January 23, 2017
Dogfooding -> The First Step
As you may recall, my New Year’s resolution for 2017 is to redo the website for my mobile strategy consulting business (i.e., jonathanstark.com).
I thought it might be useful for me to share my progress each step of the way so you can see how I apply my own advice to a live site over time.
As I have updates for you, I’ll send them out with “Dogfooding” in the subject line.
Background
My mobile consulting site has been largely unchanged since I first launched my solo consulting business in 2006. Way back then I was utterly clueless about how to make a persuasive marketing site. As far as I can tell, it has played little or no role in attracting potential clients.
So how have I been getting clients all these years?
I owe the success of my mobile business to:
- a couple of popular books I wrote (one in 2006 and another in 2010)
- a ton of prominent speaking engagements
- a long running series of webinars I did with O’Reilly
But now that I’ve sworn off speaking at conferences, and it’s unlikely that I’ll write another mobile book, it imperative that I finally take my own advice and set up a marketing funnel. I did this with expensiveproblem.com and created in a six-figure, part-time business in about 18 months. My mobile consulting business is very different, but still... I’m highly confident that the same approach will work to significantly increase my already respectable profits.
The First Step
The most important step to ramping up marketing effectiveness is defining a laser-focused positioning statement (LFPS). An LFPS provides a guiding light for the myriad of marketing decisions that I will have to make over the next few months. Without a solid LFPS, I’d be wandering around in the darkness.
Here’s the format for an LFPS:
“I’m a DISCIPLINE who helps TARGET MARKET with EXPENSIVE PROBLEM. Unlike my competitors, UNIQUE DIFFERENCE.”
Here’s what I have so far:
DISCIPLINE
Mobile Strategy Consultant — This is what I’ve been telling people I do for years. I can think of a few other possibilities, but none are strong enough to warrant changing it right now.
TARGET MARKET
Credit Unions — I’ll talk more about how I settled on this as my target market in a later message.
EXPENSIVE PROBLEM
I’m still validating this one but the leading candidate is “attract younger members”. I have a couple others to test as well, like:
- decrease member account creation time
- increase mobile engagement
- persuade aging board members to invest in mobile
Ultimately, I’ll probably offer all of these services but I need to pick the most attractive one to hammer on in my marketing.
UNIQUE DIFFERENCE
This is the squishiest but if nothing else, I can always go with something like, “unlike my competitors, you work directly with me not an army of junior employees learning on the job.” I could also differentiate on my exclusive focus on credit unions or the fact that I don’t bill by the hour. More on this eventually :-)
Okay, that’s enough for today. Keep your eyes peeled for “Dogfooding” in the subject lines for updates on my progress.
Yours,
—J