February 2025

I did not have a title for this month's edition. Mainly due to the topics and thoughts are a mix or at least they were until I started writing and found they all linked back together. A mix of what I am finding with clients and seeing with our Alumni and in our webinars. The situation for small businesses is tough today. I know it has always being tough but it feels a little tougher these days.

So this newsletter is a way to understand why you need a strategy built on your target customers' needs and how they buy. Shows you that they do not need to know you to buy now. You do not need to keep having new ad creatives to get their attention. And you can have a communication platform that you control 100% at the centre of our business.

Never before had we so many distractions. Both our clients and ourselves as business owners. How to get client attention is as difficult as ever, I would say probably more difficult as peoples' attention spans have reduced while at the same time there are more things demanding our attention.

While at the same time as a business owner you are being distracted by new tools and offers to make your business better. Only to then be disappointed that they don't work or they take a lot of work to make work. Then there is AI. A lot of hype and some reality, some of it virtual.

And this month I also completed the analysis of the Digital Scorecards undertake for the past 3 years. They do not make for good reading. It is clear that small businesses need help. But what is not clear is where they can get this help. I said it before and I will say it again, there is a lot of help for start-ups and a lot of help for large businesses. But for the backbone of the economy there is little. I now conclude it is because those in charge do not understand it, have not experienced it and do not know how to help.

So I am focusing on 3 things this month that I know work and can help.

Email

Email is one of the best sales channels you can have in your business. It is one that you fully control. Social media may be great but you do not control who sees you, it has a filter that you do not control.

I like to see email in all 3 parts of a sales pipeline.

Lead generation - using email as a way to get new people on your list. This does not mean buying a list and emailing people. It means having an attractive reason for someone join your email list.

As I say, no one wants to join a newsletter. But if you have a reason for your future clients to sign-up they will. I shared a good example of a membership recently that is advertised right now for both business clients and consumers. It is "sold" as a free membership with benefits for clients.

I also have another that is for consumer facing businesses. It is all about releasing new products and offers. Signing up to get early access works, just consider Supreme for a second and many others that are less well known.

But both of these do take some time and work to put in place. They usually also mean mistakes until you get it right. But both are good alternatives to grow your email list. I will cover this in some detail at the next Alumni on 20th February, join from this page.

Advertising

One of the things many struggle with is making advertising work commercially. We have found a few things really matter.

Strategy - what to advertise. Many spend too little time on this as they feel it is obvious. I find it is neither obvious or easy. The 2 things that dominate:

• what is of value to your clients
• what is effective and sustainable for your business

We tend to find that agencies today do not go through the strategy phase. Many reasons for this including clients not wanting it or paying for it. We see e-commerce companies continue to advertise item by item and keep running this hamster wheel. The one that is winning is the advertising platform, just look at their results and compare that to the leading e-commerce businesses not to mention the average business.

To be known - helps. But it is not essential. The key is to decide what mode you are operating in and align to that. You can sell to people that you do not know and that do not know you. It can be seen as harder by some but it just means you focus on a good offer. To build a brand and be known is not an easy option either.

Selling to those that know you and those that don't are not mutually exclusive. The best result is to combine the 2. But it is easier to consider both individually first and then combine for your business. Two options and many in between:

• Going for known means a lot of focus on standing out and what can be called branding. It does not mean it has to be branding. It can be what you stand for and that leads to branding. Then when known you have offers for clients to buy or they seek you out as the leader. The latter here is very hard to achieve in scale but not impossible. This is often done as a 2-stage advertising campaign.
• Going for the sale means a focus on offers that your target market wants to buy. The right offer to the right audience at the right time works, without knowing you. It is also in that order as a good offer is the vital part, followed very closely by target as the offer is tailored to the target. Timing really helps but is less decisive than the offer.

Remember these are not mutually exclusive. And the best businesses will combine the two as there is no conflict between selling now and branding, despite what some "marketeers" and "experts" may say.

Standing out

How do your clients get to know you and your business?

This is something that gets too little attention. We often spend time working out how to get attention but little on having a game plan beyond a social post. The game plan is where we can win. Winning in a tough market is all about:

• Consistency of message and target market
• Recency of target clients seeing our message
• Frequency of our target market seeing our message

All these are related and rely on one thing.

Your message.

This drives your sales as it engages your clients and makes your advertising engaging. Yet few spend time or attention on it. It is with that in mind that I found some research this month to be fascinating.

If you listen to agencies they will tell you to get more creatives. This is valid for many, especially those that lack strategy. You can as a consumer or business facing business focus on advertising one thing and do so for years. As the finding says;

Let them wear in.

But this works with a strategy to make it work. No one is suggesting you keep advertising the 2020 washing machine in 2025! But a guide to best washing machine can be advertised consistently. And to be know as the company that knows which is the best washing machine is not a bad thing for those selling washing machines. You get the point.

And so we are back to the start. How to get future customers interested in you and to let you know they are interested, whether they know you or not.

The answer is strategy.

A strategy built on our target customers' needs and how they buy. They do not need to know us to buy now. We do not need to keep having new ad creatives to get their attention. And we can have a communication platform that we control 100% at the centre of our business.

It does not just happen.

We need to put time and effort into designing our businesses. But the work is rewarded by having a sales pipeline of target clients. By having clients buy from us rather than we always chasing sales.

Need help?

If you need help with any of this just reach out. This is what we work with and have worked with for years. Marketing is not an add on. Marketing is something that all successful businesses are in the business of doing. We can help you to find your way and empower you to build your sales pipeline with a business design to suit you and your clients.

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