Want your brand to go from unknown to known? From struggling to profitable? The way to make that happen is through marketing.

Give It To Me Simple: What Is Marketing Going To Do For My Business?

When you’re getting started marketing your small business, the job of marketing is to broaden the pool of people who might buy from you. Then, to make it super easy for them to make that purchase.

So, to start with, strong marketing:

• Makes the right people aware of your brand.

• Is distinctive, compelling, and memorable.

• Helps ideal clients to identify themselves and prevents bad-fits from pursuing you and becoming unhappy customers.

• Creates positive associations with your brand by providing value to your ideal customers.

• Builds trust within the market.

Oh- and all this all happens before we even ask people to buy! Why? Because digital customers are very unlikely to spend money if it’s the very first time they’ve encountered the brand- even if they’re perusing the website or app with the intent to shop.

Further, irresistible brands know that marketing doesn’t stop after the sale. Once you get the customer, marketing should help to keep them happy and encourage them to recommend you to their friends, coworkers, and family.

Customer loyalty is an incredible asset for your brand because:

• It’s generally less expensive to retain customers than acquire new ones.

• Happy customers spread the word.

• Good reviews, testimonials, and word-of-mouth recommendations build your brand’s reputation and credibility quickly.

As you can see, marketing has different jobs to do at different stages of the buyer’s journey. All of them require a solid understanding of your ideal customers, how you can help them, and why they should choose you over the competition, handling the issue themselves, or doing nothing at all.

Good Marketing Requires Strategy & Planning

So, how are you going to reach your ideal customers at the right time in the right way? With a marketing plan guided by solid strategy. 

Think of it like this, it’s easier to build something solid and lasting when you have a blueprint.

Let’s use a simple analogy. You need somewhere to put your computer so that you can work from home without having back pain every night from having to hunch over to see the screen (problem to be solved). You decide to buy a new desk (strategy). Since you’ve got $150 (budget), and are pretty good at assembling stuff yourself (resources), you decide to order a desk from IKEA and to clear your Tuesday afternoon so you’ll have time to read the instructions and assemble the darn thing (plan.) You order the desk, and, come Tuesday, you read the instructions, gather your tools, and put it together. (Execution.) When, by Tuesday night, if you have a solid desk assembled, no injuries, it didn’t take too much longer than expected, you didn’t have any unexpected expenses, and you didn’t start screaming and set the thing on fire in frustration, you know your plan was successful (key performance indicators or KPIs). If the desk takes away your back pain, you’ll know your strategy was successful (analysis).

In the example above, you’ll see how understanding the problem to be solved, who you’re solving it for, and the resources available were key components for choosing a smart strategy and putting together an effective plan. If you didn’t know your budget, you could definitely find ways to spend a lot more on a desk. If you hate putting things together and can never do it in an afternoon, IKEA would probably be a terrible way to go- even if you have to pay more for an alternative option. (Your KPIs would be different than in the above example as well.) If you thought the main goal was aesthetically pleasing furniture, you might buy a gorgeous desk with no ergonomic value.

Clear strategy leads to smart plans. When you know what you’re trying to achieve, for whom, and what you have to work with- it’s much easier to take effective action.

For marketing, when you know what you’re trying to achieve, for what audience, at what stage of their buyer’s journey, and the resources you have available for marketing to them- it’s much easier to market effectively.

Without a strategy to guide you, you can easily wind up chasing a thousand different goals at once and achieving none of them. Without a plan of action, you can quickly get overwhelmed and avoidant or unfocused and ineffectual.

Taking On Too Much Will Hold Your Brand Back

To be blunt, without a strategic, focused, marketing plan, you’ll rob your marketing of the opportunity to be successful.

Why? Because most forms of marketing take time, budget, and consistent, quality content to work. Think 6 months to a year or longer- particularly if your business is new and does not yet have an established reputation and library of content to build on. You have to commit long-term to your marketing channels in order for them to work.

For example, marketing thought leader Neil Patel cautions that it takes roughly 6-9 months for content marketing efforts to bear fruit. According to search engine marketing giant, SEMRush, search engine optimization takes about 6-12 months for results. Online Marketing Gurus says it takes 6 months for a Google Adwords campaign to mature and 6-12 months to develop a strong campaign. According to Converse Digital, if following best practices, it takes around 6 months to see trackable results from social media marketing.

So whether you’re marketing on a website or Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn, you’ll need to invest some serious time and effort into creating high-value content for that channel. You’ll also need to put time and effort into formatting the content in accordance with best practices for that platform. Further, you’ll have to do some research to see how often you should post, at what times, using what features, etc.- and then you’ll have to consistently follow those guidelines. 

Emotionally, you’ll need to develop a thick skin and explorer’s spirit, so that you can pivot rather than give up when something doesn’t get you the results you’d hoped for.

For many small businesses, especially those of the solopreneur variety, there simply isn’t the capacity to market effectively on several channels at once. Posting twice a day on Instagram with content your audience will like and value takes time and effort. Blogging at least once a week with insightful, helpful information takes time and effort. Creating enough content to boost organic search engine rankings takes time and effort. Making TikToks or going live takes time and effort. Booking podcast guests takes time and effort. Don’t forget, you also have to run your business and serve your customers!

Maybe it’s blogging OR Instagram, a podcast OR a newsletter. Pick somewhere you’re willing to show up on as much as it takes- just make sure your ideal customers hang out there too.

It’s Hard To Make It Easy

In all honesty, it also takes a while to get good at your marketing channel of choice. It often takes research, staying up-to-date on relevant trends, and learning from experience. It takes getting to know your customers and how they interact with content- and learning from mistakes.

It might take a customer telling you they couldn’t find your sales page, or that the Buy Now button took forever to load. It might take a consultant letting you know that your website navigation needs a tidy and your copy needs to be tightened up. It might take a few sales calls where everyone has the same questions before you realize there is something you should be explaining upfront in your messaging. Maybe someone doesn’t know how to get from your social media profiles to your shop or doesn’t understand what you’re selling from your videos.

Listen, people aren’t going to work very hard to figure out how to give you their money. 

A major aspect of marketing is to make it very simple to buy from you. That means every place you’re marketing needs to be very easy to understand and navigate.

The best way to do that depends on where you’re marketing. See how picking a focus comes in handy? An easy-to-use Shopify store is going to have different best practices than an Instagram account that sells over DMs. A brand that relies on organic Google search to get them in front of new customers will have to follow different best practices than a brand relying on targeted advertising on LinkedIn.

Narrow your marketing focus down to the point where you have the capacity to monitor the progress of your marketing initiatives and keep honing them based on results and customer feedback.

When To Pivot & When To Wait

The beauty of a strategic marketing plan is that it gives you the opportunity to gather some really good data on what works for your marketing and what doesn’t.

You can’t really tell progress from stagnation, wins from failures, if you don’t commit to giving your all to any specific marketing channel for long enough for it to work.

Don’t write something off as “not working” or “not worth it” if you haven’t been posting quality content, formatted with best practices, at the recommended frequency for an appropriate length of time to start seeing real results.

When you commit to marketing strategy and a clear plan, you not only know where to focus your finite efforts and resources, you give your marketing the opportunity to actually work. And when it doesn’t, you can gain valuable insight about why not. Sometimes you don’t have to throw out the whole channel, you need to post at a different time. Maybe your audience prefers videos to lengthy text segments. Maybe your tone needs some more consistency or certain messaging resonates more than others.

With a focus and a plan, you can experiment and tweak until it does work.

This isn’t failure. This is a necessary step on the way to success. Don’t give up before you get started! Get yourself a marketing strategy, and commit to a plan.

You can do just that with a customized Marketing Plan tailored to your unique business and your unique needs. Save $500 with our Black Friday Business Sale- just make sure you book your discovery call by 11:59 p.m. PST Monday, Nov. 29. (You can schedule it for a later date, just get it on the books by midnight on the 29th.)