Tag: strategy

Why Do So Many People Struggle With Marketing?

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Let’s face facts; so many business owners and managers, and the self-employed, really struggle with marketing. And that’s to be expected. The good news is that it doesn’t need to be like this

There are three simple reasons why I believe this happens.

1) So many businesses, a much larger proportion than you might expect, actually don’t do any proactive marketing at all. They may benefit from a form of reflective marketing, where they have a foothold or reputation in the market but they don’t really control or influence it.

This is a bad thing in many ways, because they can’t improve it or enlarge it, but even more dangerous is that they can’t recover it should it start to decline. I’ve seen this happen a lot of the past few years. Especially as there has been a declining market in many sectors.

2) The second reason is that many businesses spend money on marketing ideas and actions without really knowing why or doing this as part of a plan. In truth, a large proportion of money in marketing is spent on ideas that are sold to business owners. They weren’t part of a thought-out process.

This is also a big problem, as it seems to suggest that marketing is just pot luck; keep buying ideas until one or two of them become successful. Yes, it’s true that marketing is a lot about trial and error but you still need to have a process to follow in doing this efficiently.

3) And the last reason is very specific. This is because the focus of the marketing is completely on the wrong thing. All too often business people focus on product and price, mistakenly believing that this is where they need to concentrate. It’s not.

I believe that marketing is an inside-out job. Before you can start promoting your products or services you need to focus marketing who you are and what you’re all about. People buy from people, no matter how big the company is. They want, above all, to feel a sense of trust, confidence and comfort. Then they are able to consider what value you have to offer.

This last of the three points is the one that will really help you to re-calibrate your whole approach to marketing and the way you design your business. So I encourage you learn more about this.

You can read my blog on this – “Are you focusing on completely the wrong thing in your marketing?”, where I explain one of the most powerful business concepts I’ve learned over the past two decades.

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By Nial Adams
of Make Marketing Work

Is Your Social Media A King Rocket Or A Fizzy Sparkler?

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Does your social media activity propel your business onwards and upwards? If so then you’ve definitely got a King Rocket with bonfire juice, on course towards your goal.

If it’s not getting off the ground then you might have a fizzy sparkler. This type of social media takes a while to get going then soon fizzles out after a shaky start.

Many businesses now understand that social media isn’t a fad that they thought would soon go away, 20 years later it’s still here and it’s maturing.

For many businesses though there’s still no ROI and why is that?

They’ve opened up a Linkedin account, done some tweeting and even started a facebook page, why haven’t they got customers banging on their doors to purchase products?

What’s missing is a strategy, there’s no point in opening loads of social media accounts, not understanding why you’ve done it and then moaning it doesn’t work.

Know what you want to achieve

Before you go off wasting time on every social media platform, take a minute or two to think. What would you like to achieve? More website traffic, more weekly appointments, more event bookings, more sales of the pink pyjama gift set. Once you’re clear about that then quantify, so how much website traffic do you want?  How many pyjama sets do you want to sell?  How many events do you need to book per month?

What tactics & why?

Tactics as in what social media? Say you choose Facebook, ask yourself why are you choosing Facebook and what is it you’re going to be doing on Facebook? Is your target market there? If they’re not there why are you choosing to use it? Perhaps holding webinars would be one of your tactics, or putting out podcasts, perhaps it’s being a regular voice in the business groups on Linkedin

Choose a destination

You know what it is you want to achieve & what social media tactics to use, then ask yourself where am I taking these people I’ve now collected? Think of yourself as the pied Piper, you’ve now got a community of people following you, liking your business, listening to your podcasts, connecting with you, even watching your videos on youtube. Where would you ideally like them to go once they’ve done all of that? All of these people need to be signposted somewhere, if you don’t know how do you expect them to know? This is where most people fail, they send them to the home page of their website which has no relevance to the conversation that just happened on Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or where ever. It confuses your follower, they click off & there you go, you’ve probably lost them for good.  Where would you like these people to congregate? On your latest blog post? A particular page on your website, a stand alone landing page ( a squeeze page), a careers page or a competition page.

What’s the CTA

Now you have them on the right page, what would you like them to do? What’s the CALL TO ACTION?  You have to tell them or they won’t know. Do you want them to comment on your blog post? Tell them! Do you want them to enter their details? Tell them! Do you want them to sign up for a trial? Tell them!

I think you get the picture, unless there’s clear instructions then for many people they won’t do anything.

Now you’ve read this ACT on it

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By Julie Bishop
Founder of JobHop    Founder of Specialist Social Media
Instructor for Love Social Media    Find Julie on Google+