Melanie
The Monday Morning Marketing podcast is brought to you byEsther of IPA group, bringing premiere online promotion to your business.
Esther
And Melanie of Stump Social Media training, who empowers business owners to manage social media and marketing for themselves. Welcome back to the Monday morning marketing podcast. Today we're talking about marketing doesn't work when you... Okay, so last week we said, give you lots of tips about how to make marketing work for you and when you do certain things.So today we're going to do other ones that mean that marketing doesn't work for you. So kick us off there, Melanie.
Melanie
I think one of the most common things that every sized business does, and this isn't just solo printers and small businesses, is they just don't talk about themselves enough. They don't humanise their brand.People do buy from people. Just talking about yourself doesn't necessarily mean talking about how many children you have, where you went to school, that thing.It could be just the experience you bring to your audience, what knowledge that you have that you can impart that's going to be useful. Just don't be afraid to talk about yourselves and explain what a difference you can make to people. I think that's the top one for me.
Esther
Yeah, exactly. One that I see a lot, and I think at times we all fall into the same trap is that people that post and run, so you'll throw up a post, answer a question on social media, answer, somebody asks some thing in a group or something and you just give your opinion and then you leave, you go and do something else and you don't wait around for the interaction that can come from that. So then people are waiting, like, two, three, 24 hours for you to come back into that app and go, Oh yeah. Yeah, I forgot I was talking aboutthat. So stick around for a bit. You don't know what's going to come from those conversations.
Melanie
I think the next thing to point out is that people tend touse social media the wrong way around. They tend to use media rather than social. It's all about generating conversation, just like you say. We tend touse it, and I will admit I do too sometimes, I forget, we tend to broadcast on our platforms rather than make conversation or share the stuff that matters toyour audience on a regular basis. Remember guys, it's social media, not media social. That should help you remember the emphasis on where your strategybegins and ends.
Esther
Yeah, and leading on from that, remember that it's benefitsthat sell, not the features. The features are good. Features tell the story,but when you try to sell the features, people get lost. So it's sell thebenefits. W hy is working with you the best thing for them to do? Why are yougoing to make their life easier? Why is your product the best thing sincesliced bread? Benefits, not just the features. I mean, tell the features too,but don't get bogged down in that part of, Oh, it's pretty. Unless it's somethingto brighten up the office, it's not going to work.
Melanie
No, I agree. Another big bugbear of mine is marketingdoesn't work when you only use social media to get your message out there. Onlyuse social media. It won't work. It's not enough. Not all of your audience ison social media all the time and they need prompts in other ways. I'm notsuggesting getting... Because not everybody can afford to rebrand their car ordo TV commercials or radio campaigns or anything like that, but there is a lotmore you can do. Just using social media on its own isn't enough. So do exploreother more traditional formats of which we've discussed in the past.
Esther
Absolutely. I'll just throw in there networking in person,networking, even online is still a big one. Going to events, go intoconferences.
Melanie
Sponsoring.
Esther
Stuff. Yeah. There's so much you can do. Obviously, uppingyour SEO so that people can find your website would be a good one as well. LikeMelanie said, we've talked about all these things. We've given you so many tipsover the last.
Melanie
Three years.
Esther
So go back and listen to them. They're not that long. Butyeah, that leads me on to another one is when you don't direct traffic back toyour website. Y our website is one of the only parts of the internet that youown. You don't own your social media platform. You could be kicked out of it atany point. The platform itself could close down. We've seen it many times wherehacks happen, platforms. There were so many platforms in the past that we'veall loved and no longer exist. My space, if you're as old as we are. Blab. Blabwas brilliant. But they're not guaranteed to last forever. So direct trafficback to your website, give them a link back to the blog, give them a link tocontact your contact form or your download or your lead magnet or quiz on yourwebsite, whatever it is that you have, you can direct them back to yourwebsite, get more organic traffic, get more referrals from that and get them tojust see what else you do because your social only goes so far.
Melanie
My next point is if you don't understand and convey clearlywhat your unique selling point is, if you're not making your message clear,particularly your USP, your unique selling proposition, why would they come toyou in the first place? I'm not suggesting you bang on about it all the time,but if you understand what it is and you can convey it in a clear way, in asimple way. I suppose it's like an elevator pitch as well, isn't it? Thenthat's massively useful as well.
Esther
Absolutely. One that we've probably told you about from thevery beginning, and we repeat it every so often because it is so important,your marketing will not work when you're talking to the wrong audience. Amen tothat.
Melanie
So.
Esther
Get your customer avatar in front of you, front and centre.Have it so clear. I was talking to someone the other day and they usealliteration for their customer avatars. So they have dynamic Diane's and theyhave all these different ambitious Alice's. If it helps you to remember thatway, then work away. So get your customer avatar sorted first and then you'llsee what platform you're supposed to be on. And if they're only going to befinding you through your email marketing, then use that one.
Melanie
I think another important one to remember is your marketingmost likely won't work if you don't schedule. And if you don't schedule, youhave to try and make the time and effort to be there at the right time whenyour audience is. That's difficult. It's difficult as a sole trader anyway.
Esther
Then life happens.
Melanie
Absolutely. I've not been feeling well this last week andI've had a very foggy head, a bit of a serious head cold going on. Thank God Ihad stuff scheduled because if I'd have written any content this week, it wouldhave been rubbish, frankly. I've looked back on stuff I've written this weekand it's not good. I've had to go over it.
Esther
There are ways that you can reuse the content that you'vepreviously used. You could schedule stuff this month, and then in six monthstime, it's still valid. It's still evergreen content. So write it somewhere,like on an Excel document or something that you can reuse it. And lots of thesocial...
Melanie
And don't be afraid to. You did this earlier on. You ruinedthe ping pong effect we had going on. So I'm going to continue here. And ifyou've written a blog, or you've done a video, or you put some sweat, blood,and tears into something, and let's face it, a lot of the content that wecreate does involve all three, it's important that you don't just share it theonce. Marketing doesn't work when you don't put out something that is evergreenmore than once. You have to do it more than once because you can't guaranteethat the right audience is looking at you at that one particular time you putthat piece of content out. And to repurpose it, see, there's another one. See,there's another one. And to repurpose it. And that's when social mediamarketing works as well, because if you don't repurpose it, then differenttypes of audiences won't see it on the different platforms in the differentways that they digest information. I said different a lot there, didn't I?
Esther
You did. But it is important to realise that your messagecan also be repeated on non digital marketing platforms. You can get in touchwith the local paper. I was talking to a guy the other day, he says they'realways looking for good news stories from local businesses for the localpapers. Local papers aren't dead. They're still selling them in shops, sothey're still.
Melanie
A valid. And they're online as well.
Esther
Yeah, exactly. They have.
Melanie
But they've got a different audience to us.
Esther
Yes, they do. So you don't know who's watching you. This isthe thing. You don't know who's seen what exact post, who has screenshotted,who has decided to save it for later. If you're on Instagram and bookmarking itor bookmarking tweets, you don't know their names. You might be able to findtheir IP addresses, but that doesn't tell you anything.
Melanie
Unless you're a stalker.
Esther
Unless you're a stalker. But you can, like Melanie says,just schedule things out at different times. A lot of the social mediaplatforms now tell you when people are most active on your platforms. You cantrial and error as well. Something doesn't work doesn't mean that nobody's seenit. It doesn't mean that that one person, that one view that you've had on it,isn't the one person that needed to see it at that time and will phone you nextweek and talk to you about it. You'd never know who's watching. So justmarketing is tough, guys. Marketing is really tough and we are here to helpyou. We have trialled and errord a lot of things, but we know what can work. Sokeep doing. Good job.
Melanie
Although today was about what doesn't work.
Esther
Well, yes, we know. That's why we know. We have done all these things. We've done all these things. We know they don't work. So do what you need to do to make your marketing work. And if that involves hiring someone else, then hire someone else. Okay, that's it for today, guys. We're back next week for more Monday morning marketing. Until then, our DMs are open and don't forget to get in touch. Until then, bye bye.
Melanie
Bye, guys. Have a great week. So where are we going to take this next, do you think? We've done how you do it right and now how you do it wrong. Is there anything else we can do in between? Stay t for more.
