Introduction
Welcome! I’m delighted to have you here. I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself and start off by telling you about how this book came to be.
My name is Racquel (pronounced “Rachel”—thanks, Mum!) and I am a professional marketer on a mission to help more business- women take control of their marketing.
After many years in the corporate world, kicking marketing-ass and fighting the good fight, I, like many people during COVID- 19 lockdowns, took some time to re-evaluate and I realised that, whilst I was making good money and doing well at my job, I had lost my passion for corporate marketing. Increasing revenue and driving more sales for distant shareholders was no longer enough.
I wanted to make a difference in the world and, given the number of women starting their own businesses or turning their side hustles into full-time gigs, I focused my skills and knowledge on helping women like you build the businesses of their dreams by implement- ing marketing plans that work.
This book is a compilation of the framework and templates I use with my clients to supercharge their marketing. When you follow the processes outlined in this book, you’ll build the launchpad that will give you everything you need to successfully market your business for years to come.
Let Marketing Launchpad be the platform to launch your business into the thriving enterprise you deserve.
Why you should read this book
Through the Marketing Launchpad framework you will discover:
• A greater clarity about who you’re helping and how, i.e. your niche, your offer and your messaging.
• How to attract your ideal client through strategic content marketing without coming across as pushy or “salesy.”
• How to stop wasting money and energy on marketing that doesn’t work so you can spend more time doing what you love.
• Create your unique, strategic plan to take your business to where you want it to be. Your way.
The easy-to-follow processes in Marketing Launchpad give you everything you need to know before you start marketing, saving you time, money and energy on marketing that doesn’t work for you.
Why marketing matters
Marketing matters because your business and what you do in it matters. Without marketing, you can’t drive the growth that leads to success. You can’t share your purpose with the world and help as many people as you can.
According to the World Bank, the economic cost of gender inequality globally amounts to USD 160.2 trillion because of women experi- encing unequal access to education, employment, financial resources, power and opportunities to participate in decision-making in most societies. I am striving to help change these statistics using successful self-employment and business ownership as the tool of choice.
I’m a professional marketer. Helping women set up their businesses is what I do. All day. Every day.
During my marketing career, I’ve read hundreds of business and marketing books, and found very few written by women for businesswomen. Women who deserve the success in business overwhelmingly seen by men. Women who want to market their business without being seen as masculine and pushy—but also without the fluff. Smart women, who want to attract their ideal customer through the right marketing strategies.
To grow a profitable company, you need a process in place to con- tinually attract more of your ideal client.
Successful marketing strategy
To market your business successfully, there isn’t one single magic formula that applies across the board. How can there be? Every business owner is different. Every business’s clients are unique.
These are the most common messages I hear every day from new clients:
• “Marketing is too hard. I have no idea where to even start.”
• “My marketing doesn’t work.“
• “I keep wasting money on marketing that doesn’t work.”
• “I can’t attract my ideal client. I keep getting time-wasters.”
• “Social media is a waste of time. No one buys from me.”
• “I don’t need a niche, my products can help everyone!”
• “There are too many choices! Which marketing should I do?”
And that’s where Marketing Launchpad comes in. It’s designed to show you how to market your products and services to your ideal clients, to get the right results using the right strategies and the right messaging. For you.
This book is not a shortcut to getting rich quickly. If you’re looking for a bunch of hacks and tips for Facebook and Google ads, this isn’t the place. Let’s face it, that type of advice would be outdated before the book was even published!
The advice and strategies in this book will set you up for marketing success for years to come. It will show you how to build a solid platform for your business even beyond marketing.
How to use this book
This book has been designed to take the stress out of where to start with your marketing.
There are twenty bite-sized steps for you to take to build your
Marketing Launchpad.
For each step I’ll explain the why and the how and there will be exam- ples for both products and services and you will be provided with a link to download a free worksheet for each step to make it easier still!
There is no set time frame to complete each step (or the complete process) so you can work through the book at your own pace.
If you have done one of the steps before, use this process as an opportunity to review what you have now and include your reviewed version in the relevant activity.
The book is divided into three parts: Part 1: “Clarity”; Part 2: “Focus”; and Part 3: “Bringing it all together.”
Part 1: The magic of clarity
• Crystalize the vision for your business
• Clarify what’s important to you
• Identify your niche
• Get to know your ideal client and how you can solve their problems
Part 2: The secret sauce: focus
• Formulate the strategies that will help you achieve the vision you’ve developed
• Fine-tune your product offering to maximize finan- cial reward
Part 3: Get ready for liftoff!
• Create your own, unique Marketing Launchpad, includ- ing your key messaging guide & brand essence and your uniquely ‘you’ strategic plan
• Prepare to take your business from where you are now, to where you want it to be.
The mechanics of the book
As you go through each section, and work through the actionable items, you will see different tools or information sources referenced.
There are links to all the references mentioned throughout these sections at the back of the book.
The accompanying worksheets for the actionable items are available to download (for free) here: https://www.marketinglaunchpad.com. au/worksheets
If you prefer to work in one workbook, you can get one at: https:// www.marketinglaunchpad.com.au/workbook.
This book will guide you through building your Marketing Launchpad so you can market your business with clarity and confidence.
But marketing sucks … doesn’t it?
“Marketing sucks!” This is what most of my clients think when they first come to see me. But if you’re in business, you’re in the business of marketing. Marketing itself doesn’t suck. Bad marketing sucks. Sleazy marketing sucks. And marketing that doesn’t work sucks. But marketing when it’s done right, is a powerful tool that will enable you to grow your business.
Marketing doesn’t need to be pushy or aggressive. With a good strategy for achieving your goals, you can develop a plan to get you where you want to go, and this book will show you how to create the foundations of it.
I’ve been a marketer for a really long time. Decades. And that is a LOT of commitment to one thing. Hell, it’s one of the longest relationships I’ve had. And, it has to be said, I really do love mar- keting—when it’s used for good and not evil.
I’ve successfully marketed businesses of all shapes and sizes, both as an in-house marketer (with and without marketing teams) and as a consultant to a wide range of business types and sizes, and I can tell you that marketing can be as simple or as complicated as you care to make it.
But the best marketing strategies and activities in the world won’t help you, no matter how much time or money you throw at it, if you don’t know exactly what you sell, and who you want to sell it to.
Why you need a marketing roadmap
There are things you need to know before you run off and “do your marketing.” Without this clarity, you’ll run the risk of being one of the many mediocre or bad marketers out there shouting random messages at anyone you come across and then wonder why they’re not listening.
Would you? When a random shouty person approaches you in the street with an “End is Nigh” doomsday scenario, do you run out and buy non-perishable food?
No, you’re most likely to ignore them and go on with your day.
Now if that person was a friend, and she told you there was a cyclone coming, you’d have an entirely different reaction. Even if you thought she was joking, you’d still check the weather forecast because “maybe.” And if it verified her story, you’d leap into action, stocking up on essentials, putting away your outdoor furniture and taping up your windows. You’d decide where you were going to ride out the cyclone and you’d get yourself and your loved ones somewhere safe.
And you’d do all of that action and planning quickly and efficiently because you can clearly picture what the outcome is if you don’t act.
Effective marketing is about building a relationship with your ideal client so that they trust what you say and you stand out as an authority in the shouty noise of pushy sales messages.
The secret of effective marketing
When I’m working with my clients, they usually come to me for help marketing their business and finding new clients. Makes sense. That’s what I do.
In nine cases out of ten, before we even get to work on their website or their content strategy, we go back to the beginning and work out the why, who, what and how before we embark on developing any sort of marketing action plan.
Here’s the thing about marketing a business: when you think of marketing, you probably think of social posts, ads, your website and how to get your message “out there.”
The problem is most people skip the part where they work out exactly what that message is.
Marketing, at its best, is a conversation between you and your ideal client.
Marketing doesn’t need to be a hard sell. It isn’t about shouting from the rooftops to try to get yourself heard. It shouldn’t ever feel sleazy or uncomfortable.
If you get your message right, you’ll never need to convince anyone to buy from you. They’ll know your product is what they need, and you’ll attract them to you.
So I decided, given that all of these elements are part of great mar- keting, and I’m a highly educated, successful and savvy marketing expert (if I do say so myself!), to create a process that would work, not just for me but for other smart and savvy women who are interested in setting up their own successful businesses.
Marketing isn’t something you switch on and then effortlessly achieve your goals overnight.
Marketing takes thought, time, energy and planning.
It can help you achieve your business goals, but it isn’t a magic bullet.
No amount of marketing in the world will help you if your product simply isn’t wanted by your target market.
If you rip people off, marketing is not going to save you.
If you do a shonky job of the service you offer, don’t waste time on marketing, take the time to do the service better.
Where do most people go wrong with marketing?
In my experience, it’s usually because my clients don’t understand what they need to do, so they focus on the parts of their business they’re more comfortable with.
Don’t let your business die a death of a thousand cuts. You don’t want your business to fail. But if you can’t see your goal clearly, or work out the steps to get there, then your marketing won’t work.
Even if you have some clients coming in, without the thought and the planning in place, you won’t achieve lasting success, and you’ll be leaving money on the table or maybe even serving the wrong clients.
Building your Marketing Launchpad will get you results
This book will guide you through the process of building your Marketing Launchpad (of goals and strategies) and get you ready for Marketing Liftoff (plans and tactics).
It will help you define your unique message so that you can commu- nicate it to your ideal client where and when they’re ready to hear it, which is the very heart of effective marketing.
Going through these steps will ensure that you’re in the right place, for the right person, at the right time, with your easy-to-under- stand message.
If you’re ready to build the business of your dreams, this is where you start!
