Now’s the season when marketers shout from rooftops about what you need for your marketing strategy in 2021. With the end of the year upon us and a fresh start we desperately need ahead, the marketing strategy inventory is stock full of magic bullets to reach your audience, help you make a bigger impact in the world and make more money than you ever dreamed. (But, better get yours soon because there’s a limited supply!!!)
So, to save us all hassle and money, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET in marketing. There is a strategy that anyone worthy of the title “expert” recommends, and its what I use in my business and for my clients. It absolutely works as long as you are providing excellent service. It might even work if your service is bad, although I don’t recommend trying that.
And it takes time and consistency.
A marketing strategy that works is made up of four elements:
Social media content
A free or low cost resource that your ideal audience would want in exchange for their email
An email series to nurture that audience
A website
Any one of these four elements can help you build brand awareness and find new clients. But without this robust marketing strategy, you won’t have a sales funnel to help you consistently attract new clients. It’s the funnel that ensures new people get to know, like and trust you.
You don’t have take my word for it.
I first learned about the marketing funnel several years ago from John Jantsch on Duct Tape Marketing when I was a one woman marketing department for a nonprofit. I started in that job in 2007 when The Facebook was just a place to connect with friends. That job was my marketing bootcamp where I was able to learn and implement digital marketing as it was developing into the massive machine it is today.
These days Donald Miller from Storybrand is probably the most well-known for teaching the marketing sales funnel that works.
Here’s what a marketing strategy is not
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on a website with very little blog content. If there’s little content on your website, there’s very little to optimize.
A website without a way to capture visitors’ emails other than the contact us form.
Social media posts without a sales funnel that moves your audience beyond the awareness stage.
An email newsletter that isn’t segmented by buyer stage and interests.
A marketing strategy is not made up of any one lever that you can pull to sell your services
There are so many levers to pull for your digital marketing, but any one of them can’t do much good on its own. It’s not that these tactics aren’t effective. It’s that they are tactics and not strategy.
Google ads work, especially for a local business ✅
Social media ads work for pretty much everyone ✅
SEO is important and even can work if you have helpful, keyword content ✅
Branding is great for brand awareness ✅
Social media raises brand awareness and helps to nurture your audience ✅
LinkedIn? Yep. Works for getting new clients and raising awareness ✅
Video is currently the best way to get social media engagement ✅
All of these levers do work. But none of them work particularly well without a full sales funnel ✅
Why marketers promise a magic bullet
Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think most marketers are peddlers of junk. Most marketers have seen success from their efforts and are experts in one particular area of marketing. The challenge is that digital marketing has become such a massive machine that most marketers only can offer you their one particular area of expertise.
They’re offering their one area of expertise as your magic bullet.
I left my marketing job in 2019 to pursue my side hustle full time because I saw that even at the corporate level, there are few people who understand the entire marketing sales funnel. There are even fewer who can implement all four elements that take a customer along a journey of know, like and trust. My goal is to help as many health and wellness businesses as possible implement a robust sales funnel that works.
So, as you move into the coming year and marketers try to convince you of just ONE THING!!! you need for your business, know that they are offering one tactic that does help…if you have a strategy.
If you’re looking to reach more people in 2021, I’m teaching two of the four elements in a marketing sales funnel this January in Everyday Marketing Bootcamp: social media and website content. We’ll be planning and scheduling your full year’s worth of social media content. We’ll also cover social media branding, video, blogging and podcasting. The course isn’t available until next month, but you can get early access, plus an extra bonus, by joining the waitlist.
Join Waitlist
Comments