Marketing 'continuum' for service businesses
When we know where we’re at, it’s easier to get where we want to go
Years ago, as a young, green horned personal trainer, I did a bunch of strength training courses.
One was called FMA, run by a guy Mark Buckley. I think the FMA stood for Functional Movement Analysis or something. But the cool part about it, was they had this strength ‘continuum’. That’s not what they called it, I think it was strength ‘standards’. But it gave you a spectrum of where you were at with different lifts versus different age groups.
They weren’t the first to do this. But they did do it elegantly.
For example, there was ‘strong’, ‘strong +, and ‘strong ++’.
For the squat, deadlift and bench press. And it was a multiple of your bodyweight.
It wasn’t just for people who wanted to progress down the line either. It gave you an understanding of where to work with different clients. So if you worked with rugby players, for example. There wasn’t much point in going past ‘strong’. Because you could spend the rest of the time on skill development or actual practice of the sport.
So it was a good reality check.
Anyway, that was a previous life, I don’t do personal training any more. Now we work with businesses and their revenue. And a big, hairy, audacious part of that is marketing.
Marketing is a skill.
And in the trust economy, that skill is all about avoiding the saturated claims based stuff out there, and learning to tell our business story powerfully and help our clients win. And for our business, this is also how we attract clients.
The thing about skills is, they’re learned. I remember when a friend of mine opened a new café. I went in to help them calibrate new coffee machines. Together we all pulled around 1,000 shots of espresso. Not only did the machines need to be dialled, our (their) skills needed to be fine-tuned for a horde of customers wanting their caffeine the next week.
Anyway, all this came to a head with a book I’ve spoken a lot about, which is Robert McKee’s ‘Storynomics’. In the book, he has a marketing continuum, that is really calibrated for big business. But when I saw it, I thought, you know, that looks a lot like what we teach service businesses, but just organised so cleanly.
So, here we are. McKee’s work inspiring this article - with five different ‘levels’ on the marketing continuum for service businesses.
Stage one - Bystander
When I was younger, I worked in a sail boat mast factory for a while.
I mostly did laminations, and cleaned the floors.
There was one older guy who used to walk around the factory, and then disappear into the office. He was an engineer, and had some kind of role within management. But one day in the lunch room, a fight broke out (I know, crazy), between one of the factory guys, and this management bloke.
Later, I heard the factory guy Dave, refer to the other guy as ‘Half Job’. That was his nickname apparently. He was always just watching. And didn’t seem to have a real job. He was just a bystander.
And so it is with ‘stage one’ marketing.
There’s very little marketing happening. ‘Half Job’ marketing. The Bystander might do a bit of content once in a while, when they feel good, or when they’re excited by something. But it’s typically about what’s going on in their world, and has little value to the audience.
There are also long periods of time where there is no marketing, and only consuming.
We all start here at some stage. But there is little to no impact from this ad-hoc content.
Stage two - Novice
The novice understands the importance of content. And they even have some content going out that is intended to help the audience. But, it’s off and on. And the lack of consistency means there isn’t much trust, so the audience ignores the content. (why pay attention if it’s just going to stop again?). There’s no rhythm, and thus, no incentive to return.
One example of this is when a business runs an event or puts out a new product. They might do a bit of campaign content around the event and even the benefit of the event for the audience.
But then stop once it’s over.
Stage three - Expert
The expert has consistent content that educates, inspires or entertains over time. An example of this could be a resource library, or a social media page, a podcast, articles, or something that helps the audience level up.
There’s a strong reason to come back, because the information is helpful, it helps the audience to win, and the service provider is seen as a trustworthy guide.
This is common in the health market. People might have symptoms, and the service can educate on possible underlying problems, mechanisms, and what you can do about it.
Stage four - Leader
The business moves from consistent content creation that’s based on information or education, to sustained storytelling.
The stories can be around characters in the world (if engaging enough), or, more commonly, client success stories.
Red Bull is one of the strongest examples of this. While they have one product, nobody really cares too much about what’s in it. In fact, customers know it has little nutritional value. But Red Bull takes a different angle. They became a marketing company, and spend millions on creating platforms, events, and news channels to tell the ‘high energy’ stories of sponsored athletes and customers.
This is also common in the diet industry, with before and after photos. A lot of people don’t like these. And I get that.
But it’s important to know how they work. In two photos, and a short bit of copy, you get a story. You see the character, you learn about the struggle that they had on the way to their goal, and, you see the transformation. For someone who is looking for that transformation, this can be a strong message.
You don’t have to do extreme sports, or body transformation stories.
They may not be relevant. But you can look at your service, and start to tell stories around the transformations of people who you help.
What are they able to do in their lives, as a result of your service?
Stage Five - Visionary
The visionary is not just using storytelling in content. Their whole business is story driven. Their events, the way they build teams, how they design products, how they sell, and how they lead is all driven through story.
One example of this, is if you look at how Steve Jobs ran Apple early on.
Jobs’ whole approach was based on knowing they were going to ‘put a dent in the universe’. That Apple itself was creating a story and creating a new game for people to play.
More, his Apple stores (tiles from Italy), product launches (1984 film), and even campaign collaborations were all driven through story, and focused on customer experience.
This was probably the biggest contrast to other competitors. Other companies had the tech. But Jobs understood story. He had vision, conflict, and wild results. ‘Story’ was the inner life of the company.
Summary
Getting rolling with content marketing can be hard enough.
Especially when you have clients to serve, or a business to run.
But when you start to see the long term value of marketing, it eventually becomes a nut you want to crack. And at that point, it helps to get some bearings on where you’re at and where you’re going.
The goal of course, is to move to stage four and five.
When markets were less saturated, and the internet less crowded, the earlier stages were still effective.
But now in an oversaturated market, and with trust at rock-bottom, when people go online to consume content, their defense mechanisms are already up.
Story driven content doesn’t raise the armour as much. It allows the creator to connect with the audience. And then the insight of the story can be delivered either implicitly, or explicitly.
Once you are able to produce content consistently, and understand what is most valuable to your audience, look for angles to use stories, for even more impact.