Whether you are a startup entrepreneur who has built their business from scratch, or an executive who has been chosen to help manage a Fortune 500 corporation, you (perhaps unknowingly) share many of the admirable qualities that the audience loves about your company. Therein lies the true passion and foundation for communicating a powerful marketing message.
Once you understand the core values that guide your company, and are able to clearly articulate them, your first undertaking is to positively identify which aspects of your startup’s core values are commonplace in your personal and professional life. Begin by asking yourself, what five (5) words best describe your own fundamental values? For example: accountability, honesty, creativity, efficiency, dependability, etc. The principles you identify in this exercise will determine the focus of your startup’s powerful marketing message.
The Startup’s Message
Over the last decade-and-a-half, my startup – Weal Digital – has grown and evolved through an ongoing process of learning, practicing and teaching. In fact, much of the company’s success can be attributed to the relationships that have been established either from gathering information from industry professionals, or from providing well-researched and practiced information to others. Because Weal Digital has established this pattern of behavior, knowledgeable, professional, and helpful are principles that the online audience closely associates with the company.
Carefully consider how the experiences building your startup have shaped the company it has become. These experiences are a fundamental part of your startup’s core values and are characteristics your target audience members can closely relate to. Utilize the common ground you share to communicate a powerful marketing message consumers will love.
For Example: Mother Nature’s Diaper Service is a cloth diaper service. The startup was founded by a young couple with two toddlers. The couple are environmentally-conscious and chose to use cloth diapers for both children. With no local diaper service company to pick up and drop off in their region, the young entrepreneurs were inspired to launch their own company. From experience, the couple knows that young parents face financial challenges and need to stick to a budget. As well, they know that having soiled diapers lying around for days can be very unpleasant. Past experiences have taught them that a reliable pick up of the dirty diaper collection is paramount.
To appeal to their target audience, Mother Nature’s Diaper Service shares marketing content that relates to the core values they share: affordable, dependable, environmentally-conscious.
The Founder’s Message
From a personal perspective, I view each day as an opportunity to make personal and profession improvements. Mirroring my company, I believe that by learning new things and sharing my experience with friends, fans, and followers, I will improve myself by improving others. Thus, when I shared content in my personal blog and social media profiles, the message I communicated was consistent with the company’s core values – knowledgeable, professional, and helpful.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not a coincidence that Weal Digital’s employees are also regarded by many as knowledgeable, professional and helpful. Take for example the company’s executive staff members. These individuals have achieved their own online success by demonstrating these qualities consistently, and far better than most others in their industry.
Help others and give something back. I guarantee you will discover that while public service improves the lives and the world around you, its greatest reward is the enrichment and new meaning it will bring your own life.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
A Powerful Marketing Message
Because each employee shares endearing qualities with the company, it can be expected that the message that each team member communicates in their own social networks – even on their own personal time – will be consistent with your startup’s fundamental principles and mission statement.
Establishing and defining the parallels between corporate and personal values and principles will encourage everyone at your company – even if it’s only you – to communicate a powerful marketing message that repeatedly reinforces the organization’s core values, and works in partnership to further advance the corporate mission.