Ep. 7 - Mailbag: What do you hate about Marketing?

Okay, welcome everyone. First of all, uh, thank you for all— thank you all for joining, uh, if you're able to join. Here's the thing, I am a hated man. Oh, no. Why? I'm in marketing and I know people, I know how people feel about marketing. I bet if we took a poll between what business people hate more, purchasing, taxes, or marketing, marketing would be at the top. The reason I believe is that the other 2 don't require any kind of giving up part of your soul. Purchasing is a necessity. We need tools and supplies to run your business. We have to pay a provider for something, and usually you can see the result. As much as challenging as it is to pay for something, you often get something out of it. And whether you Whether it's a finished good that you have to buy or some piece of technology you have to use to run your operation, it often has a result. And so you might hate forking over the money for them, but if you don't, you might not have a business. Purchasing also doesn't ask you to be anything that you are not, and I think that's part of where the marketing starts to get a little, uh, complicated. As far as taxes, while it's annoying that you have to spend time and brainpower to give someone else money, in the end, most people, I think, understand that we need to pay taxes if we want a society. And if you have a trustworthy tax accountant They're usually pretty good about getting you compliant and maybe even a little ahead. Again, the government doesn't tell you you can't be you. They just want your share. They just want their share. But marketing, marketing is an everyday thing that you have to do because it deals with attention. And in today's world, attention is very fleeting. So if you can't get someone's attention, your marketing fails. And to be honest, that's very hard to do. It can be very expensive as well, and it's very competitive. You're competing against a lot of attention gatherers out there, and sometimes people will market in a, in an extreme way. They trade in some of their morality for clicks. So then it can feel a little dirty. And if that's not what your business is about, the very idea of that kind of marketing can be very abhorrent. So I asked for questions, or actually I asked for feedback, and I asked for comments on why, on a variety of different platforms, about What you hate about marketing, so I thought it'd be fun to address that and talk about it and see if there's a way to have you not hate it as much. I'm sure there'll still be some sort residual hate. So let's get started. One one comment was marketing makes me feel. Like I have to be on 24/7. I'm already exhausted running the business. I hate the guilt I feel when I'm not posting, not optimizing, not building funnels. It just never ends. And then it always feels like I'm behind, like there's some secret that everyone else knows that I missed. This is a very common feeling. Marketing can feel like you're going to burn out. There's— there sometimes feels like there's no end and I get it. It's like you ask yourself, when is this done? It's never done. My approach is actually not to compare myself to other people and not to— when working with other brands, we try not necessarily compare. With others. I'm not saying you don't— if you have competition, that you don't check them out. I'm saying that your results will vary, and instead of trying to win over everyone, instead of trying to steal audience away from somebody, you just have to keep making progress on your own. And I've said that before, marketing is, is like a muscle. In order to keep it strong, you have to keep building and keep working at it. It's a self-improvement kind of model. And oftentimes the way we'll do that as clients, with clients, is to recommend, create a hit list that we kind of come together on. And I can often act as a point of accountability for some of those goals. Uh, but, you know, regular check-ins to see how you're doing. It's basically, it's that coach model. Um, I'm not a coach per se, but when it comes to improving your marketing, that, that's where we tend to focus. So, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a lot out there. There's a lot out there. Uh, the other is just to have somebody you can trust who can help you scope out what's really important and figuring out what's— what has the best potential to work and to try things. You know, there's quite a bit of experimentation that goes on with marketing and having directed energy towards experimentation is really important to figure out. Is there another angle? Is there another way to do something? Because not everything is going to work for everyone. Another question, another point of feedback. Um, I've been burned by agencies and freelancers who promise the world and deliver fluff. And someone else wrote in Every expert says something different. None of it ever seems to work for my kind of business. Can definitely relate to both of these ideas. Your experts, you know, any expert needs to address your context. You obviously will know your business best. So rather than expecting an expert to give you answers immediately, What you really want to do is make sure they know the right questions to ask to learn about you, or they're asking the right questions to learn about you. Anyone helping you with marketing needs, needs to understand who your ideal customers are. They need to understand your sales cycle. You need to understand what your brand and distinct offering is. They need to know what success looks like. And if they show up with a proposal and don't take the time to understand your business, guess what? They just want your money. They don't care how successful you are. So be clear about what you need and what success looks like. Okay, next question. This is so the these are interesting comments, and it strikes at the. Point of authenticity that I was talking about, how, you know, purchasing and taxes don't make you a different person. Uh, someone says, I hate how fake marketing makes me feel. I like, like I have to pretend I'm someone I'm not just to get attention because I can't tell what's authentic anymore. Not in my voice, not my competitors. Not in the damn data. I didn't start my business to become a TikTok influencer. I just wanted to do good work and have people find me. Very, very understandable. Uh, I got into business to serve people, not to hack click-through rates and write cringy captions. Okay, so we're gonna tackle a lot of these. Here's how I would suggest you approach these very valid concerns. And first is to start with a very clear creative brief. I know people who can help you write one, put one together. Um, I can help as well as part of that. It's— the creative brief is a, is, is a form, is a document, and it's going to have within it your brand voice. It's going to set guardrails about what's appropriate for your business. It's going to focus on the tone and topics around your business. And so once you have that, ideally you take that to anyone who can help on the execution side, because honestly, if you are spending all your time on the campaign side, you won't want to do it. This is— that is, that is marketing pure. In its purest sense. And if you are running your business, that's not the best use of your time oftentimes, unless you can do it naturally. Unless you are just like a natural marketer, then honestly, you're probably listening to the wrong piece of content right now. So once you have that creative brief, outsource. Let someone else do the grunt work. Let the work go. You're busy running the business, not running campaigns. And oftentimes this is what I call feeder content. It's, it's what the agencies and the freelancers are really good at. They're going to help you maintain the eyeballs on your content and create engagement through it. And make sure that you are present. And so this becomes your baseline. And I said, you know, you're giving up some of the grunt work. You're not going to give up everything because if you're a small business, the next thing you really need to do once you've got that foundational content going as a small business, you need to show up. Be the subject matter expert, be the face of the business. Build trust and authenticity by being available. You don't have to post online every day, but you should be out there. You should be visible to who your clients are going to be, your customers are going to be. Being in front, just get comfortable with it, uh, as if you were talking to somebody face to face, as if you were talking to them on the phone. Just be available, and that will do so much for that, for creating that authenticity. If you don't have time to fire up your camera, your smartphone, and record something every day, don't worry about it. One alternative is to Batch record material, spend a couple of hours every month with very evergreen content, and just knock it out. This is these this is material that you've been sitting on, or thoughts that you've been sitting on, or content you've been sitting on, and it's just useful regardless of the situation. Then you hand it again to your social team, uh, or your content team, and they do with it what they need to do to kind of stretch it out. We used to call it content DJing. So you get the, the main song, you produce the main song, and the wonderful content DJs figure out how to mix it, how to stretch it out How to pull content from it, and that allows the engine to have enough material to feed off of. And then whoever is responsible for managing that program for you, you know, they will provide the best practices. It's their job to make sure that it's captioned right and the tags are working and there's a schedule to things and The initial engagements are there. All of that your social program should be able to do for you. But you, you offer yourself as the voice and the expert around whatever it is you are trying to get out there. And then, uh, in a really good social program will actually adapt what they're doing according to what you're doing. And then they'll learn and suggest new content that ideally performs better. And again, you know, it's like a muscle. You just keep doing it and you get better at it. And then lastly, around this topic, if there is something that's timely, you know, don't be afraid to just jump in with some thoughts. This will help the organic nature of it. It'll help discoverability because it is of the moment. So there's evergreen content, and then there's very timely content that you feel motivated to say something about. So maybe it's a market condition that you want to address, or weather, or holiday, whatever it is. You know, it doesn't necessarily adhere to the calendar that your social program will offer initially. And like editorial calendars, even in, say, a magazine, they tell you what they're going to talk about. And those are like the tentpole bits of content. But if something happened and the world changes, as it does. They will allow for new content to come in even though it might not have fit the technical calendar that they had. Uh, this is just— you, you want to be able to have that flexibility and you want to jump on opportunities. So, uh, they used to call it newsjacking where you would jump in with a topic because Uh, that topic was being actively talked about, allows the algorithms to find you that way and maintain that engagement and viability. So David's asking live, what is a reasonable timeline for small businesses should set to see marketing results? What's a good way to determine set marketing or sales goals for newly launched business? Very interesting question. Let me take a sip of water. The so very loaded question too. It really depends on whether or not the Results— what kind of results you're looking for when you say marketing results? Is it more sales? Is it more activity? Uh, more engagement? There are multiple layers to consider and a lot of different ways to look at that data. If you're looking for more engagement, then it's a real— then what you want to focus on is you know, your views going up, your activity to the site is going up, your destination points are going up, not necessarily conversion, converting to like sales. And then if there are a sales component that you're trying to measure, you want to focus on the conversion process itself. When somebody comes into the site, Are they abandoning? Are they being? Are they spending money? Are they closing deals on within a certain time frame? And you just create that as your baseline. So you're if you're newly launched business, so you start to measure that, and then it's about kind of picking and choosing areas to try and improve. So. For example, let's say you get 1,000 visitors. Let's say you get 10,000 visitors on your website each month, uh, and, um, 1% convert to a sale. Good luck with that, by the way. That's really, that's really high, uh, given a lot of other factors. But relatively speaking, let's say they don't know nothing about you, they come to your website, and then they convert. Actually, 1% is pretty high. Pretty good. Good job. Um, but what you want to look at is, okay, maybe I don't spend more to try and bring people in because I'm getting a nice flood of people right now. The real value then is like, well, what if I boosted that conversion rate another 1%? Can I do that? Well, how would I do that? And then you look at the entire experiential process that the customer is going through. But if you were to go from 1% to 2%, you're literally doubling at that point. So that's a win. And you're constantly kind of measuring where all that fits in. So you really have to look at the data, create the baseline, and then look at the data. And see if there are points that are easy to improve within that without spending more money. Usually a conversion process is not about spending more money; it's about refining that sales experience that the person's going through. And this is we're talking about on a website, right? The if the sale is happening. In person or has a longer sales cycle or requires a certain amount of interaction, then those are also areas to look at. You just won't be able to get that data because— or you won't get immediate access to that kind of data. It will require some kind of reporting function to learn about where the where the holes are in that experience. But if you think about it in terms of a buying experience, what does that look like? Where are they falling in? Where are they coming in? Where are they falling off? That's how you gauge your marketing and build off of that. I'm jumping, jumping around there, but— Another bit of feedback on why somebody would hate marketing. I'm good at what I do, but I suck at selling it. Marketing constantly reminds me of that. Heard this before. I might even be— I would actually subscribe to that myself in some ways. So here's how I reframe this. When you— when we have a product or service and have had some success getting it out there, we hit a point of comfort. And this is fine, it's good, means like there's something working. But some of us get a little complacent. We start to believe that value— that value that you've demonstrated kind of will sell itself. And unfortunately, that's not true. The world changes, situations change, you change, your people's attention spans change. So what worked yesterday might not work today or tomorrow. And so what happens is that we get a little desperate, and people think that Marketing salespeople are just out to get them. They only care about closing the deal, and I get it when somebody—I get a little wiggy when somebody who I don't know, who I just met, gets a little too friendly, too anxious to have a discussion, too anxious to close. So either they know me and have heard enough about me that they want to engage, or. Uh, they have an ulterior motive, which is to sell me something. So I would say to that, maybe don't sell, just focus on showing. And I don't mean just show them the product, which is you have to do anyway, but show them what their success looks like. You want to make success visible. And obtainable for them, and you want to make your expertise visible and want them—they want to engage with your expertise. So that way, you let somebody come to their own conclusion. They've done their own research. That's honestly, unless it's an impulse buy, that's the way that buying happens—is anything of true value. will have people going and doing their own research and figuring out whether or not they want that thing, particularly nowadays where it's all actually available, that kind of research. And you are part of— they know where to look whether or not something is viable. But what you want to get to the point where somebody is just clamoring for what you're offering. Because they believe in it, because they think it's going to work for them. So Dave's got a follow-up. One major issue with marketing is that it's such a broad topic and so many aspects to consider can be overwhelming. Yeah, and again, it goes back to figuring out There's a lot of data, right? There's a lot of data in what you're doing. If you are collecting that data, then it's about tweaking it here and there. I'll use a— I'll use a sports metaphor because I just love them, because they're complicated machines. A sports team is a complicated machine. Let's say you've got a baseball team and they are That's 9 people technically, right? Plus reserve players. That's 9 people who have to play, uh, who have to start, and then you switch in components, people, as you need to based on the situation. Um, each of the— each person has their own uniqueness. And so the you have to understand that you cannot just like blow up the team every time and and hope to like get anything meaningfully make any kind of meaningful progress because let's say you you so you so you have your team. You got your 9 players, first game out, you lose. Yeah, you're beaten badly. So what do you do? Do you just like fire everybody immediately after one game? No, you have to take it piece by piece. Where, where's the value of what you're doing? Where does it work? Use that as your anchor point. Use that as a foundation and then figure out the places where you can tweak and modify and change so that those things get better and see how the next game plays out because you have, you know, 165 games to play. That's kind of like what marketing is. If you do it right. This is why though, like a one-shot, somebody coming in and saying, hey, for, you know, $5,000 a month, we're gonna run these campaigns for you and you're gonna be, you're gonna be so awesome at the end. It's like, okay, that might be true, but if you haven't solved the backend, if you, if your sales process, your sales engagement, your, your experience is poor, it doesn't matter how many people you're going to send in. They will burn. They'll burn through. And then you're just paying somebody to bring people in, but they're not actually achieving anything. So you have to figure out if you can— if your model is scalable. The only way to figure that out is when people do come in, have you optimized to a point where it makes sense that you spend a little bit more to bring people in. Um, so if you have a 1% conversion, like I said, that's pretty good industry standard. But what if you got to 1.5%? Then you could maybe spend a little less on the, the top end, uh, just to bring people in. And all of it is experiential, so you're constantly looking at the whole cycle of like how you talk to somebody. It is incredibly complicated, and it's why either you need help to do it or you need to be okay with making incremental improvements on your own as a small business owner. Great question. Great comment. I'm going to shorten this a little bit because I have to take a kid to the ortho. So I'll close with this. And by the way, this was only about half the responses that I got. So I'm going to do another one, hopefully. Maybe even before next week, before next Thursday. So because I want to cover more, and there's more than I— there's definitely more to say about this topic. So thank you for chiming in. If you want to send more or you have other questions, go ahead and email me at the address below. And I hate saying it because it feels cringy, but like, like, subscribe, share, let others find this. I love doing it. Okay, so here are some final thoughts for today. Until next time, rather than thinking about it as marketing, focus on your differentiation and think like a journalist. So you're not going to try and be everything to everyone. Instead, you want to hone in on your absolute strengths. And as a business, that means really clarifying what you're good at in terms of value, and then you play that card. This is— you're gonna hook— as, as long as it's unique enough that somebody sees it and they understand it. That's the card you lead with because they don't have an expanse for much else. And then you make it a part of your brand story so that that builds that trust and have a whole thing on brand affinity if you want. And then in terms of acting like a journalist, it means instead of like walking in with the sale, strategy, just start asking questions. Start to really understand who the customer is. If you don't know who your customer is, that's even more important to do, to figure out what, you know, ask them what's going to work for you. Uh, and as a journalist, you know, what is a journalist's goal? Is to report the news? Yeah, but also they were looking for truth. And truth is the biggest issue with marketing that doesn't work. People don't trust marketing. That's why. It's because we're very cagey about revealing too much truth. And there's a, there's a way to do it, a very nuanced way to do it. But if you can help them find truth, And what they're looking for and what you offer, it's huge, right? That's where you can have the meeting of the minds. So you want to connect with the buyer at their level and be ready to offer yourself up when they need it. I often will go into a client engagement where I'll say I don't have every answer or even the right answer. But I'm gonna have to figure out what this person really needs. And it's being investigative about that. It's testing it with the Socratic method. It's going in and figuring out how, you know, how they run their business and what do they want to get out of it and what looks like real value to them. Um, the more I do that Just my curiosity becomes a point of connection with, with the buyer, with the client. And it's really important that you establish that because that again becomes another foundation. Trust as a foundation to marketing, so much better, so much easier. You know, if you are sending an email out and the email is— let's say you're sending a mass email out. The email is a val— but if the email is of value to your target, like it's something that they want to save in their inbox because deleting it means they lose that bit of information, wow, that is value. And you know, if it's— however, if it's just a promo email that says Hey, buy these new shoes. Okay, not right now, thank you. But if it's here's how to get the most out of these shoes since you're interested in pickleball, okay. Or here's a here's an offer that's going to expire in the next five days, and I know you've been looking at this other. Set of pair of shoes, and you know, this is how much you would save right now if you bought those shoes. Okay, that's guidance, and it's valuable. Is it still kind of intrusive? Of course, all marketing is intrusive, but it's intrusion with a sense of, I care about you, I have— I want you to have this, and Because it makes you better. And if you can approach it with that mindset, that's not cringe, that's being useful. And marketing with an ethical standard is extremely useful for everyone because of how well marketing connects people to a solution. So I'll leave it at that so that I can get a kid to The Orthodontist, thanks for tuning in. Uh, I, I want to keep doing this, so please let me know if I'm doing the thing that you want me to do. Thank you.