more with your audience and drive better results.
See It In Action: JK Moving
To see this approach in action, let’s look at JK Moving, a moving company that successfully leveraged our Snoball platform. When we recognized their success, we collected their story to boost our marketing efforts.
- Identify Satisfied Customers: JK Moving saw outstanding results from the Snoball platform, generating over $100k of new business within the first few months.
- Collect Testimonials and Case Studies: We conducted an interview with a representative from JK Moving, capturing their feedback and success story in a video format.
- Create Content: The video testimonial was edited and shared on our Snoball website and social media platforms, particularly LinkedIn.
- Share and Promote: The shared content was picked up by others within JK Moving’s network, leading to increased visibility and inquiries from other moving companies.
- Leverage in Campaigns: Within a week, this strategy led to multiple new business inquiries and conversions, demonstrating the power of starting with happy customers.The case study is now being used in our direct outreach efforts on LinkedIn, showcasing the tangible benefits of Snoball’s services to potential clients.
By focusing on our happy customers, our Snoball marketing team created a foundation of authenticity and trust that fueled our marketing efforts across the entire hourglass.
Where Do I Go From There?
With a solid base of customer-centric content, it's time to level up the rest of your hourglass funnel. Your social media will be buzzing with real customer voices, and your ads will shine with testimonials and success stories. Plus, you can sprinkle social proof and reviews throughout the top part of your customer journey. Every interaction will get a boost from that genuine, human touch you started with, thanks to your happy customers. Additionally, your messaging will be more effective as it will address the real problems and pain points that your customers describe. And finally, you’ll have the customer ambassadors that will spread the word and bring in referrals that will turn into new customers.
End the Chaos
In the confusing world of marketing, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and scattered. But by picking a marketing framework and establishing an order of operations, you can stay focused and achieve better results. Start with your happy customers, leverage their authentic stories, and build your marketing efforts from there. This approach not only maximizes your limited resources but also ensures that your marketing strategy is deeply rooted in real customer experiences. So, pick your framework, prioritize your efforts and drive new business.
Oh, and maybe you won’t have to go crazy while doing it.
