Here are 10 critical questions that I ask my clients in our first marketing strategy session together. The answers to these questions can help any business narrow down the focus of their efforts to create the greatest impact on their sales while setting a priority for time, budget, and project work.

Why give away the successful questions for free? Simply put—I want you to succeed! In the 10 plus years of time that I’ve spent marketing and studying businesses at various stages of growth, these are the basic questions I’ve landed on:

1. What results do you want to achieve?
   • Results Example #1: I want more money (get as specific as you can and make goals and manifestation statements around your goals)
     • Better example: I want to make $10,000 more by the end of this year and do less in-person sales leaning on e-commerce sales through a marketing funnel designed to sell a course for me.
       • Then we explore the how: What topic will you record a course on? Who will you market it to? What will you charge for it? What’s the value of the course to put into the funnel? What testimonials can we add to establish your reputation? What’s your current email list? What’s the budget for online marketing?
         
   • Results Example #2: I want to be known as the best masseuse in Sonoma County
     • Better example: I want to grow a steady client base of (pick a number of clients) per month in Sonoma County. Through monthly 5 star reviews, referrals through word of mouth and email marketing I will grow my digital reputation establishing my service quality and excellence online. With a community of continuously supportive clients who will vote for me, I will be nominated for and awarded best massage therapist in Sonoma County.
       
2. What makes the most money in your business currently?
   • This is so important to note and can ultimately lead to your whole refined business strategy. Are you spreading yourself too thin across multiple products and services when your clients are making it obvious that there’s one primary offering you can focus on to sell even more of?
     
3. Are people aware of your business?
   • Follow up: Do you have a following, a community, a network, an email list?
     
4. Are you new? Do you want to establish your expertise?
   • Solutions could include education, workshops, presentations, op/eds
     
5. How are your profits?
   • Deficit
   • Even
   • Profitable
     • Which are your most profitable quarters, seasons, years, etc?
       
6. Who is your competition?
   • Local, regional, global
   • Why? How? What’s worth noting?
     
7. What are your key differentiators?
   • What sets you apart? Makes you unique, relatable, of quality?
   • Why you?
     
8. What are you currently doing for marketing?
   • What’s working? Has worked?
   • What’s your competition doing?
   • What’s within your scope to do at the moment?
     • Budget, time, experience, staff, etc.
       
9. Are there any timely upcoming company events, product highlights, or relevant seasons?
   • This might direct immediate project work to advertising an upcoming workshop or creating content for a holiday, etc.
     
10. Who is your target market?
    • Your current client and your ideal client (if they’re different)
    • Describe their demographics and archetype in as much detail as possible
    • THIS is a stand alone strategy that I offer and create entire workshops around. Identifying and understanding your target market is one of the most important parts of your business’ marketing strategy. You may have different target markets for different parts of your business and it’s important to know and understand who buys from you and how to speak to, nurture, and attract more paying clients within these parameters.

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Even after 10+ years in the marketing industry I still get a bit nervous before my initial marketing strategy session with a new client. A recent client we began working with at Sonoma County Marketing had me at a bit of a standstill before our session. This inspired me to create a new set of notes and a guide to put us both at ease. Instead of talking about the projects (which may seem overwhelming), or reflecting on what has or hasn’t been working (which is always a point of frustration), I decided to begin with a results-driven question: What Results do you Want to Achieve this Year? We then proceeded to follow the questions above.

For context, I had already had various phone calls with the client prior, done some market research, and had a list of proposed solutions and projects to accompany the questions I would ask her. However, leading with the dream, the success, the goal is an inspiring place to begin when doing the hard necessary work of a marketing audit to establish a successful marketing strategy.

Looking for a marketing expert to guide you through the process of establishing a personalized marketing strategy? Send us a message to get started!

Are you a DIYer? You can now purchase our expert marketing strategy guide with accompanying AI prompts for success here! At a fraction of the price, this strategy guide is an incredible value, packed with over a decade of expert industry experience for you to work through