Marketing that earns trust

Five questions to ask, in order, before any communication goes out — the frame of the platform's marketing tutorial.

Det dunkelt sagda är det dunkelt tänkta. What is dimly said is dimly thought. — Esaias Tegnér, 1820

A practical tutorial for the people who lead the businesses on this platform — and for anyone who wants to enter a new market with real evidence behind its claims.

The frame comes first, and it is useful on its own: five questions, asked in order, before any communication goes out. Each question then has its own chapter, linked below.

The five questions

1. Who is the target audience?
2. What is the message?
3. How will we deliver/present it?
4. What is the expected result?
5. How do we know/measure success?

Ask the questions in this order. You must know your audience before you can write the message. A good message comes from what the audience needs to hear, not from what we want to say. And decide what result you expect before the communication goes out — if you decide afterwards, every campaign will look like a success.

Most marketing fails because it starts at question three (the channel) or question two (the text).

Before the questions

Two things are done once, before any communication:

• Write down what is true about your business, and what you can prove. Which claims matter to a buyer? What evidence do you have for each one — test reports, certificates, years in operation, named customers? Every message is built from this list.
• The leader signs a voice charter. One page that says how the company speaks: the tone, the languages, what may be claimed and what may not. The leader signs it, because tone is a promise about how the company will behave — and only the leader can make that promise.

The workflow

The same steps repeat for every communication — an email, a campaign, or a year of marketing:

flowchart TD
    subgraph ONCE["Before you start — once"]
      A["List your claims and the proof for each"] --> B["The leader signs the voice charter"]
    end
    subgraph EVERY["For every communication"]
      C["1. Who is the target audience?"] --> D["2. What is the message?"]
      D --> E["3. How will we deliver it?"]
      E --> F["4. What is the expected result?"]
      F --> I["5. How do we know/measure success?"]
      I --> G["Deliver it"]
      G --> H{"Did the named result appear?"}
      H -->|"Yes — learn what worked"| K["Next communication"]
      H -->|"No — make the change you planned"| K
      K --> C
    end
    B --> C

All five questions are answered before anything goes out — including how you will measure. Then deliver, and check honestly what happened.

You cannot see inside people's heads. You can only see what they do. That is why the expected result is always an action — a named person doing a specific thing within a set time. If you cannot name it, you have not answered question four yet.

The chapters

• The business model is the first message
• What is true about you, and what you can prove
• The voice charter
• Question 1 — who is the target audience?
• Question 2 — what is the message?
• Question 3 — how will we deliver it? Register, culture, and channel
• Question 4 — what is the expected result?
• What to measure, and what to protect from measurement
• Question 5 — how do we know/measure success?

Each chapter starts with the question as it is usually taught, and then shows what it really asks of you. The examples come from real businesses on this platform.

The instruments

The tutorial ends in two working pages, not in reading:

• The voice charter template — adapted and signed once by the leader.
• The five-question worksheet — filled in once per communication, before it goes out.

Read the chapters once. Use the instruments every time.