What to do when your marketing isn’t working

The thing with marketing, is that it’s not black and white.  It is different for every business.  Something you did a year ago, may not work going forward.  It’s an evolutionary, adaptable, organic beast.  But that doesn’t help us small business owners. 

Wouldn’t it be great to have a guidebook, or a set of instructions that you could follow with proven tactics of things that will work? 

So, what do we do when we’re busting a gut, trying all these different marketing tactics and things don’t seem to be quite working out?  Here are a few things to consider,

1 – Go back to basics

One of the best things you can do as a business owner, is just to stop.  Stop all the marketing you are doing and go right back to basics.  Sometimes, you may feel like you’re going round in circles and it is often because you’ve lost sight of the foundations of marketing and what you are trying to achieve.

Ask yourself these key questions:

  1. What are my business aims?  What is the vision for the company and what are you doing it for?  Then dissect that even further, what are you trying to achieve with your marketing and does that help you move toward achieving those business aims.  Be really clear on what you want to do, why and how you are going to do it.
  2. Who is your customer?  Please don’t say everyone…think about how you can break down your audience into different groups of people and then ask yourself what you need to do to reach them?
  3. Positioning – You may be very clear on what your business is and what you do, the products you sell or the services you provide.  But does your ideal customer?  Really think about what you want to tell people about your business, what makes you different from competitors, what is your USP.  Write a list of the key things you need to tell people in your marketing.  Be really specific.

2 – Evaluate all tactics

Once you’ve got the basics covered, write down all the marketing tactics you currently use.  Which social media platforms do you use?  Do you have a website?  Do you use email marketing.  Do you issue stories to the press? Do you go networking?  Do you have any promotional material?

There are so many marketing tactics we can employ in business and sometimes trying to do everything can wear you down and they end up not working.  So, look at everything you are doing and ask yourself if it works for you.  If you can’t answer yes, and I mean really say yes, then ask yourself if it is the right thing for your business?  Does it achieve your aims and does it speak directly to your target audience?

3 – Get focused

So, once you have gone back to basics, you have looked at what is and what isn’t working it is time to get laser focused.

You are much better off doing a few well planned and thought-out pieces of marketing, then trying everything, getting overwhelmed and not seeing results. 

The classic example is someone who runs a business, and their teenage son or daughter tells them “You need to be on TikTok” – ask yourself if it is really right for your business?  Concentrate on the things that are really going to work for you.  Or if you use a social media channel and you don’t enjoy using it and don’t see results, then ditch it. 

If you take this approach to your marketing, you will be much more focused and see much better results…as well as saving you time in your business and the stress of doing everything too!

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