Episode 048 - The Mistakes You May Be Making

Talking about your brand personality and actually imagining your brand or your company as a person, and you know, what would they act like? What would they, you know, what would their emotions be? Hobbies? Like all those little silly things that don't seem that important are actually huge in determining your target audience.

Alright, it's episode 48, and today we're going to talk about making mistakes. We all make mistakes, right?

Yes, of course.

Daily almost, I do. But we want to talk more specifically about those mistakes that people may be making that they're not aware of, they're not consciously doing it, but if you keep doing it over time, it's going to have a bigger compounding effect on your business. So that's what we want to talk about. We each came up with a challenge of, you know, 2 to 3, and Miss Overachiever here on the other microphone came up with more than 3, and I came up with 7.

So, okay, it's a competition now.

So I'll go first, and then I'll explain a bit more of each topic. So kind of play that game.

All right.

So I think one of the things that a lot of people tend to not even do, not necessarily, you know, making a mistake by doing it differently, but just don't do it, is not defining their customer. Not defining what their motivations are, not defining who they are, or even, you know, what they want. You know, a lot of times we focus a lot on, you know, the product or the service, but we don't really focus on what that product and service does for the person. So are you eliminating a pain? Are you, you know, giving them something to enhance their life? You know, and kind of that, that emotional and that feel part of it. Would you agree?

Oh, absolutely. That was actually one of mine. So I see why you wanted to go first.

One point for me.

But yeah, I think even exercises that I did in my marketing classes, as simple as talking about your brand personality and actually imagining your brand or your company as a person, and what would they act like, what would their emotions be, hobbies, all those little silly things that don't seem that important are actually huge in determining your target audience, right? 'Cause you wanna see what, your brand is compatible with and go after those type of people.

And if you ever had the opportunity to sit in with a, you know, a developed sales team, they've gone through the process of developing what, you know, they could be called personas or avatars. And while that seems kind of, you know, cartoony or fun, it actually, you know, is a really good tool for them because what they've done is they've figured out the different personas, the different types of people that they may encounter that they're selling to. And each of them have different objections, different parts of their life. So a proper sales team knows how to overcome those things when they run into a Sally salesperson or a Johnny, whatever you want to give them the name, right? And they're always a fun name. But there's a lot of research that's gone into that. Yeah, absolutely. You may not get to that level in a small business, but maybe just defining who your customer is if you just give them that kind of that grouping and go after them. You'll obviously have outliers that go outside that definition, but the core group of people, you should have an understanding.

[Speaker] Yeah, definitely, and I mean, you know, at the end of the day, all business owners know that at the center of their business, the core of their business is their target audience and their customers and their clients. So having that information isn't enough too. Like, you wanna have documentation of that as well, which a lot of business owners will skip, I think, because, everything's in their head, so why would they have to write it down? But just being able to put that down on paper or have a set document and being able to, like, when you're coming up with a marketing strategy or social strategy, refer back to that and think, okay, well, I know that a lot of my clients or my target audience has this personality trait, so how do I play off that? How do I target that? Just having it written down is a good place to start and then be able to kind of include it in everything that you're doing.

Absolutely. What's yours?

Oh God. All right. So I think a lot of times what I see with clients, whether they actually turn into clients or they're just a prospect, is their mindset about marketing. So they'll think of marketing as an expense versus as an investment, which, you know, so when the budget gets tight, you think about COVID you know, obviously a lot of businesses really struggle, the first thing that they'll cut is their marketing expenses, when really, you know, that's an investment. So if you're dropping in sales and you cut your marketing budget, it's just gonna make it worse, you know, like you're, you're taking away the opportunity and the potential clients in the future when you cut back on your budget.

Absolutely, and I think one thing to that would be, you know, let's say you're spending, you know, $2,000 a month and you've got that broken over different avenues. Maybe you're not going to necessarily say I'm going to bring it down to $1,000 or $500, but we're going to look at that $2,000 and say, can we reallocate something? So if you're tracking your results, you know that you're not getting as good of leads from one type of advertising. Maybe you're going to take that $500 from there and move it over to, you know, social or Google or, you know, radio or whatever that method is that's actually giving you better leads, um, so that you're actually still doing that. Um, you know, you're still using the same amount, but you're technically going to get better results with that. Which kind of leads into one of my ideas here was, you know, people not tracking the results, right? So, you know, we spend time coming up with ideas and running experiments and putting ads out there, but you'd be surprised how many people don't even track if it's giving them a return, right? I mean, there's so few businesses that even know, you know, what type of traffic's coming to their website, right? It was a very high-level, you know, metric you can track. But even every time the phone rings, right? We talked about this multiple times in previous episodes, you know, ask where people are coming from, uh, you know, when they come into your store, like, you know, what brought you here, right? You know, don't just like nail them at the door and like kind of scare them, but you know, it comes up very easily in conversation, um, that's there. And see, is your, you is your effort giving you a result?

Yeah, and I mean, on top of that too, we'll come across clients that have been like, oh, I've tried this, I've tried this, I've tried this, and you know, we're like, okay, where's the numbers, right? So it's like, you have to, there's no point in trying everything or experimenting if you don't have that data saved somewhere or that information or the metrics, you know, 'cause in order to improve, you have to know how you're doing currently or how one thing is performing.

You know, and let's just give this example is, let's say you have a gift shop and you're running a localized sale, right? And you create your sale, you run it on Facebook, you boost it out, so you're doing Facebook advertising for this sale. And you're stuck on looking at, oh, how many people liked it, commented, or shared, and you said it's not working. But you're never asking if they come in because people don't have to like, comment, or share to come into your store. So if you don't ask them, hey, oh, I saw this sale on Facebook, then you will think just looking at those vanity metrics that it's not working.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, hit me with your next one.

All right, so kind of in, in addition to yours with the metrics and the results side of things, I think a lot of business owners will be stuck in the mindset of wanting instant marketing results. And so they expect that after either they hire an agency or put ads out themselves, they want to see that return right away. And if they don't get it, they'll give up on that thing or that strategy. But it takes a long time to start to see results in any type of marketing that you do. There are types of marketing that will have a quicker return, but there's a lot of trial and error as well and experimentation that has to go into it. So you have to be realistic with the timeline and you can't give up right away and cut your budget down because that one thing that you had budgeted for isn't working. You have to be patient with marketing results.

Yeah, one of the previous episodes we did, we talked a bit more about testing and running different tests and You know, one of the things that I see a lot of times is a lack of consistency. So, you know, and by that it just means that, you know, let's say you're, you know, you're investing in marketing, you try something like it does not working. So I'm going to abandon all that and I'll go, go somewhere else. And what you're doing is you're changing your entire marketing scope multiple times. So you don't have a consistent element. So what you need to do is you need to take a portion and just test a portion of what you're doing in different places, but have that level of consistency happening there. So if you're putting out blog posts, you're doing a podcast or anything like that, have a consistent amount of content coming out, but then try your kind of like your, your wild ideas, right? You know, not really change the focus all the time. Yeah, right. And you know, the branding, you know, how many times people have a logo or don't even know where their logo files are, um, and you know, they, they're advertising in different places and the colors aren't the same, or even they say, oh, you know, I don't have the file So just make something up, right? And I've actually heard that before. You know, they have a brand, they don't know where the file is to send it to you when you're running an ad, so they just make something up, right? Just go with that, right? That is not a test, that is laziness.

Yeah. Even worse, I've come across brands who have not had a logo, which is, you know, you think the first thing that would, you know, come along in terms of visuals with your brand, and people definitely underestimate the importance of consistency in any marketing strategy, whether that be social or paid, whatever it might be. And I mean, one of my tips for this is having written documentation of things, right? Like writing stuff down, you'll be surprised how much it can have an impact on consistency and being organized and staying up to date. Because like you mentioned, a lot of times it really is just laziness or being unorganized that causes you to be inconsistent.

And if you don't have a logo and you're listening to this, I mean, it doesn't mean you have to hire a design agency and spend thousands of dollars. I mean, go to a site like, like 99designs or designcrowd.ca and it's about $250 and you'll have designers all over the world that'll actually, you know, do designs for you. You get to pick the one you want. Now here's the key part is when you do that, you get a logo package. Which gives you like all the different formats, but most importantly is a file format called EPS, which is called a vector format. And any other advertiser design, if you want signs made, will need that file. So you need to have a version of that file somewhere. So if you don't have that and you don't have a logo, you should at least go and do that. Doesn't mean you can't evolve it over time, but you'll get something that will, will start to build that foundation for you. You know, when you get to put in kind of like the feel of the type of logos, what you're trying to get across to your, your audience in the brand, and they will give you amazing designs. We've used it before for clients, very inexpensive. So there's a little tip for that. I don't know, did I give one? I kind of rolled one of mine into yours.

Yes, you did.

All right, I'll give you the next one.

Oh, oh, okay, okay. I thought you meant you're gonna give me the next one, and I was waiting for it. Okay, so my next one is when people will have no idea what their competition is doing for marketing. And you know, that's not to say that you need to, you know, be tracking them 24/7, but having a general idea of what their strategy is and finding the gaps and holes in that and also finding the things that are working really well for them and finding your own version of that. You know, because you need a good balance of being able to, you know, compare to competitors, but also being able to stand out.

Yeah, and, you know, a lot of times, you know, when you're looking at researching ideas you have, your competition is obviously a good place to go and look at first. And one of my points is there's sometimes too much experimenting without the research element. What I'm saying by that is don't limit you like coming up with ideas. It's like, okay, we're gonna try, you know, one of our ideas that we wanna do here, or that I wanna do in the fall, is do, you know, marketing in the park, which is getting out in an open-air space where people can socially distant, you know, and do some marketing discussions with small business owners. And I've had this idea for a while. But if I was coming up with all these ideas and I was like, okay, this is what we're gonna do, let's just do it, without actually seeing is it viable, and that's where the research side comes in, is, is there a need for it? Would somebody come to it? And by doing that, you can actually check, take micro segments of your audience and say, okay, let's, let's take some clients that have already worked with and said, hey, here's an idea, what do you think about it? Right? And then you're kind of using them as a, you know, like a more of a focus group to get an idea. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I mean, going along with that too, A problem clients of mine have faced has been too many ideas, right? So, and you know, we never want to discourage that, but at the same time, you need to have, you need to kind of hone it in at some point and really find your focus and run with that. And I know it can be scary to let go of certain things or certain elements that aren't working for you, but you really do have to narrow in at some point. You know, that kind of ties in the consistency aspect as well and clearly defining your target audience. Like, you need to be able to have that clear direction because the last thing you want is to be all over the place and confusing customers and, you know, you're gonna lose business that way.

Yeah, just open up a document, write them all out. You don't want to keep them in your head and have that fear of losing them because they may be great ideas that are there, but then look at them whether it's yourself or with, you know, a couple team members and start to put some impact filtering in there and saying, you know, for one, is this on brand? Would it confuse people if we did this? You know, if it fails horribly, how much of a negative impact is that going to be on the business? Is it going to cost us a lot to get up and running? How much time is it going to take? And then start to really sort it by, by that, and you'll start to see which ones are probably worth taking the risk to try, because if it works you know, then the benefit's going to be, you know, greater than if it, you know, it failed, right? So you're kind of balancing it out, but until you get them all down and have, you know, multiple eyes at it, it's hard to really see if it's going to work or not for your business.

Yeah, definitely. And I mean, rarely do you come up with an idea and exactly as you imagine it in that moment, that's how it turns out, right? Like, there's a lot of adapting and changes that you have to make to an idea to you know, make it compatible with your business and with your target audience. And so just having that document and being able to look back at it anytime you want, but also just making sure that it's, you know, on brand and feasible for your company.

Excellent. And my last one is people just focusing solely on digital, right? And I think there's a kind of a— this line in the sand that people draw behind Advertising, which they focus on, okay, it's the radio, it's the newspaper, it's flyers, it's all that kind of stuff, and then digital marketing where they're like, okay, that's my Facebook, that's my website. When you gotta look at it all as marketing as a whole. So for your business, if your main point of contact is a phone, then have your digital marketing speak to that, right? Direct mail, your mailouts, which, you know, right now coming out of this pandemic, people are going to be more open to, to getting stuff in the mail. I mean, the amount of mail that I get now is considerably less than 18 months ago because people just kind of cut back on it, right? They went all digital because they started to, to move their business online. So they figured that's how people wanted to be communicated with. And I think there was a huge opportunity missed by actually turning that up when times when people are in front of the screen, using those kind of reversing it. I mean, going there. So, looking at what are you doing online. So, if you've, you know, you launch a podcast, maybe use, you know, direct mail in your local area or businesses and send them a postcard and say, "Hey, you know, we're a local business. We started this great podcast for helping," you know, whatever. Whatever it is in your market. So, you know, think outside the box that way.

Yeah, for sure. Alright. And my last one is business owners who don't research marketing themselves. So, you know, you can be— you can plan on hiring an agency for social, whatever it might be, but if you don't know at least a little bit of, you know, a marketing background, then you can't do that well. And, you know, a lot of times I'll see people who just want to completely outsource their marketing, but If you want authenticity and you want it to be, you know, very effective and clearly, you know, encompass what your brand and your company is, then you need to have at least some small part in that.

Yeah, think about it as, you know, your business is your child, right? You're not gonna— when the child's born, you're not gonna be like, I'm gonna find somebody to raise them. You take them and when they're 18, you bring them back to me and then I can feel proud. Right? Nobody in their right mind would do that. Right? And that's really what people would be doing if they're saying, hey, I'm going to outsource all my marketing. I just want to be hands-off. I want to be kind of silent in it and you just grow my business. Right? And for us as an agency, we don't want that either. Like, we don't want to just be like, okay, we will do everything and have no input because for one, the tone and the authenticity is going to be way off. Right? We are not you. We cannot speak like you. We can try to be close, but people are smart. They're going to realize that it's not you, right? Even in the way that the content's going out. So it's a good way to use an agency for that underlying kind of consistent elements that's there. But you still need to, in my opinion, have hands-on at some extent into your marketing and your social content that's out there.

Yeah, definitely. And I mean, on top of that, having absolutely no education, whether that's even just self-guided on Google, looking up what you need to know about marketing your business. If you don't have any of that, you're probably going to make poor hiring decisions too, because you'll easily fall into that trap of the false promises, right? That some agencies will say, oh, results in a week, or You know, just those false promises and, you know, their way of standing out is just lying to clients. You know, it's very easy to fall victim to that if you don't have that background and you don't know any better. And it's also really easy to lose hope and hire— or sorry, and fire an agency or, you know, an individual who isn't getting you results right away. Because you expect that.

So I mean, like, like right to that point, if you are thinking, you know, I don't understand marketing, I don't feel that I understand marketing, you know, as little as just going on YouTube and typing in, you know, what do I need to know about marketing in 2021, right, in the current year we're in, there will be videos where other marketing agencies will sit there and they'll educate you and give you ideas of here's what's, what's new, here's this, or even, you know, what do I need to know about Facebook for to market my business, right? There's content out there, there's millions of results that will come up, right? Doesn't mean you need to get a PhD in this, right? But just consuming some content to just feel that, okay, I have a basis understanding. I'm not an expert, but I have a basic understanding of what, what Jodi's talking about when we go over our social media.

And even if you're not quite at the point where you can hire an agency or like truly invest as much as you want to be in your marketing, marketing agencies have a lot of free resources out there. You know, like we have our YouTube channel, we have this podcast, you know, we have our blog. Like even if you just look up agencies near you and go on the website and just see what kind of snippets you can find of information that might help you, that can be really beneficial as well.

Yeah, you know, and One thing that we try to do is make ourselves accessible to people. So if a prospect called and said, hey, you know what, I don't have thousands of dollars a month to hire somebody to do it, but I really wanna have somebody that I can ask some questions to. Is that something you're open to? Yeah, for a couple hundred dollars a month. And if you can't invest that in your business, I'd question why you're in business. To be able to say, one hour a month, to have a call with us and say, hey, let's see what you're doing, right? More on a consulting side, right? Very easy to have that kind of opportunity. So yeah, that was our list of 2 to 3, but hopefully you found some value in that. And if you're making those mistakes, don't feel bad about yourself. You know, it happens all the time, but just be aware of what's going on there. And if you have confusion, feel free to ask questions anytime, and we're here as well. You can find us online at bluecowmarketing.ca, and as well as all the social channels under the exact same name.