It can feel negative to focus on mistakes. I’m not here to point out all the things that people get wrong, but if you’re at the beginning of your journey into business, and that also means your journey into marketing your business, I thought it would help to talk about some mistakes to avoid. Even better, to show you what works well instead of doing these things.
Because that’s what marketing’s for, right?
Actually no. That might be your end goal, but marketing is about so much more than that. It’s about building awareness for your brand, developing relationships with potential customers … and f you try to sell all of the time, it’s the quickest way to push them away.
Think of how you react if someone tries to sell you something as soon as you meet them. What does that make you do? In the same way, think about the accounts that you like to follow on social media. Do you follow them for the sales posts or for the value that they give you?
It can be tempting to try to be in all of the places, especially if you see that other people are having good results with a particular platform. But in reality, it’s better to show up consistently on a smaller number of channels than to try and post too many types of different content in too many places.
It gets boring if you talk about exactly the same thing all of the time. People will tune out. It’s good to switch around the type of posts that you create so that you keep things interesting. It’s good to be spontaneous when you feel inspired to share.
But ultimately, the posts on your page need to make sense in terms of the message you want to communicate.
If your page or feed is busy with too many messages, it can become confusing and it dilutes your message. Following on from that, it will be harder for you to convince people to take the next steps in terms of interacting with you – because they don’t really know what you do or how you can help them.
If you think of how you react to adverts, it’s not all the same. Some messages make sense to you. Some have no impact on you. Others probably annoy you. In the case of the last group – either they’re really bad attempts at marketing, or you’re just not the right audience for them.
If you don’t have a clear idea of whom you want to serve, it’s going to be really difficult for you to get into the details of how you can help/solve their problem/give them exactly what they’re looking for.
General messages don’t meet specific needs, and in a busy market with lots of people trying to sell similar products and services, there needs to be a clear reason for people to choose yours so that you will stand out in a good and memorable way.
If you’ve identified that you have a knowledge gap in terms of marketing, and many people do because they’ve come from other fields, you start looking for information.
There is no shortage of advice, videos, books, articles, groups, people offering to fix all your marketing problems and meet all of your needs.
It’s good to be open and to get inspiration from different places, but if you try to implement every piece of advice that you see online, all at the same time, it will end in chaos.
Some of it will be bad advice. But even if you narrow it down to the good advice, trying to implement too many strategies at the same time, whilst not having a clear plan, won’t bring you good results. Also, some strategies might be good, but for other types of businesses, other markets, other content creators.
You need to think about your own very specific needs, what you want to achieve, and the people whom you want to reach.
Mistake 6: Not being consistent
Someone posts 7 posts on one day and then nothing for the next 3 weeks. Anyone who was busy that day won’t see any of it!
Someone else posts content about everything vaguely related to their topic, but with no clear message and no continuity. Who was that person again?
It doesn’t mean that you have to post at exactly the same time on exactly the same day each week. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a holiday, or that you can’t post something a bit random just because you thought it was too good not to share.
But it is important for your audience to know who you are, what they can expect from you, and where to find you if they need what you have to offer.
That’s one of the things with marketing. It doesn’t have a deadline in the same way as an order for a client does. It’s easy to say “I’ll do it later”, but sometimes the right time never comes and the marketing tasks slide further and further down the to-do-list.
But marketing, content creation, developing relationships with your audience – all of these things are vital if you want your business to grow. So it’s in your interest to block time out for them.
This is possibly the biggest mistake. Because if you don’t have a plan, and an idea how you want to implement it, you can’t know where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.
If this all seems a bit daunting and you want someone to guide and support you through the process, let’s arrange a call to discover whether marketing coaching is right for you!
Writing articles is a great way to share knowledge and provide value for your audience.
It gives you a chance to demonstrate what you know. Also, they give you have social media content that can help you to bring traffic back to your site.
Before you even start thinking about writing the article, it’s good to ask yourself the following questions:
If it’s something that doesn’t interest you or that you know nothing about, it will be hard to write a good article! What do you know about and what will add value to your readers?
This is important because if you know this, it will be easier for you to write in a way that is relevant. If you’re writing for professionals in a specific field, you can assume some prior knowledge. But if the topic is new to them, you may need to explain some concepts first.
Also think about whether the article is for your own audience or for someone else’s. If it’s for your audience, you need to write in a way that is consistent with the rest of your content. If it’s for another audience, do you know enough about them?
If you’re explaining how to do something, a structured plan, in which you list out the steps in a logical order, can work well. It is easy for the reader to follow the steps and complete the task.
If you’re giving information, such as tips or advice, a numbered list can work well.
If you want to present an idea, it’s good to introduce it, explore it, and then write a conclusion so that the text flows in a way that makes sense. Do you have reasons to support your idea or argument? Do you want to explore other points of view or possible objections?
If you want to tell a story, what is the point of the story? Why are you sharing it, and what do you want the reader to take away at the end?
Or maybe you want to combine a story with a point of learning.
Whilst it may be tempting to get all of your ideas down as quickly as possible, it can help to plan out the structure first. You might want to write the headings and then fill in the text that goes under each one. This will make it easier to put things in an order that makes sense and to make sure that you haven’t forgotten anything important.
Think about whether you need to do any research before you start to write.
If you are writing a list, what are the points that you want to make? Writing some bullet points first, even if you don’t use them all in the end, will help you to make sure that your ideas are clearly organised and that you don’t repeat yourself.
At some point you will have to do the work and write the article, but this will be easier if you know what it will be about, who the audience is, and how you want to structure it.
If you struggle with writing, try to block out some time in which to write the article. Put the writing time in your diary and try to make sure that you won’t be disturbed.
It’s ok if you don’t like the first draft, but it is easier to work with words on the page than a blank page! So start writing and you can decide later whether you want to keep all of your ideas, whether what you wrote makes sense, and whether anything is missing. You can always delete sentences, move them around, change them or add to them later.
It can be difficult if you’re working to a tight deadline, but you are unlikely to see mistakes or things that don’t make sense if you read the article immediately after you have written it. Where possible, do something else and come back to it later so that you can check it and make sure that everything is as you would like it to be.
Try reading it aloud. This will also help you to spot anything that isn’t quite right, or where your brain was faster than your fingers and you missed out a word or punctuation mark.
You might want to ask someone else to proofread it for you as well.
Your best or most useful article won’t make any difference if nobody knows it exists! So it’s also important to think about what you will do after you publish it. Where will you share the link? How will you encourage other people to read or engage with it? Do you want to start a discussion? If you want people to comment, make sure that you respond. People are less likely to comment a second time if they feel that their first point was ignored.
Often the hardest step is the first one. Hopefully this guide will give you some ideas so that you can take that first step.
Whilst marketing consulting is a field that has had its fair time in the market, marketing coaching is the new kid on the block. Most people understand what training is, but what is marketing training and how is it different from coaching or consulting?
All of these services can be relevant for a company, but it’s important to understand the differences and benefits, especially if you are considering which one might be most useful for you.
Before we dive into the differences between these different marketing services, I have to drop a spoiler: the conclusion will not be that one is better than another. Depending on the needs of the company and of the entrepreneurs, the stage at which the organisation is, and the business dynamic, one might be more suitable at some point than the other.
A good point to start with is to understand each of these services and their processes, to see which working format you resonate with most. Another key aspect would be to decide how involved you want to be and what objectives you want to work on.
I’ve broken the information down into marketing coaching, marketing consultancy, and marketing training so that I can give you a brief overview of each one. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to help or to chat with you about what you want to achieve and the options available to you.
Gaining knowledge about techniques and processes isn’t enough. The best advice fails if it’s not well implemented.
The marketing coaching process is not just about how to sell better, how to have better ads or how to make a marketing plan. It isn’t even all about a company, but about how you can make the most out of every opportunity, about setting yourself up for success, and building your way to reach your goals.
Marketing Coaching is a guided process, formed of one-on-one or group sessions with me. During these meetings, I take you through a carefully managed learning and self-development process that will help you to increase your knowledge and confidence in using marketing tools relevant for your business and coaching objectives. I select tools, exercises and templates that will best help you to improve results and meet your goals.
Marketing coaching is a mix between the marketing process and coaching techniques. This combination allows you, as an entrepreneur, to develop a lasting solution-oriented mindset and to grow solid business pipelines. With support, you will create the materials and be actively involved in designing a marketing strategy that is tailor-made for your business.
Marketing Consulting is focused more on delivering solutions and much less on transferring knowledge. A consultant is a person who delivers a „blueprint” for the whole plan and process to reach the marketing objectives that a company or entrepreneur has chosen. The result of consulting collaboration, besides the plans and other deliverables, is structure and direction for a team that is ready to do the work.
The best way to make a plan for progress is to think about what is going well, what needs to be improved, and what is missing. However, it’s often hard for those directly involved to be completely objective because they are influenced by their past experiences, their views on the processes already in place, or their place in the hierarchy. An external consultant can be a really useful addition to this process because they are not involved and they can help to evaluate the facts with a fresh pair of eyes.
My sole focus is working with you and your team to find solutions, opportunities and resources. I do this by having meetings with multiple representatives and together developing a strategy with deliverables that are Tailor-made for the company. This is also broken down into practical actions to consolidate and clarify the marketing process and the steps to achieve your company’s goals.
We should never stop learning! This is particularly true in an area such as digital marketing, which is a competitive and constantly evolving field.
In order to get the best value out of any training, companies need to be clear about what they want to achieve and which areas of marketing training are aligned with those goals.
I can provide training on a range of subjects related to digital or offline marketing. They can include areas such as:
I hope the differences and benefits of each service are now clearer. They all work, and I have experience delivering all of them. It just depends where you are on your journey and what you want to achieve.
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