Stop Winging It. Build A Marketing System

There's a real cost to marketing without a plan.

🛑 Countless missed opportunities to turn attention into leading your prospect towards a sale.

You had them... they liked and clicked follow...but then, you didn't take them anywhere so they left.

Then you create more content to try and win them back, but you're not following a strategic plan. You're now doing more marketing than ever, but you didn't fix the real problem. It's not an attention problem...you created the cycle and eventually most just burnout and quit.

🛑 A low trust signal because of scattered messaging.

One post is about this and the next about something totally unrelated and sometimes even wayyyyy left field.

Our content is telling our brand story, and when it jumps from one scene into another movie in a totally different genre, it gets confusing for the viewer which weakens our positioning.

We are on a mission to get known as that [X] guy or gal. In my case, that Founder Marketing gal.

People buy from people they: Know. Like. And Trust.

🛑 Inconsistent output because you're tired of posting that leads to nothing and are constantly questioning if this is even worth it.

So you stop... Until you see your competitors aren't pulling their foot off the gas, and you hop back into the content marketing game.

Posting in bursts, then silence leads to no compounding effect.

The algorithm is your friend and you're not allowing it to get to know you and know who to feed your content to.

🛑 Wasted ad spend and effort.

I've been guilty of this one! Trying to fix everything with some dollars. You can't rush good marketing. It's going to take some doing to get dangerously good, but it's possible.

Putting some money behind content that hasn't proven it's working... please don't do this.

Make every dollar you spend on marketing justify it's case.

You're not a corporation. You're a founder with a limited budget to spend wisely.

If the content is working like crazy organically, by all means put some money behind that winner.

When it's landing with your prospects, that's when you know it's Goooooood!

🛑 Content that doesn’t align to clear offers or outcomes.

Once we step into content creation, that creativity bug can take us down multiple rabbit holes. I know!

It's important to make the distinction between lifestyle content creation and content marketing as a Founder/CEO.

There's a business goal to content for business owners: Our content should S.E.E.D future sales.

So, keep it simple:

Share your passion. Explain why you are the right choice. Expose Your Brilliance. Display your competence

If you've done any of the above. The biggest cost:

🛑 Missed data.

Content marketing data gets richer over time. The more you have, the greater your marketing insights.

You can’t improve what you’re not intentionally tracking.

"If you can not measure it. You can not improve it." ~ William Thompson

All this to say, Founders with a clear plan will outrun those who are just winging it.

Here's 3 Steps To Creating Your Marketing Plan:

Commitment To An Avatar, Message, And Schedule

You're wondering, commitment? That's it! Yes, that alone will solve 5 out of the 6 reasons most founders are failing at content marketing.

01 AVATAR

Who is your prospective client? KYC (Know Your Client). This will give you endless content ideas that speak to

• their pain,

• their psychology,

• what's making them lose sleep at night,

• what in the news will add or take away their angst,

• what event is a buying trigger for them,

And ofcourse, how your solution is the antidote to this problem.

02 MESSAGE

This leads right into testing the messaging that will land with this prospect.

I always say, marketing is a game of testing. It's never over and done with and when something doesn't work (gold!) we explore why and try another angle. Now we can rule that out.

Unfortunately, there's no cheat code to understanding how real people will respond to your marketing. Even AI has it's limitations. So, Just Do It (thanks Nike!)

Provide value every single post.

Your content should provide them with micro-solutions.

03 SCHEDULE

When you've done steps 1 and 2 in great detail, step 3 will be more sustainable and impactful.

Choose a schedule that you can keep to and then push yourself just a little bit more.

Keeping a routine schedule signals, we're are a professional business. When you come to our store it says "OPEN". This also helps keep us top of mind with our ideal prospects. Those golden arches (McDonalds) keep surfacing every few kilometers on your drive, just in case you forgot, they're open for business.

🎯The goal is to create a library of solution oriented posts that will keep working for you while you are busy handling other parts of your business.

Don't just dip your toe into content marketing.

Go all out.

Even if only 3 of your prospects see your post, that's 3 prospects you've started building a reputation with.

1 post X 3 new prospect interactions = a good day for a small business owner.

Don’t get caught up in the vanity metrics. Each interaction is an opportunity to build a relationship.

Business is all about relationships.

Serve with excellence.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" Colossians 3: 23- 34

Blessings,

Business Communications Strategist

Founder-Led Media

P.S. If you’re done guessing, register your interest in the Marketing Messaging Intensive today by booking a 15-minute collabo call.