The other day my husband asked me if I have noticed how my communications and marketing skills are impacting my company moving forward?
Indeed, a lot of progress I am making in my business is because I have a communications background and every day, marketing is on top of my mind. I have chosen to put that up front and centre in my business.
Frankly, you should too.
The more you market, the more clients you get and more money you make. Makes sense, right?
So how many hours do you market per day? You read that right. How many HOURS per day do you market? What would happen if you doubled the time? I bet you will see the results in your bottom line. As a small business owner, you should market at least two hours per day. I say two hours because it will give you a baseline to work with. If you are not currently engaged in the act of marketing two hours per day, it means you are either:
1) Serving your current clients every minute of the day, which leaves you no room to acquire new clients, and you are not taking care of the longevity of your business.
OR
2) You are wasting time doing something that won't bring you clients and make you more money.
Which one is it?
If you are marketing two hours per day, are you really? I am just saying, that staring at your Facebook feed is not called marketing. That, too, is called a waste of time.
Be honest. If you look back about two weeks in social media, have you been
If your answer is A, it means you are more likely to spend time/money/resources than to make money. This strategy will not bring the results you are looking for, and it is time to switch gears towards content creating role.
If you have been B. and not getting the results you need, it’s time to revise your approach and even re-visit your social media plan - if you have one.
It is so easy to trick yourself to think you are working when you are actually just consuming other people's content.
It is not that you don't know what you would like to achieve. You are probably like the most of us and already gotten your feet wet in the social media, so you do have a good understanding of what you would like to see happen after creating and publishing content.
So, consider this for a moment. In my business, marketing is far from perfect, but as a company offering marketing and Social Media services, I have put thought into many aspects of my marketing and very few things happen randomly. Most of the things happen the way they do because I have actively chosen that. When something rash and unplanned happens, it typically happens because one of these things take place:
- I don't follow the plan
- I haven't planned it
- I get excited about something and just go with the flow.
These situations are also where the most "mistakes" happen. With me, they are typically in time management. Something planned doesn't get done, because I have gone off tangent to do something else on a whim. So, I want to ask you, where does your marketing go wrong? Where is the weak link of your marketing?
Here is something you might not know about my business:
A majority of my marketing happens somewhere else besides my Facebook page or Instagram feed. Yes. That is true.
If you have only recently gotten to know me, you might also not know, that I have only grown my coaching arm to my business in past few years and for a decade I have served clients in branding, creating business strategies, facilitating and training them in marketing and communications.
So, I have a lot of questions for you to think about today. By answering them, you might find yourself in more clarity over what you need to put into your business-engine to get more out of it.
Do you know how to create a communications and marketing plan for your business?
Do you have a template or a framework you use when you plan your marketing and communications?
Or, (hand to your heart) do you plan that at all?
The basic understanding of the marketing and communications in your business is to know how to create - not only an action plan - but a strategic plan as well. It is a skill you will need all the time. No matter what the situation, you can always turn the money wheel on, you can create more and get more clients when you have mastered this skill. And then obviously you have to put that skill to use and EXECUTE the plan.
Have you thought of what is the best communications channel for you to market your business? As I completely understand the importance of Social Media and always encourage business owners to boldly go in, there is a multitude of other ways to market as well. The ways that may suit to your clients and to you better.
When I train or consult my clients on marketing (before we speak a word about Social Media), we dive deep in:
- Your values and why and business goals derived from that.
- Your core messages, to bring these to light is one of my superpowers.
- Target group / ideal client
- Communications channels in use (and the ones that are useless)
- Communications knowledge, resources and man-hours available
- How to measure your marketing success
There are so many relevant measures of success in addition to the money you are making, are you sure you are measuring the right thing?
In all greatness, social media does not solve all of your marketing and communications needs. There has to be a foundation you build for your marketing, or otherwise, they will be just random acts that you hope will stick. These are the moments which entrepreneurs describe "hearing only crickets".
So marching order is to begin by building a foundation for your company communications so that you can then build on that. The bonus benefit is that then social media doesn't feel like a big overwhelming task, but a natural next step.
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