Squeezing Success: The Lemonade Story and an Inspiring Business Growth Quote

 


Johnny and Jerry, the dynamic twelve year old duo with a lemonade dream.
Johnny, the go-getter, decides to approach his mom for a loan of $20 to fund their venture. Bursting with pride at her little entrepreneur, his mom not only agrees but takes it a step further.
“Sure, Johnny! I’ll drive you to the store and help you handpick the supplies!”
Now, on the other hand, we have Jerry, the ambitious hustler. He hops on his bike and heads straight to his rich uncle, Uncle Pete. With hopeful eyes, Jerry asks, “Uncle Pete, can I borrow twenty dollars to start a lemonade stand?”
Uncle Pete, always one to raise an eyebrow, questions Jerry’s plan, “Where are the customers, kiddo?”
Jerry, ever the optimist, replies, “I don’t know, but Johnny’s mom is chauffeuring him to the store right now to get the supplies!”
Ah, Uncle Pete, the wise one, flashes a knowing smile and drops this nugget of business wisdom,
“Jerry, my nephew, remember this golden rule: Sell it, then Buy it.”
Grateful for his uncle’s sage advice, Jerry hops back on his trusty bike and pedals his way to a local baseball game. Lo and behold, there they are, a bunch of fifteen-year-old boys and their sun-drenched parents, sweating it out in the summer heat.
Jerry, feeling like a sales ninja, strolls up to the coach, who is conveniently standing in the shade.
“Hey, coach! How about some ice-cold lemonade?” Jerry pitches.
The coach, parched and intrigued, replies, “Sure, kid! How much are we talking?”
And then comes the million-dollar question from Jerry, “Well, coach, how much do you and your players want?”
Quick on his feet, the coach estimates, “With twenty guys on each team, I reckon 3 gallons should quench our thirst.”
Ever the savvy businessman, Jerry offers a sweet discount, “No problem, coach! That’ll be $20, please.”
The coach, impressed by Jerry’s entrepreneurial spirit, hands over a crisp twenty-dollar bill and seals the deal, “Can you make this a regular thing? Every weekend, perhaps?”
Now, let me share a little personal anecdote. After my first business took a nosedive into insolvency I was left feeling utterly defeated. Dialing up an old friend, a wildly successful businessman, I sought solace and guidance.
Curious about my takeaway from the experience, he asked, “So, what did you learn, Mark?” And what he said next struck a chord that still resonates within me.
“Mark, my friend, businesses may fail, but YOU only fail when you give up on yourself. Treat every lesson as a precious gift and never let anyone snatch away your dreams.”
He then regaled me with the legendary Lemonade Story, which has become my entrepreneurial North Star ever since.
Now, the essence of the Lemonade Story is a delightful twist on conventional wisdom.
You don’t need a truckload of cash to kickstart a business; quite the opposite.
Sell it, then Buy it.
Some examples to illustrate this delectable principle:
Options on Real Estate: Skip those hefty down payments that could backfire. Instead, do as the wealthy do—secure an option to control sizable plots of land without breaking the bank.
Sell an annual contract:
Remember Jerry’s smart move? He snagged a long-term contract without any initial investment or overhead. It’s like planting a seed of exponential growth while keeping the risks at bay.
Genius
How can you use the Lemonade story in your own business?

How to Use Content Marketing to Increase Brand Awareness

 

As the saying goes, Content is the King, content has proved to be a major factor for determining the brand value and growth of any business. With digitalization and increase in the use of Social Media and websites, companies today are focusing largely on content marketing. With millions and millions of articles on internet being posted every day, there seems very less chances of your content being read by your target customers. So, the challenge remains in differentiating your content from the rest and making sure that it is read by your target customers. 

Today, we will discuss on how can businesses differentiate themselves from other brands and create meaningful messaging that attracts the right customers? Let’s get started with the best content marketing tips:

Know Your Audience

While writing a content you should first get answers to the questions regarding:

  • Who are you writing the content for?
  • What is the objective of the content?
  • When is the right time to publish the content?
  • Which channels will you be using to publish and market the content?

Your audience should always be an important part of your branding strategy. Your effort in developing a content makes no sense if it does not meet the need of your target audience. Hence, it is very crucial to keep in mind the demographic of your target audience while planning in how to structure your content and what will appeal to their interests and values. For instance, if you are writing on makeup services for brides, your primary audience will be women. So, while writing the content, you need to tailor it to appeal to brides. Your content should create an image that you’re committed to providing them with a great experience through your dedication and experience in the industry. 

Similarly, you should also research on the sites and blogs your target audience spends time on. This will help you in deciding on the channels to post your content. For instance, if you notice that they interact more with videos rather than images, then make video content and post it on sites like YouTube. 

Create a Content Strategy

Having identified your target audience, now you should work on developing a strong content strategy. Creating a content focused on your company’s story helps you connect with your customers on a more personal level. Then, the next step is to choose appropriate channels to share your content with your audience. Some of the most used channels to promote your content are websites, social media platforms, blog posts, videos, webinars, etc. Lastly, you need to create a content schedule to keep track of your content marketing plans. Content schedule helps you determine what you want to publish, when you want to publish and how often you want to publish your content. You can get content marketing tips on creating content strategy from digital marketing agencies too.

Use Blogs for Brand Awareness

When it comes to types of content marketing tools, blogs are seen to be the most commonly used tool. Having a company blog page will definitely be a valuable tool for building brand awareness through content marketing. While creating blogs, you should come up with new and unique content. Posting contents that has been posted numerous times by competitors won’t help you stand out among others. However, if you can’t come up with new topics every time, try out a different way to talk about something that has been done before. Also, the information you are using in your blog content should be accurate and trustworthy. This way, you can gain the trust and confidence of your current and potential customers.

Similarly, while choosing a blog topic, research on what your audience is interested in. You can also write on topics that give your audience information on the products and services your company is offering. For instance, if you are a travel and tour company, you can write about things to do or places to visit in various destinations.

Send Email Newsletters

Email Newsletters are still one of the most integral part of any brand awareness campaign. To make sure that your audience doesn’t miss any of your posts, try linking your recent contents on regular basis. Creating a new content is not just enough. You need to make sure that it reaches your target content and they read it.

You can link your recent content in social media or on the homepage of your site to direct your audience to new blogs, articles, webinars or podcasts, etc. Along with this, you should also try engaging with your customers. You need to encourage them to respond directly to your email with any questions or comments you may have. This will send an image that you are interested in addressing their queries, comments or feedback. 

Use Social Media to Promote your Content

The power of Social Media for content marketing cannot be neglected in today’s world. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are proven ways to promote your brand and reach a larger audience. These platforms allows your content to be shared with the mass just with a click. Posting on social media is also beneficial as it allows the users not only to share their opinion about your content but also create two way engagement. Your company’s brand awareness campaign is incomplete without social media platforms.

Analyze your Results

Creating a content marketing strategy and following it is not enough. You need to track the performance of your content strategy regularly and analyze the results. Monitoring, recording and analysis of the results should be a part of your content marketing strategy. Analyzing the results will help you understand which strategy is performing well and which ones need improvement. Tools like Google Analytics are very useful for understanding how your content is doing online. You can also identify which types of content marketing tools are performing better. 

Do you need assistance in creating a content marketing strategy?

Mark Archer has years of experience in developing content strategy and running brand awareness campaign for diverse organizations, be it small or large scaled organizations.

He is a former digital marketing agency owner specializing in branding, content creation and conversion and optimization. His job is to be experts in branding and marketing, that leverages technology to achieve maximum results, so that our clients can focus on what they do best – running their business. We experiment on different types of content marketing tools to get the desired results.