Mastering the 4 Cs for a Winning Marketing Strategy

How can you communicate your brand to the world and really bring it to life? This week's Selfmade, Brit + Co's interactive business course, dives into how to create a shining marketing strategy for 2020 and beyond. And as part of our collaboration with Office Depot, we're back with our weekly recap! Read on for a few snippets on marketing and how to find your audience.

First, the modern consumer doesn't just want a product shoved in their face, right? They want stories. They want lessons they can learn. They want to feel better about themselves. And they want to feel inspired. So how exactly can you do that? Tap into the four Cs, AKA the foundation of every strong marketing strategy: content, community, CTA (or call to action), and consistency.

Content is king. An audience doesn't always care about who you are, but they certainly care about how you're able to help them. So what are you going to talk about? When you start creating content, use your brand house as inspiration and be sure your content ladders up to your brand essence. You'll also want to select your key platform — where are you going to be sharing your message? It can be overwhelming to create content on every platform, so pick the one platform you want to focus on growing. You might choose Instagram, or if you're a B2B, you might opt for LinkedIn. Email is great in that it doesn't contend with any algorithm; you get to control who sees your content. Once you've released a few weeks or months worth of content, you can measure what's working and tweak your posting strategy in the future.

Your community is the people you're reaching and where you're finding them. Is it on Instagram, TikTok or LinkedIn? How are you bringing them together? What common interest will all of your followers share? Once you have a following, it's important to keep them engaged to foster loyalty and reciprocal engagement within your community. Are you responding to their DMs and questions and comments? You have to engage in the social ecosystem where you're building your brand and create visibility for your business. Sharing positive energy across social networks with like-minded accounts and people will earn you good social karma. With any luck, the goodwill will come back to you and your business.

A call to action is what you want your audience to do. It's the driving message to get your audience to consume or buy your product. If you're posting on Instagram, make sure you're explicit in your caption about what you want your audience to do. Do you want them to check out your sale inventory at the link in bio? Tell them! Do you want them to respond to your question in the comments? Prompt them by asking them to.

Consistency is about continuously showing up to build your audience. Once they discover you, they'll expect a cadence of communication from you so it feels like an authentic relationship. Once you have an idea of the content you want to share, you can build a calendar and posting schedule to keep on top of it all (and to ensure consistency)!

No matter what business you're in, marketing is critical in helping you find and keep your customers. From signs, posters & banners to get your business noticed, to marketing materials to keep your customers informed, Office Depot OfficeMax offer a full suite of business services & solutions to help you & your business.

Head to Office Depot's Selfmade page to check out even more amazing business resources (and discounts!) to help you accomplish more on your entrepreneurial journey. These offers are available for a limited time only, so be sure to take advantage of all this goodness while supplies last.