Tackling the Mystery of Marketing – Your Guide to Certainty and Success
The maze that is marketing can often feel like you, the explorer, have been blindfolded, set at the start and told to go find the centre of the maze with no direction or help whatsoever.
With such difficulty it’s a wonder why anyone would put themselves through building a business, but the truth is what people actually want is the certainty that the marketing they are doing is going to take them to the goal they want.
However, what often happens is this desire for the one true thing that will work leads people down a path filled with random tactics and unfulfilled promises.
Today, we’re going to look at how to avoid common pitfalls and what simple tips will get your marketing working the way you actually want it to.
The One Magic Bullet to Success
Most people believe that to get the one certain thing that will work they just need to keep trying all the latest tactics and trends until one sticks, so they hop from one shiny new object to another without any forethought or objectivity.
What every single one of them misses is that the real key to success in marketing is to understand and build the foundations first. Put it this way, imagine building your dream house without a blueprint or foundations – your marketing is just the same.
Before you jump on the latest shiny new thing, you need to look at whether the house you’re building actually needs it – does it need the latest whirligig on the roof or is it just something new and cool that people are talking about?
Does it fit“ your house i.e. your marketing – does it fit with your strategy, and the plan to build your marketing?
If yes, include it.
If no, don’t.
And, if it’s I have no idea, keep reading…
Random Tactics and the Lure of the Shiny Object
Flitting from one new marketing tactic to another without a plan or strategy can do more damage to a business brand than most people realise. Essentially, what happens is that your followers get confused and have no real tangible idea who you are and what you stand for, you appear flaky and unreliable, which in turn makes your business look untrustworthy and makes it harder for them to see what’s in it for them to buy from you.
It’s really easy to be lured by the promise of quick wins and fast traction on the latest platform and with the newest tactic, but it’s always better to examine whether each new tactic fits with your overall strategy. Not all tactics will work for all businesses. Each unique business has its own path to success and it’s no good being deviated off that path by something cool looking to the side – this is how people get lost.
Resist the temptation to chase the latest shiny object and instead build a strategy where each tactic works together as one unit, moving forward in the same direction.
Build your Blueprint to Success
Marketing success comes from strategy and a plan of action that you actually implement – not just shove in a drawer.
With any plan you need to first start with your industry –
- What industry are you in?
- Who are your people?
- What do they tell you they like/hate/want and are interested in hearing about?
This is important because you first need to know who you are talking to before you can get to know them.
It’s like any relationship, you need to get to know someone and find commonalities before you talk to them about things you’re both interested in.
So, look for the commonalities of your audience, and this includes things like their language and the words they use – you need to speak to them in their way on their level.
Once you know who it is you’re speaking to then you can set your goals for your marketing, as this will determine what channels and tactics to use.
Your goals need to focus on what you want to get out of your marketing. So, they could be things like –
- You’re unknown in your industry so you need to build awareness
- You’re wanting more leads so need to get a lead gen campaign going
- You’re getting attention but no conversions so need to work on trust building and confidence in your offer
You might need a bit of all of these, or something else entirely, but I’d always recommend focusing on one area first and then building from there.
From here you then look at what channels are best positioned to serve the campaign you need to build. And, it’s important to note that channels are not just social media, they include a whole host of different things.
I have a free download of all the different marketing channels you can use to market your business you can find here.
An example of this is if your need is for lead gen, I’d usually recommend an advertising campaign, among other things, but if you are a new brand and unknown I’d recommend not doing and ads until your foundational marketing is in place.
This is an example of where someone might jump into ads before they are ready and then not be able to make it work – hence they end up flitting from tactic to tactic like we talked about earlier.
Consistency is King
The one thing many small businesses don’t seem to understand is that marketing is not sales.
Let me repeat that because it is really important. – marketing is NOT sales.
Sales is very different and a very different set of skills to marketing, you will need to hone your sales skills as well as your marketing and a marketer generally doesn’t do sales and a salesperson doesn’t generally do marketing, however they can, and should, work together .
Results won’t happen overnight when it comes to marketing, if you want fast results, it’s probably sales that you need, not marketing.
Marketing will give you longer term success, with consistency and patience, sales will give you much more instant gratification but it will stop the second you stop selling.
With marketing, consistency is absolutely one of the most important things, it is vital to give you the success you need and the future you can see. Once you have your plan in place follow it like a map, or that blueprint to build that house.
It’s easy to get discouraged when things take time, but you have to be patient and use the data to see what things are and aren’t going well. Make adjustments using the data you collect and keep to your strategy.
Learn Only What you Need
Marketing can seem like a giant untameable beast and can be overwhelming to the point of apathy. And, if you’re feeling this way, getting past it will always be better with a plan of action in place, because with a plan you can ignore the rest of those shiny objects and just focus on the important things that will get you where you want to be.
And, that way marketing isn’t the massive untameable beast it first seemed because you can focus on learning the bits of marketing that are relevant to you.
That’s why I’m building a course programme as a done with you service, to show people how to do it directly in their own business, because you don’t need to know how to do all marketing, just the things your business needs.
The goal isn’t to become a marketing guru by Friday, it’s to become informed and strategic on the parts that are relevant to you.
Because, if you don’t understand marketing properly, how can you possibly know if the decisions you’re making are good ones?
Next Steps
Success lies not in randomness and shiny new tactics, but in a solid workable plan. You can thrive in your marketing by getting strategic and putting things in place that will give you a clear map forward, stop the overwhelm and give you a certainty that you’re heading in the right direction.
If you’d like a few pointers on all the different marketing channels download the free marketing channels guide to give you 30 ways to market your business.
