In March, I released my new marketing book, Mission, Market, Message: The Actionable Guide to Marketing for Small Business Owners. I wrote it for three important reasons that I’ll share with you. If you’re a small business owner trying to develop your brand and figure out your marketing approach, this book is exactly what you need.

3 Reasons to Read Mission, Market, Message

As a professional copywriter, I work with a number of businesses — large and small — to help promote their products and services to their target markets.

What I’ve found is that, in some instances, I’ll be asked to write copy (say, promotional emails or a landing page), but the end goal isn’t clear. The reasons to buy aren’t even clear. Here’s why this happens: When there’s confusion in the message, it’s because there’s confusion over the mission and the target market.

So here’s why I wrote this book, and why you should read it if you’re a small business owner:

1. The power of your message comes from a compelling, clearly identified mission (your end goal) and market (who you’re speaking to). This book explains how that works and how to make sure you can build a strong message.
2. A mission is really made up of about seven components, which I outline in the book. If you know your seven components, you’ll have a stable foundation from which to market your products and services.
3. Understanding your market is absolutely essential to formulating your message, and it’s not always well-understood. I cover a few ways to dial into your market (even if you don’t have a ton of data) and how to identify what they desire the most.

The Marketing Questions You Need to Answer as a Small Business Owner

As a small business owner, there are a number of questions you need to ask yourself before you start drawing people in to listen to you. (Doesn’t that make sense?) But as ambitious as we are, we get eager and want to rush to market. So many small business owners try to start with messaging. It gets muddled faster than you think, and you’ll end up getting mixed or poor results. 

You can call in a copywriter to write your landing pages and emails, just like you can contract a painter to paint the walls of your house — but nothing can get painted if you don’t have any walls yet. 

Sometimes it’s not about impatience — it’s simply lack of knowledge. Marketing is a wide-ranging topic. There’s so much to know. My point in writing Mission, Market, Message was to give you a handhold, a starting place to gain traction. 

Once you understand the questions that need answers, you can think deeply and creatively about the identity of your business; when it’s time to go to market, you’ll be ready. 

Here are some of the questions you have to ask when you’re developing your marketing approach:

• Do I understand what I’m trying to do?
• Do I know who would be the best fit for my products, and do I know where they are?
• Do I understand the end result (the transformation) that my target market wants?
• Do I know why it matters right now for someone to purchase my products? Am I able to communicate it in a way that’s naturally compelling (not pushy)?
• What makes my business different from others?
• How can I explain what makes me different in a way that is interesting to the customer (i.e., they understand how they would benefit from it)?

The book will help you answer these questions and many more. In fact, it asks a broader question: What’s the secret to keeping customers coming back? I’ve included stories of businesses who not only attracted customers but earned their loyalty by building relationships. These businesses weren’t just clever — they were transparent, true-to-form, and able to garner buy-in on their mission, not simply the transaction. 

Get Your Copy of Mission, Market, Message Today

I wrote Mission, Market, Message to be extremely practical. The book is filled with stories, principles, exercises, and illustrations to help you grasp the concepts and put your learning into practice. Take it one step at a time. By the end, you’ll have a clear view of your business, which will inform what you need to do next. When you know what you’re trying to do (your mission), who you’re talking to (your market), and what you’re trying to say (your message), the sky’s the limit. Get your copy of the book today, and let me know what you think!