Show Me The Marketing

I have a friend who loves to talk about his future products.

He can spend hours strategizing what goes into various offers, how much to charge, etc.

I can't blame him. I used to be like this.

There's something incredibly fun for an entrepreneur to mentally plan out what you are going to sell.

It's a form of creation, and it is important.

You need to have something to sell.

No offer = no business.

The risk is you get caught up in the 'fun stuff' that doesn't address a more important question...

How will you get customers?

What's your growth strategy?

My friend is not the only one who has this product creation fixation.

I've lost track of the number of times I've had to ask my clients -- what did you do to attract leads?

They start the conversation talking about their landing page or website, free lead magnets, their offer, pricing, future plans for next level products...

...and then complain how it's been months with no sales!

I ask them to share data.

How many visitors to the website? How many email list opt-ins? Visits to the sales page?

The numbers rarely look good, if they have them at all.

I then point out the obvious:

If you spend all this energy on your offers and none on attracting people to the offers, you will never get sales.

Even successful entrepreneurs can fall into this trap.

I remember when I was planning products for my education business.

I'd already made hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I had customers. I wasn't a beginner.

Yet I spent so much mental energy on my 'sales funnel', front end and back end offers, that I barely considered the marketing that would bring people through this sales process.

Why was I so blasé about marketing?

Because I just assumed my audience would always be there.

I had a website bringing in traffic every day.

I had an email list in the tens of thousands of subscribers.

To a certain extent I wasn't wrong.

For many years I continued to make money, but I always hit a ceiling.

I grew frustrated that I couldn't break through to a new income level.

Looking back the reason was obvious.

I just kept doing the same thing to attract customers. Writing articles, newsletters, releasing podcast episodes and occasional videos and social content.

While I was stagnant, the rest of the market was changing and growing.

I was far more interested in creating content than I was reaching new audiences.

The result was a plateau followed by a slow decline.

MARKETING NEVER ENDS

Marketing is not a problem you solve and then stop.

It's a function that needs to be constantly built upon.

You can be the main driver of the marketing function, but understand your job will never end.

You will hit a wall of how much you can do by yourself.

Eventually you will burn out or grow interested in other things.

The key is to accept two realities:

1. You will always need to do something new with your marketing.

This could be testing new media for a channel that already works to improve results.

Or, it could be experimenting with a new channel to find new customers.

2. Once a channel does work, start breaking it down into a process others can run for you.

For example, right now LinkedIn ads bring in results for my company.

To improve we need a steady stream of new media - new video ads.

I have video editors already, but I don't have a creative ads lead to drive this function.

This is a role we are filling right now.

With the right person in place, they can guide and manage the creation of ads.

Then they can run tests every week to find new winners.

Once this person is in place, our LinkedIn Ads department could run without me, although I anticipate monitoring everything for a while still.

Hiring a LinkedIn ads growth manager is important because this function is not something I do consistently well.

I've done it well enough to drive us beyond a million dollars a year.

But to break through to a new level, I know we need to get more consistent.

I'm not consistent.

I'm also not focusing all my energy on paid media.

This part of our business deserves consistency and focus.

I'll end this with a question...

What part of your marketing deserves more focus?

What marketing function would benefit from having one individual - not you - in charge?

Let me know by replying, I'd love to hear your response.

Yaro