How to Make Your 2025 Marketing Plan – Part 2 (Crafting your Message)

Brandon Welch: 0:00
You don’t go to market. You don’t go talk to any advertising partner. You don’t talk to your video people. You don’t talk to your website people until you have this plan in hand. Welcome to the Maven Marketing Podcast. Today is Maven Monday. I’m your host, Brandon Welch, and I’m here with Caleb, the integrator, AG Caleb is the integrator of Frank and Maven and all things in life I like that it’s greater in the middle. Yeah.

Caleb Agee: 0:28
Yes, I’m just kidding, I don’t know why I was trying to think Greater. He doesn’t tell me these things before we start, so I never know how to react or respond to those.

Brandon Welch: 0:36
Part of, yeah, part of what we do around here. Hey, if you haven’t read Rocket Fuel, yeah, and you are leading a business with another person and I think you should be you need to read that book.

Caleb Agee: 0:45
Yes, you should.

Brandon Welch: 0:46
It will save your business from a lot of turmoil. Yeah, and type in integrator. Send us an email to mavenmonday at frankenmavencom and we’ll send you a copy for the first person who does that.

Caleb Agee: 0:59
Bring it on Rocket Fuel Type in integrator in the subject line Sorry, yeah, just type it somewhere on your computer and see what happens.

Brandon Welch: 1:05
Love it. We love to give away books around here. Yes, making the world more smarter. Leaders are readers.

Brandon Welch: 1:10
Hey, last week we started our how to make a marketing plan for 2025, and we talked all about strategy and it was slow and methodical. And you’re going, please, before you devour this one, it is very, very important, but it is sort of like the slow down before you speed up or slow down to speed up episode. Yeah, and if you have those things right from the strategy exercise last week, everything else in your marketing plan falls into place. That’s right, because you know who you’re supposed to be doing business with. You know how you’re uniquely positioned. You can align everything from your vision as a leader or your leadership team, all the way down through your message and what you should be saying for maximum impact, and all the way down to the media. And when you get those things aligned, that is when maximum profit happens in a marketing plan. Yeah, and that is the biggest bad wolf of all waste and marketing. We talk about how we help you eliminate waste and advertising, grow your business and achieve the big dream.

Brandon Welch: 2:12
The biggest reason that doesn’t happen is because of alignment.

Caleb Agee: 2:14
Yes.

Brandon Welch: 2:15
You are Splitting your votes. Splitting your votes, showing up in some way that is either incongruent with how you act and view and best serve the world, or you’re saying something that isn’t true and communicating that well, or you’re trying to use a media that is not capable of transferring that message. That’s right and that will become even more clear with this episode and next week’s episode. Yeah, today, the second part of any great marketing plan is messaging.

Caleb Agee: 2:42
That’s right. We are going to build this message together and, by the way, just as a reminder in case you haven’t listened to the last week’s episode, we are building this for our fake, imaginary company.

Brandon Welch: 2:58
But not so fake.

Caleb Agee: 2:59
But not so fake. We have some profiles of actually companies like this in several states.

Brandon Welch: 3:05
Steve and Sarah have a window company in Springfield Missouri.

Caleb Agee: 3:09
Yep, and we’re calling it Best Window Company of Springfield. So we did get one question last week. I think that’s important to dig into, because last week we talked about in the strategies section. We talked about vision, which is the world you’re trying to create, values, which is what you stand for and against. Vows what are you going to do about your convictions? And then we set business objectives, and so one thing, before we get to the question, is when you have a vision, values and vows, when those are set next year, your job is not to recreate them, your job is to reassess them, and we’re not throwing those out every single year in our marketing strategy.

Brandon Welch: 3:48
Unless you’re starting a new company, unless you started a new or making a large strategy shift, yeah, Right, yeah.

Caleb Agee: 3:53
And so it’s like are these still the truth, the foundation of what we believe? Yes, okay, then we move to business objectives, and maybe it won’t take as long next year. Yeah, right, yes.

Brandon Welch: 4:02
We added to ours and took some away, but we never changed our big idea about strategy or sorry vision, values and values. That’s right.

Caleb Agee: 4:09
The question we got was how important is understanding the ideal customer in the strategy phase. So what we talked about last week, is it important now in strategy or is it only relevant in planning, messaging and media? Yes, and do you want to take that?

Brandon Welch: 4:26
Great question. I think we can both add to this. But it’s kind of yes and no. Is it important? Yes, because that person you’re supposed to be serving isn’t a matter of like ooh, who can I go sell more stuff to Like in a holistic world, in a marketing plan that is driven by who you actually want to be in the world. It’s who are you supposed to be serving? That’s what all those vision, values, values, questions are designed to do. It’s like what world are you creating better for somebody? Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 4:57
And then from that world like your perfect person. Like talking about who you’re targeting kind of becomes self-evident and a byproduct of that, and it may be multiple people. It may be moms who want to spend more time with their daughters right, and that could be young moms all the way up to old moms. It may be golfers, people who want to up their golf game. So it could be selected in that point. But in message and media we’re going to get a little bit more specific about how to talk to each of them. So in your strategy section it’s not like you’re going ooh, what’s my strategy? Who do I go after? It’s like no, what am I supposed to be doing? What was I put on planet Earth to do for people? How do I view that? How do I solidify my values around that? How do I solidify my promises for when I show up for people?

Caleb Agee: 5:46
Yeah, I think I would add to that and say, yes, you have to know who your ideal customer is, because we’re talking about how we solve their needs and pains in our vision statement, right, we?

Caleb Agee: 5:59
have to understand them. But you’ll see, as we go, especially through this messaging phase, right, we identify them maybe at face value moms or homeowners or something like that. That’s kind of all we say in messaging. We’re going to go much deeper, we’re going to um, talk about who they are from the outside, and then we’re going to talk about who they are from the inside. Oh yeah, and so, um, when we go from the outside to the inside, we may discover that I think there’s, there could be a different label that we would apply to them. And if that’s the case, I would say you could maybe still go back. Right, you’re making this plan all together. It’s, it’s, it’s living, it’s breathing. You could go back and say you know what A better way to describe them would not be to call them homeowners, it would be to, um, call them, uh, people who are in their forever home. Or you could be more specific later, once you’ve identified them better. So, yes, it’s important, we’re going to go deeper today, so look out.

Brandon Welch: 6:53
Yeah, so quick reminder, steve and Sarah had a vision related to helping homeowners make high quality improvements without being pushed or made uncomfortable in their own home. Yeah, their values were all about those things like your appointments shouldn’t take too long, you should never feel uncomfortable, you should always be proud of your home those sorts of things. We talked about them last week and their vows were specific guarantees Our sales appointments won’t last more than 30 minutes, we will always buy products made in America and we will always give you the facts up front and specific promises. But we’re going to turn those convictions, those vision, values, vows, into the messaging components of which all ads and which all website copy, which all direct mail, hopefully, which all sales scripts, hopefully, which all phone answering scripts flow from.

Caleb Agee: 7:46
Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 7:46
And it’s like when you have this alignment and every point along the way because there are people who are not buying today but they’re going to start hearing things about you and when that aligns with the same things they see on their website, when they dip their toe in and start shopping, with the same experience they get on the phone, with the same experience they get at the salesperson, with the same experience they get with the customer service, with the same experience they get with the salesperson, with the same experience they get with the customer service, with the same experience they get with the installation or practitioner, when all those things align, then you become like five times more powerful in your messaging and it sends ripple effects and shockwaves through your market.

Caleb Agee: 8:16
Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 8:16
That’s how Steve and Sarah, or the clients behind Steve and Sarah. That’s how they are growing a little bit, a little bit, and then just start doubling and tripling in size, and that’s how they’re getting stinking rich.

Caleb Agee: 8:28
That’s how you’re going to do it too.

Brandon Welch: 8:30
That’s how you’re going to get stinking rich.

Caleb Agee: 8:32
The way we’ll explain this as we get into the messaging phase. We’re building your brand’s message. This is a marketing plan, you know, overall, holistic, high level brand messaging and specifically related to the convictions, the values, the vows that we have and so um. You’re going to notice, we’re not. We’re going to show you how these can play out in ads, but we’re not writing ads today. What we’re doing is developing our brands, messaging our phraseology.

Brandon Welch: 9:03
So, ideally, you don’t go to market, you don’t go talk to any advertising partner, you don’t talk to your video people, you don’t talk to your website people until you have this plan in hand. That’s right. Strategy from last week, message from this week and media from next week.

Caleb Agee: 9:15
Yeah, and in a lot of agencies they have what they call a client brief.

Caleb Agee: 9:20
Client brief yeah, we do it in the form of this Maven Method marketing plan, and the messaging portion that we’re going to talk about today is the bulk of it. So how do you do messaging? There are four questions we need to answer to build our message. Number one who are you talking to? Number two what are the needs, pains, hopes and fears that you’re addressing? Three how can my vision, values and vows satisfy these? And four what is the most reasonable next step for action?

Brandon Welch: 9:50
You’d be shocked how simple that sounds, but yet how many people miss one of those steps. Yes, most people start with kind of. The question we got this week is who do I need to target? And that’s the key to making all success, and it is part of it. Yes. And good on anybody for thinking that. But what we fail to realize is it’s not about who we’re targeting, it’s about what we’re saying. That’s right. When we’re saying the right thing, the natural, perfect customer attracts themself to us.

Caleb Agee: 10:18
Yes.

Brandon Welch: 10:19
It’s not human beings. You are not a human being that just walks around waiting to be programmed to somebody’s business. You are a human being with your own needs, pains, hopes and fears. That’s what we boil that down to, with your own agenda, with your own experiences, with your own view of the world, and you’re encountering companies that fit within you. It’s not the company that goes program this and manipulate somebody.

Caleb Agee: 10:45
We all know that. That’s common sense. You relate to what relates to you. Yes, and that’s what we’re going to do.

Brandon Welch: 10:51
That’s why vision, values, and values are so important, so we’re going to do this again through Steve and Sarah’s customer base.

Caleb Agee: 10:57
Yes, sorry, I cut you off. That’s exactly what I was going to say. You got it. Keep going, sorry. Who are we talking to?

Brandon Welch: 11:04
Who are we talking to is the most important question Now. In typical advertising and marketing targeting conversations it’s like demographics and household income and where do they live right now and maybe what’s their affinity audience? Maybe what brands, and that’s part of what we’re going to do here. That’s part of what we’re going to do here, but what we’re really trying to ask is enough questions to get us in that person’s shoes and look through their eyes at the world and to say what would they be doing in this moment they encounter our product?

Brandon Welch: 11:41
What else is going on in their life? What are their natural emotions telling them to do about interacting with people? What are the natural times they’re doing that? We’re going to boil that down to lifestyle yes, age, gender and the basic demographic stuff, but political views, what does the day in their life look like? Where do they shop? What bands do they listen to? What do they do in their free time? What would they rather be doing than listening to this ad right now?

Brandon Welch: 12:00
is what you should be asking yourself who do they admire? What brands do they admire? What’s their perfect world? And the ultimate hack which we’re going to get to is to know this person so well that you could sit across the table with them and have a conversation and be interesting. Now we do this naturally in our own lives.

Caleb Agee: 12:19
We do.

Brandon Welch: 12:19
If I go sit down with Nate the camera guy, guy for coffee. I know what Nate’s into, I know you know we’re going to talk about. You know the bands that I know Nate likes, we’re going to talk about the music and the events coming up.

Brandon Welch: 12:32
We’re going to talk about things he the what now the cameras he likes. Yes, that’s what I would do. I’m probably not going to talk to Nate very much about. You know what me and my eight-year-old daughter talk about? Right, nate’s not into that. Maybe one day, if he has a daughter, we can talk about that, but he isn’t right now, right. So, now, if you’re going duh like, what’s the, where’s the meat here? The meat is.

Caleb Agee: 12:54
If you don’t know Nate, you have to ask questions until you find what he knows. Yes, and that’s what we have to do is ask these questions to understand the customer, so that we can have this conversation yes, this imaginary conversation we’re having with them.

Brandon Welch: 13:10
The best marketing is a conversation that you already anticipate your audience’s answers to. That’s right and what happens more often than not, especially if you’re leaving your marketing to just internal and buying advertising and letting them create your message for you. If nobody stopped to do this process, it all becomes about. Mr Advertiser, what do you want to put in your ad and you think? Feature feature?

Caleb Agee: 13:34
feature feature.

Brandon Welch: 13:35
Yeah, oh, I’ve been in business X, Y, Z amount of years. I’ve got five convenient locations. I’ve got the best you know yeah.

Brandon Welch: 13:43
The most advanced technology and customer service and, yeah, the best customer service and, uh, money back guarantees and all that, and those can be good things if you add more to them, uh, but it becomes about who, me, me, me, me, me, the me show, and you want to make it about the you show, and so to to empathetically communicate. Um, we have to know Nate, we have to know the person on the other side of the screen that we are wishing to find significance in this. If we were Steve and Sarah with their window business that we talked about last week and we go, who are we talking to? And it can be multiple. You can create multiple customer avatars, but this is the most common one for this business. Okay, pete and Janet.

Caleb Agee: 14:30
Pete and Janet.

Brandon Welch: 14:30
Now, I just gave them a name up top, but you don’t have to give them a name. You want to ask these questions first and then go back and go who do I know? That’s like that, yeah, and then probably name them who you already know. That’s right. It’s very easy to write an ad for somebody you’ve already had a conversation with in real life and you’re just writing to the other ones of those people that exist right.

Caleb Agee: 14:49
Yep. So tell us about Pete and Janet. Pete and Janet are between 55 and 65. Obviously, they’re male and female married. So then we’re going to go to location. They live in the suburbs. We’re going to go a more established part of town. We’ll call it the old money old money neighborhood.

Brandon Welch: 15:10
Now, right there, what ha we arrived at those two, 55 to 65. Why not 30 somethings? They’re buying homes or why not 70 somethings in this particular business? What we would have found as being their consultants and we have found this dozens and dozens of times- with businesses like this. The people that are making this type of home improvement are in homes that they’ve been in a while, so that tends to make them on the older end and homes they plan in staying for and for a while.

Brandon Welch: 15:36
That’s right, yeah, and those tend to be on these parts of towns we’re talking about. Yeah. The new subdivisions for this product don’t need new windows. Takes 20 or 30 years for a set of windows to like, break and, like you know, be so out of date that they need to be fixed. So 55, 65 location suburbs, established part of town, old money yeah then we’re going to get into lifestyle.

Caleb Agee: 15:58
Now we have to be a little bit um generalizing here, because this obviously won’t be. Every single person does every one of these things. No, what we’re doing is we’re just imagining a person.

Brandon Welch: 16:12
A person specific.

Caleb Agee: 16:13
A very specific person. If we have a bland avatar here, we will have bland ads, and so we need a very specific person that we’re talking to. So we said they are young grandparents. They’re at least their oldest kid. Maybe they have a few kids. At least their oldest kid has their first grandchild.

Brandon Welch: 16:32
But gosh, caleb, three out of 10 of my last customers weren’t grandparents, even though they were 60 years old. Does that mean I’m leaving them out? Nope, no, because why?

Caleb Agee: 16:41
Because we’re going to write strong ads when everyone is listening or when we write an ad for everyone. I got this. I can do this. You got it when we write an ad for everyone, it’s for nobody, but if we write an ad for someone, everyone listens.

Brandon Welch: 16:54
It’s a psychological thing called the eavesdropper effect.

Brandon Welch: 16:56
That’s right. For the same reason, you can’t ignore a conversation that’s happening with a person that you’ve never met besides you in a coffee shop, that you’ve never met besides you in a coffee shop. You have to listen in, you wonder what’s going on there, because that’s a specific dialogue wired about somebody, and there’s a story. We’re going to do the same thing in our ads. We’re going to write to Pete and Janet, but, guess what? Lizzie and Izzy are going to hear it too, and Harold and, you know, regina are going to hear it too.

Caleb Agee: 17:31
And they’re they’re, but they’re, they’re same value sets. Right, that’s right. So, um, we imagine, yeah, we imagine it’s my elf’s names oh, is it okay? Um, we imagine their lifestyle to be, um, maybe more upper middle class, right, they’re not, um, slumming it by any means. Right, a little bit, a little bit of money, um, and they’ve been established in their careers and things like that. So, um, they’re traveling a little bit more. They’ve got a lake house, um, they enjoy golfing and, uh, going to church. So, um, we’re going to think about political views. This is in the Midwest, um, so we would say this person maybe trends more toward the middle, but is going to lean conservative because they’re in the Midwest. Um, that’s not making a political statement, you just need to be like hey we’re not going to go run ads and make windows great again, or something like that, although it might work in extreme cases.

Brandon Welch: 18:15
We are going to just know that we’re talking, we’re just rounding this person out, point after point after point.

Caleb Agee: 18:23
Describe a day in their life. So Pete is the CEO of a mid-sized accounting firm. He’s worked there for like 20 years, worked his way up, and now he’s at the top of his game and he’ll probably retire there in the next five to 10 years.

Brandon Welch: 18:38
Congratulations, Pete. You’ve done a good job, Good job.

Caleb Agee: 18:39
Pete Janet is a retired nurse who volunteers at the hospital. She has retired herself a little early and she’s helping out where she can. Yes, Sounds great. Right. Where do they shop, Brandon?

Brandon Welch: 18:54
They shop at Nordstrom’s probably. Yeah, not the high high end, not the low low end. Yeah, they’re probably out of the. I mean say nothing against them. Yeah, they’re probably out of the. I mean say nothing against, but just they’re out of maybe the jc penny phase and they’re more in the. You know a little bit nicer things, but not, I’m not trying to like yeah, do a fashion, probably a combination of being really frugal.

Caleb Agee: 19:17
That’s why they’re doing well, they’ve got, they’ve got a nice house, but then they also believe in the valuing that quality right so so they going to buy the coach purse once in a while. Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 19:26
Maybe there’s a Louie in there somewhere, but they might still order their groceries from Walmart because they’re frugal.

Caleb Agee: 19:31
You know what I’m saying. It’s kind of a combo of that, yeah.

Brandon Welch: 19:36
Brands that they’re going to be attracted to are going to be your high quality, but just under like premium luxury brands? Probably so. I’m thinking you know, toyota, ford, lexus, nike.

Caleb Agee: 19:52
Yeah, I picture him driving a big Toyota truck or a Ford truck and her driving a Lexus RX or something like that.

Brandon Welch: 20:00
Right Yep Bass Pro is probably good, Like you know.

Caleb Agee: 20:04
Especially if they’re in this Springfield. There’s a Springfield in every state, but this one’s got the Bass Pro. Yep, bass Pro is probably good, like you know, especially if they’re in this Springfield. Oh yeah, there’s a Springfield in every state, but this one’s got the Bass.

Brandon Welch: 20:08
Pro. Yeah, so you’re thinking like those are the. That’s the value set. They’re not going straight to the highest to like be show offs, but also they’re. They value the long-term quality of those and the longevity of those brands.

Caleb Agee: 20:19
Bands they listen to.

Brandon Welch: 20:21
Journey, you know, in this era, yeah, journey is going to be like a college band sort of thing. Eagles, you know, anything that was popular in that 80s 90s range, yeah, Today just observing throughout the Midwest. There’s got to be some country in there right yeah, oh yeah, probably your top 40s, type things, you know, mm-hmm, maybe even a little Tay-Tay. Taylor Swift or you never know Pink or something like that. Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 20:49
And they’re going to start identifying with stuff that their older kids listen to. You know their kids that are becoming young adults, that’s maybe their way of staying relevant.

Caleb Agee: 20:58
Yeah yeah, who do they admire? We said Dave Ramsey.

Brandon Welch: 21:05
Yes.

Caleb Agee: 21:05
Their pastor, their parents.

Brandon Welch: 21:08
Their parents still probably, there’s probably some still. They’re not at the peak of wisdom, they’re not on the downhill of life.

Caleb Agee: 21:17
Yet they’re just, but they still have the patriarch or matriarch still around and there’s some respect, or even some aging voices.

Brandon Welch: 21:23
If it were to go back the religious route, it would be Billy Graham sort of.

Caleb Agee: 21:27
Thing.

Brandon Welch: 21:27
I mean, we’re getting past that a little bit. But I’m just going Any voices that are in their community. Now you go to another part of the country and it could be other political figures, it could be more pop culture type stuff. It could be certain actors. Actors say this is going to change for you stuff. It could be a certain actor’s actor says this is going to change for you, but this is just the one we grabbed.

Caleb Agee: 21:47
And their perfect world.

Brandon Welch: 21:49
Yeah this is important. This is the best, my favorite question what are they trying to?

Brandon Welch: 21:52
make happen in life. I think it’s peace with finances and simplifying things and they’re getting rid of junk and they are probably thinking about. I don’t want a whole lot of change. I want things to stay the same. I want to spend time with my kids. They may add a vacation home in there or travel a little more, but it’s, it’s freedom, it’s. I’m on the back half of my career. I have some expendable means of doing kind of whatever I want, anything you’d add to that.

Caleb Agee: 22:25
No, I think that’s it. They probably move around to stay as close to the kids as they could and if the kids move away and still have fun, I’m looking forward to my 40s and 50s. That’s going to be a good time.

Brandon Welch: 22:38
So, anyway, spackett, we just kind of painted a picture of somebody you can probably imagine, no matter who you are. This is either your phase of life, or this is your mom or dad, or this is an aunt or uncle. You know, you can think of somebody even not ever knowing this client for us, not ever, maybe even marketed this product and not ever using our process. When you start to write this down, you’re, like that seems a little bit like Shelly that I know, that seems a little bit like Tim yes, that I know.

Brandon Welch: 23:06
And that seems a little bit like Tim, you know. And so biggest hack of ad writing ever is put that person in your mind and just write stuff that you know they would dig.

Caleb Agee: 23:10
Yeah, we literally, when we have new people training here in ad writing we fill out a version of this and they write that person’s name at the top of their ad before they start writing.

Caleb Agee: 23:22
So, that you have to remember. I’m writing to Janet, I’m writing to Janet, I’m writing to Janet, and that way, when you start writing that ad, it’s really hard to write something that Janet wouldn’t listen to or care about. You catch yourself Because your own writer’s bias will show up. You’ll write an ad to yourself every time, but if you’re not the person you’re targeting, that’s the miss.

Brandon Welch: 23:44
And you know what A bigger hack even is if you can kind of secretly read you don’t want to know that they’re analyzing your ad, but if you can kind of secretly get somebody you know to give you an opinion on this ad and you can catch them in a non-critical mode and you just kind of see their reaction, that’s helpful.

Brandon Welch: 24:06
That will confirm it mode and you just kind of see the reaction. That’s helpful level confirmation. Okay, so we’ve gotten a good picture of who we are speaking to. To whom we are speaking. Then what do we do?

Caleb Agee: 24:16
Yeah, so we take those. Those are really outside features. You could kind of assess most of those things from the outside. Now we’re going to go what we would say inside. So what are their needs, pains, hopes and fears that we’re addressing? Needs, pains, hopes, fears.

Brandon Welch: 24:33
You can go broad with these and, by the way, we’re going to do this eventually. You’re doing this for three different categories. We’re not going to talk about specific ad writing today. It’s going to be another episode or two very, very soon, because that’s a huge part of how the rubber meets the road. This is just kind of your messaging angles and what you know is going to be in the mix that you’re putting in the world.

Caleb Agee: 24:53
Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 24:54
But there’s a different sort of angle you might select if it’s for a today customer, if you’re doing a transactional type thing, where it’s an offer or a lead gen type thing, if you’re building a transactional type thing where it’s an offer, or a lead gen type thing.

Brandon Welch: 25:05
If you’re building a brand, it’s probably more broad and you’re talking more to the tomorrow customers. Those needs, pains, hopes and fears will change a little bit based on where they are in the buying cycle. That’s right. No-transcript. Today we’re not talking about style or ad copy or, you know, even image style or like how to build a campaign. That is very important. We’re just talking about the basic messaging components and you want this on a guiding document in the Maven marketer. You should get a copy on Amazon. Hardbacks are out, by the way. We have the satisfying the customer worksheet and you’re going to start writing down all the needs your customer has. Just, don’t think about it too much. Just write down everything that the customer literally needs right now, and then you’re going to go through pains and hopes and fears. What would it look like? Sorry, go ahead.

Caleb Agee: 26:10
No, no, I was going to say needs based on as related to your product right. Based on the void your product could fulfill.

Brandon Welch: 26:16
Yes. So say somebody’s like in your product mode what do they need? Well, they need a price. It’s like well, no, duh Brandon, it’s like well, no, duh Brandon. It’s like well, did you give it to them? Did? You give it to them Because I can talk. I can think of a lot of people who all they want is a price, and I can think of a lot of companies who failed to give them the price without a whole bunch of hoopla.

Caleb Agee: 26:34
So let’s just write that down. They need windows that open, and reason people buy in this category is that there’s, their old windows have just stopped functioning, right. Yep, uh, they need to stay on budget. Yes, um, if you’re a business owner, you’re going to ask these questions of yourself. If you’re an advertiser or a consultant of some kind, or maybe you’re a media salesperson, you would be asking these questions and digging deeper. Some of them are pretty obvious and some of them aren’t, and so it’s good to go through these questions.

Brandon Welch: 27:11
Let me talk to my media reps for a second. There’s very, very, very little in the media selling world that suggests you should be the one writing the ads. If you want longstanding clients that spend more with you and you want to grow companies, you need to write at least the basics of the ad. You may be able to find somebody who’s more whimsical or talented than you at making the creative things happen, but the worst thing you can do I repeat, the worst thing you can do is go sell the media and then hand off the message to somebody who has not spent the time asking and analyzing this question.

Caleb Agee: 27:47
You met with that client, you understand their business and that guy or gal at the station that pumps out 20 ads a day has never met them before. And they get a bullet point sheet of features of that company. It’s it’s begging to be a bad ad. So you are going to do this instead and uncover the actual needs of this customer.

Brandon Welch: 28:08
Or it’s a whiz kid digital marketing guru that just starts pounding in phrases in your YouTube or, sorry, your Google ads that say best price guarantee or click today to save, and stuff like that. That isn’t. It’s cliche at best, but the most important thing is it’s not in line with who you are and how you want to sell, and probably not even what your customer wanted to hear. That’s right, so you’re going to get this brief down. We talked about needs, just literally. What are the product needs? What are the pains?

Caleb Agee: 28:34
Pains as it relates to windows high utility bills when they have a draft leakiness. That’s a big pain that I can feel.

Brandon Welch: 28:44
It can be energy efficiency or just comfort.

Caleb Agee: 28:47
Sometimes also, people don’t know of the pain, so you may have to make them aware of the pain they also have. So it’s like, hey, your utility bill’s high. Oh yeah yes, it is, that’s painful.

Brandon Welch: 29:00
A lot of people didn’t know that they had a pain with their chef’s knife to chop all of their salad and vegetables. But, the folks that came out with the salad chopper brought that pain to life. Aren’t you tired of washing your knife I can hear the infomercial now and spending hours chopping vegetables? The slap chopper makes it happen in 38 seconds.

Caleb Agee: 29:19
Yeah, so it’s not necessarily just what the customer is saying. Their pain is. You are also helping understand their pain just what the customer is saying.

Brandon Welch: 29:25
Their pain is. You are also helping understand their pain. One we use in the window business a lot is. The last place you should be cold is in your own home.

Brandon Welch: 29:32
You should never be uncomfortable in your own home. Aren’t you tired of that drafty breeze trying to take away your date night on the couch, things like that, and everybody can start to go. Oh yeah, that is awful. Now most people are aware of their high utility bills or whatever, but the point is they may not be thinking about it at the second of this ad, so you have to bring it to surface. Yep.

Caleb Agee: 29:51
Ugly curb appeal. Yeah, ugly old windows. They may be hazy, right Yep. The seal breaks and then some moisture gets in, starts to rust the edges. Not good, looks ugly.

Brandon Welch: 30:05
Yeah, and windows that won’t open. We talked about that again. Maybe they weren’t aware of how much they were missing out on life when they aren’t able to open up the window and let in a spring breeze.

Caleb Agee: 30:17
But you can bring that to surface. That’s right.

Brandon Welch: 30:19
Wouldn’t it be nice to let in some of this beautiful, you know, ozarks air around here or, if I’m in Kentucky, some Kentucky air, a Georgia spring breeze or whatever, and they’re going? Yeah, that would be nice. Okay, that would be nice. Yeah, but you can’t because your windows are stuck shut and that’s a lot of homes that are in this area that they just don’t function anymore and they’re not easy to open. Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 30:36
Now, quick thing. Did you know as far as pains? Did you know that toothpaste and brushing your teeth was a product literally created out of thin air by an advertising guy?

Caleb Agee: 30:53
I mean, I didn’t know that, you didn’t know that. Should I pretend?

Brandon Welch: 30:57
like I shouldn’t know that. Yeah, Claude Hopkins talks about it in his book the Power of Habit. Or Claude Hopkins was the ad guy. Yes.

Brandon Welch: 31:07
Anyway, we’re going to link to that story here. But basically they said ladies, drag your tongue across the front of your teeth, do you feel that slimy little film? It’s robbing you of your beauty and it’s making all of the good things you want to have happen as a beautiful woman go away from you because you’ve got scum on your teeth. And then the solution was I think it was Sensodyne or Pepsodent, one of the two that was the solution to a problem they didn’t know existed. And now every American in the world uses it right.

Brandon Welch: 31:39
So that’s just a little example. So we talked about needs and pains. Again, we’re writing them down and are satisfying the customer worksheet. Yep Hopes and fears let’s go to hopes.

Caleb Agee: 31:49
Hopes are more long-term aspirations. So, thinking about they hope to get compliments from friends, social status, esteem from others right, that’s important. They hope that they have a house they feel proud of. We talked about. They could stay in this for the foreseeable future. Yeah. So they want to make sure that they’re happy with it.

Brandon Welch: 32:11
That’s the hopes of the ideal customer. Are there hopes outside of this that exist for windows. Sure, does somebody hope to get the cheapest price? Yeah, do we want to talk to that person?

Caleb Agee: 32:19
Not, necessarily Not if you’re Steve and Sarah, yep, yep there.

Brandon Welch: 32:22
Not if you’re Steve and Sarah. Yep, yep, there are people that have hopes of getting this stupid window fixed so they can sell the home. Is that the most ideal customer? Nope, nope. So we’re also doing some self-selecting and self-offering out and repelling of the customer, because the person who just wants the cheapest deal is going to see this ad and go. That’s probably not the company for me, and that’s good. They would have wasted your time right, so that’s probably not the company for me, and that’s good.

Brandon Welch: 32:44
They would have wasted your time right. They want more home value. They want to know they’re making the right choice. That’s right. So all of these things are going to be ingredients we’re going to start putting in our ads. And let’s talk about fears, a very powerful ingredient.

Caleb Agee: 32:54
Yes, fear is scary. This is what they don’t want to lose, so they are afraid of being ripped off and spending way too much money on this.

Brandon Welch: 33:03
Being pushed around and high pressured in their home, causing damage to your home. The idea of somebody coming in and, you know, cutting out your windows is pretty daunting, or your roof or your HVAC system. Yeah, and so these are like. These are things you can speak to and make them go away as objections to buying from you or your client, even a difficult install process.

Caleb Agee: 33:24
I’d be afraid of how long they’re going to be a big hole in the side of my house. Yes. How long are you going to have workers walking through my house? All these things are fears they would have. Yes. Now, what do we do with all of those?

Brandon Welch: 33:37
Okay, we’re going to put them away and never use them again.

Caleb Agee: 33:40
Exactly no, says aye Done.

Brandon Welch: 33:47
That’s what a lot of people are going to do, but you are going to take them and make sure that this is a guiding document and you don’t ever write an ad that doesn’t at least have one of these in here, and then you’re going to take it to the next step. Uh, about satisfying those needs, pains, hopes and fears, or what we call voids.

Caleb Agee: 34:02
That’s right.

Brandon Welch: 34:04
Now I skipped over something just there. The reason you want this in your hand, you want to use this as like your checklist, because what’s going to happen is you’re going to start. Is there anybody right now that has a need, pain, hope or fear related to how many years you’ve been in business?

Caleb Agee: 34:24
No, not as such right.

Brandon Welch: 34:27
That may come in the next step, but if you say we’ve been in business 50 years, it’s like the customer’s going. That didn’t have anything to do with what I’m actually feeling. I wasn’t sitting around waiting to go. Oh gosh, I’ve been waiting for a company who’s been in business for 17 years, or that has 482 years of combined experience.

Brandon Welch: 34:44
That’s a really common sentiment amongst ad writers I’ll argue they don’t even really care at this point. It’s not core need pain, hope or fear that you have 300 reviews, five-star or 4.8 stars or whatever. Now that is something you can use in here to satisfy those. But that’s not in and of itself and usually what happens is we throw the feature at the ad instead of the void.

Brandon Welch: 35:08
Okay, so, you’re starting with what’s going on there needs, pains, hopes, fears, and then, right next to those, we’re going back to those vows that we had, our promises, our values, and sometimes it’s just plain old features that do end up here. But, um, so if they need um pricing, that was one of our first needs. Um, I’m going needs pricing, and how do we satisfy that? Well, we’re one of the companies the few companies that agree to give pricing over the phone. Boom. You don’t have to go through a whole rigmarole to get pricing from us.

Caleb Agee: 35:41
Do you see how quickly that could turn into an ad? That’s not what we’re making today but do you see how fast?

Brandon Welch: 35:46
Very quickly.

Caleb Agee: 35:47
Yes.

Brandon Welch: 35:47
And that one in particular, at Home Improvement, is a big one, because everybody’s scared to make that first call, because they’re scared to be presented with something that’s too expensive and they’re embarrassed to have to say no, right, how about windows that open? How do I know my windows are going to keep opening? Well, because our products are made in America and we have a 30-year guaranteed warranty.

Brandon Welch: 36:09
That’s right or a lifetime warranty. We will fix them and replace all the bearings and the components If they break. We can do that because we work with American businesses. That we have predictability on Right, that’s an ad, that’s a need and a vow that satisfied it Right. Yep, predictability on right, that’s an ad. That’s a need and a vow that satisfied it right. Yep.

Brandon Welch: 36:27
Let’s go down to Pains. High utility bills. Yeah, here’s a study and a NFRC label on our windows that say you’re going to save up to 40% on your energy bills by installing these. Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 36:37
We associate the Energy Star label with confidence. That’s going to happen, but most people would go. We have Energy Star rated windows, but what you should do instead is say are you tired of high energy bills? I empathize with you. Our windows have the lowest energy waste rating possible according to NFRC label, and that means you’re going to save up to 40% on your windows. See how I paired those two things there. Drafty windows we could talk about the quality of our installation. Most people just rip out your old windows.

Caleb Agee: 37:11
Yeah, I think one of our we believe statements was we believe a window is only as good as the person who installed it Exactly, and so we’ve done all this work up here.

Brandon Welch: 37:20
That’s who Steve is. He exists in the world, he believes that with everything in him, and so that’s why they hire high-quality installers and they have a proprietary. Steve and Sarah do a way of installing Windows that puts extra foam around it and does like a total heat check right. So you’re telling this story stronger already just by bringing the pain, need, hope or fear to surface and immediately satisfying it with something else. A lot of ads do one or the other, but not both and you want to make sure you’re doing both.

Brandon Welch: 37:49
Yeah, um, anything else to add there?

Caleb Agee: 37:52
um, yeah, we, we say this thing around here a lot, which is, um, people don’t buy a half inch drill bit, they’re buying a half inch hole, um, and if you want to go one layer deeper, they’re probably, um, buying the connection between two pieces of wood. Right, it’s not even. Or, a half inch drill bit is kind of a terrible example, cause you’d never hang something from the wall with a half inch drill bit. But you get what I’m saying, you don’t.

Caleb Agee: 38:19
you’re not buying a drill bit, you’re buying a hole in the wall You’re in, that hole in a wall is going to help you hang up that picture that your wife’s wanted, or those curtains that your wife wanted hung up two weeks ago. Um, and what we want to do is peel back the layers into what are we really selling. And we are not just selling windows. We are selling um clear pricing. We are selling um clear pricing. We are selling satisfied american-made windows. Right, not just windows, but quality windows. We are not just selling windows. Um, you know that, just switch out. They actually save me money on my utility bills. And so we want to get to the thing behind the thing, and sometimes to get to the thing behind the. Thing.

Caleb Agee: 39:03
Yes, and sometimes the thing behind the thing, behind the thing.

Brandon Welch: 39:06
Yes, they’re not buying windows, they’re buying lower energy bills.

Caleb Agee: 39:08
That’s right.

Brandon Welch: 39:09
They’re not buying windows, they’re buying warmer. You know times on the couch in their own living room. Yep.

Brandon Welch: 39:17
They’re not buying windows, they’re buying quiet naps because, theirs are too loud, they let too much noise through. So the last part is who are we talking to? What are their needs, pains, hopes and fears? How do we satisfy them? And then, what’s the most reasonable next step for action? Okay, yeah, now this makes it sound like we’re going to always do a and buy now and sometimes yes, sometimes click here to buy now or whatever. But a reasonable next step for action is just like what’s the? Now that they you’ve brought this pain to the surface, now that they know how you can satisfy it, what makes sense next?

Brandon Welch: 39:55
And don’t throw some cheesy thing on the end, just because somebody says mention your phone number three times Depending on what pain you brought to the window or, sorry, what pain you brought to the surface. See what I did there, yeah.

Caleb Agee: 40:06
I got you.

Brandon Welch: 40:08
You’re going to change your call to action Now. This could be a call. This could be an email. This could be stop by and see us sometime. This could be. Hey, look at the inspiration gallery on our website right now. If you’ve been thinking about what that would look like in your home, we’ve got 842 pictures you can start browsing right now. It could be download our pricing information. It could be fill out this form and get a color sample of our products sent to your house. Schedule an appointment right. It could be all of those things With tomorrow marketing. You should always have something like get a price right now or we make it really easy, or see more about what we just talked about here. However, the reasonable next step could just be doing it in a way that you’re so memorable that they remember you that could be the reasonable next step.

Caleb Agee: 41:00
Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 41:01
Like that’s maybe your ultimate goal for tomorrow. Messaging.

Caleb Agee: 41:03
Yeah.

Brandon Welch: 41:04
So what would that sound like? I just grabbed a Steve and Sarah ad, and this one’s on the need of, like, saving money. And he says, guys, the only thing hotter than the summer sun, and Sarah steps in and says is the smoke coming out of your bank account. You don’t have to sweat in your own home, you need to lock that cool air in. Best Window has state-of-the-art windows that’ll make your home beautiful, cost-effective and cooler than broccoli in the back of the freezer, right, okay, so there’s a whole shtick with this particular campaign and how they do this, but they go. We make it easy to update your home with beautiful replacement windows and doors. Just go to bestwindowcom, enter a few details about your home and we’ll get to work for you. It only takes 30 seconds. Bestwindowspringfieldcom are beautiful windows that won’t break the bank. Okay, now the big pain. There was that money factor.

Brandon Welch: 42:02
Like the pain we talked about. Is it going to cost too much? What is the actual price? But we snuck some other ones in there, right we? Talked about your home being more comfortable and we didn’t come out and say if you’re looking for windows, we’ve got state-of-the-art windows.

Caleb Agee: 42:16
We didn’t do that.

Brandon Welch: 42:16
We said hey, are you tired of your utility bills being high? That smoke coming out of your bank account? Hey, are you tired of your utility bills being high? That smoke coming out of your bank account. We make them cost effective. And then we spoke to we make it easy. We can start this process in as little as 30 seconds. We’ll give you the pricing up front, and so I happen to know those ads work really dang well. I mean we’re making hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on those ads, all the time right.

Brandon Welch: 42:41
Every month, um, yeah, all the time right, every every month. So that’s an example of like um, connecting a pain to a how we satisfy and then giving them a reasonable next step. Yeah, um, anything to add to that?

Caleb Agee: 42:57
I think, um, I would just say you need to make sure, when you go to writing, that you have highlighted a pain or need, pain, hope or fear Go in order there that you want to bring forward. You need to make sure you satisfy it in that ad and make it believable. And make it believable and make it believable. I think, uh, when we do an ad writing workshop, we’ll talk about how to craft words a little bit more. Um, that’s, that’s another part of this right. When we do this message portion of your, of your marketing plan, we’re not worried about things sounding beautiful or perfect right now. Um, I think you should work out ways to say those things in unique ways that only you would say it Definitely. So come up with. What was the smoke coming out of your?

Brandon Welch: 43:51
bank account, something like that. The only thing hotter than this summer sun is the smoke coming out of your bank account. That is a great-. It’s a new, surprising and different way to say that right.

Caleb Agee: 43:58
A great way of saying you’re paying a lot of money, and so your wallet hurts.

Brandon Welch: 44:05
Here’s another one real quick. She says you want to be more comfy. He says you want to be more cozy, you want to cut down on your bills, you want to get rid of the chills. Our windows will make your home feel like new. Instead of saying homeowners, listen up. If you’re thinking about replacing windows, best Window Company is the best one around.

Brandon Welch: 44:24
We have a best price guarantee and our installers have 489 years of combined experience and we’ll come to your home and give you an estimate right now and everybody’s going. That is everything I don’t want, yes. Right. So you want to come up with different, surprising ways to say that, but also make sure they’re tied to that actual void that the person is feeling and, by the way, probably choose second person voice. Talk about you, you, you, you. You instead of we and I.

Brandon Welch: 44:57
Anytime you’ve got an I or a we statement, you want to turn it into a you statement about the customer you being the customer.

Caleb Agee: 45:08
Okay, what have we done here? We have built a message portion of our annual marketing plan for 2025. So we talked about. Who are we talking to? We talked about and we identified them from every possible angle. You could come up with even more different ones, but put it all on paper, force yourself to write this out, because you could be like, yeah, I kind of get it, and you move on really fast.

Brandon Welch: 45:29
Make them a real person.

Caleb Agee: 45:31
That, I promise you, is what happens before a bad ad doesn’t make it out of a quality check, at least in these walls. When somebody skips any parts of this process, it’s when it gets caught on the way out the door. And so, yes, we’re human, sometimes we write ads. We have quality checks to make sure, but when somebody new here is writing an ad, they usually skipped one of these steps. They didn’t picture the person, they didn’t identify their needs, pains, hopes or fears. That’s a big one, big one usually. It’s we talked about how can my product satisfy? That’s usually where people skip to. They’re like yeah, I’m talking to brandon and he needs a new car, so I’m going to talk to him about a new car about a car, and car is the greatest but it’s like.

Caleb Agee: 46:14
It’s like, yeah, that’s my product. I’m going to tell him about my park. No, brandon um wants to feel like he can drive a race car every day to work. He wants to drive fast. How did you? Know? Oh man, I just know you. So who are you talking to? What are the needs, pains, hopes and fears? Don’t skip that. How can your product satisfy those? Okay, you talk about you. Look at your vision, values and vows. Those will tell you how you satisfy those?

Brandon Welch: 46:38
How do you specifically do it?

Caleb Agee: 46:39
And then what’s the most reasonable next step for action? Not just a call to action that you slap on the end of your ad. It could be your phone number, it could be your website URL, but it’s. What is the next step?

Caleb Agee: 46:53
Is it call us and we’ll give you a price over the phone, or if it’s like right now if they’re sitting on the couch watching your TV ad, are they going to call you while they’re watching a football game on a Sunday night? No, you’re not going to answer the phone. What’s the most reasonable next step? Think of put yourself in their shoes, because you just thought about what they’re doing. Or they’re scrolling Facebook right now and they just looked in an ad. Or they’re at the gym and they see an ad on the wall. They’re at the gym and they see an ad on the wall. Whatever that is, you need to think about the mode they’re in and what is the most reasonable next step for action based on where they are right now. Yes, and I promise you, you will eliminate a lot of options if you stop and think about that If it’s Facebook, you can expect them to do something right there.

Caleb Agee: 47:36
If it’s.

Brandon Welch: 47:36
YouTube, you can expect them. If it’s a digital ad, you can’t expect him. If it’s a digital ad, you can’t expect him to click. But you better tell him what’s on the other side of that and why it should matter. That’s right, not just click here. Yep, nobody wants to click for more information.

Caleb Agee: 47:47
Nope, yeah, so Tell me what I’m clicking on, why I’m clicking on it.

Brandon Welch: 47:52
Did we bring it home? I think we got it so like needs, pains, hopes, fears. There’s also all those questions that we can share a worksheet, for, that you can be asking for your clients, or you can get a copy of the Maven Marketer and they’ll be in there for you.

Brandon Welch: 48:09
So we’ve talked about strategy message. Now we’re going to talk about most people’s favorite topic, which is where should I put this ad? Where should I be spending my money? Next week, we’re going to talk a little bit about budget and then allocation of the different medias that you’re going to be able to choose, based on your industry or your location.

Caleb Agee: 48:30
Yep, it’s going to be fun.

Brandon Welch: 48:32
Yep, and then after that we’re going to get to some ad writing workshops, not before we take Christmas break for a minute. We’re going to all go home and have a lovely Christmas break. Yes. We’re also starting the year strong with some really cool guest speakers. They’re going to help you up your culture, get more done inside your four walls, have better communication with your team and maybe even your wife. Yeah that’s coming up.

Caleb Agee: 48:54
Wow, it’s a big promise right there.

Brandon Welch: 48:55
And then, of course, the Maven Method Mastermind is launching in January, and if you want to spend more time hanging out with us and our team bringing your ads, bringing your stuff you’re working on your decisions that are facing in marketing, getting a little more with a little less investment we’re going to have a special group for you. And if you’re a podcast listener, what you need to do right now is the first 20 people that sign up for this are going to get 50% off the membership. So, yeah, that is going to be and that’s for life, so you will be leveraging tens of thousands of dollars of consulting energy.

Brandon Welch: 49:38
And the team here that is on the other side of this wall that grows companies by millions and millions of dollars every, you know, every year. Um, you’re going to have access to them, yeah, and Caleb and I, that’s a bonus. Cherry on top, Maybe even Nate the camera guy. He’s busy.

Caleb Agee: 49:54
You might see, you might actually see his face sometime. You might actually. Yeah, that would be crazy.

Brandon Welch: 49:58
Um, and that’s that’s what we’re going to do. What you need to do is email and say I want to be in the 20 to Maven Monday at frankandmaven.com We’ll get you put on that list and there’ll be more details very soon about what you need to do how to sign up and get it all going. That’s what we have for you guys today. We’ll be back here every Monday answering your real-life marketing questions, because marketers who can’t teach you why are just a fancy lie. Have a great week.