Welcome to the 27th issue of Always Be Learning. The newsletter that always replaces the toilet paper roll when it runs out.

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Today's Marketing Breakdown:

In this week's issue, I'm going to teach you about my 5x5 "W" framework that will help you better understand your customers.

Who / What / When / Where / Why

5 questions for each W.

Run through the questions below and test how well you REALLY know your customers.

Note: some questions will be easier to answer than others. When an answer doesn't immediately come to mind, make note of it. That is a sign of a potential gap in your understanding of your customer.

Now, let's dive into the questions 👇

As my 3rd string dynasty QB, Jameis Winston, would say: "Who ready to eat a W?"

WHO

• Who do you WANT to serve?

• Who makes the buying decision?

• Who is your product MEANT to serve?

• Who would pay anything for your solution?

• Who would share your product with friends?

WHAT

• What motivates them?

• What agitates the problem?

• What are their biggest pain points?

• What job are they trying to get done?

• What transformation do they want to see?

WHEN

• When do they give up?

• When are they triggered?

• When are they most likely to buy?

• When do they start researching options?

• When do they realize they have a problem?

WHERE

• Where do they hang out online?

• Where do they hang out offline?

• Where are they most likely to buy?

• Where do they get their information?

• Where are they in their awareness cycle?

WHY

• Why are they looking now?

• Why should they go with you?

• Why haven't they purchased yet?

• Why are they looking for a solution?

• Why would they go with a competitor?

Bottom Line:

When you go through these questions 1 by 1, you'll start to get some well-rounded buyer personas for your target customers.

You'll learn what you have nailed down and where you need to fill the gaps.

This is not an exhaustive list but a good starting point. These questions are meant to make you think and send you down a rabbit hole of truly understanding your customer.

There you have it! 1 marketing tip to help grow your DTC business.

Here’s what else I’m checking out in the DTC marketing world:

1. How to win at marketing in 2 sentences (click here)

2. 17 core reasons for why people buy things (click here)

3. 14 lessons from growing a startup from $3M to $24M in 8 months (click here)

4. BONUS: 5 more W questions to add to your decision-making process (click here)

Hope this has been helpful!

If you enjoyed it, please forward it along to your marketing friends.

See ya next Thursday,

Joe

P.S. Whenever you're ready, here's 1 big way I can help you:

I've generated over $50,000,000 in email marketing revenue throughout my career.

Most people don't realize this... but email marketing should drive over 25% of revenue for your business — at minimum.

If you're hitting that mark, well done 👏

If you're not, let's change that. Keep reading...

Cohort 2 of my Email Marketing 101 course is less than 3 weeks away.

The course runs from 9/26 - 9/29 and each session will be 1 hour.

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Cohort #1 had a perfect 10/10 Net Promoter Score, and that was just the warm-up...

You don't want to miss Cohort #2 👇