Is your marketing built on rock or sand!

 

Every business needs to do marketing to survive.  No marketing = no customers!

However, there are many different marketing strategies and one size definitely does not fit all.

A few networking meetings and random social media posts may fall into the category of ‘marketing’, but they are not a strategy.  Effectively, an occasional ‘when I have time’ approach is not going to work.  That qualifies as marketing built on sand.

OK, you may not have a dedicated marketing person in your business, or you may have outsourced some or all of your marketing activities, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to have a marketing strategy and a plan to follow.

Marketing focus

There are a number of elements that you’ll need to incorporate into your marketing strategy. 

Brand

How strong is your brand?  Where does it appear?  Is it consistent?  Do the people in your team know your brand colours and fonts – and use them accurately and consistently?

Ideal client

A detailed description of your ideal client is the foundation for everything else you do.  What business are they in?  What are they worried about (that you can help with)? What do the like doing?  What don’t they like doing?  What are their business challenges (that you can help with)?  What is their personal style, age, gender, position?

Marketing tools

There are dozens of marketing tools; which ones are you using?  Are they right ones?  Have you explored other options?  Which are the best to reach your ideal client?

Website audit

Is your website up to date?  Is the message on target?  Does the copy grab the ideal client’s attention and keep them engaged?  Is it what they are looking for?  Are there clear calls to action on every page with an easy route to do what you’ve asked?  Are all the links working?

Social media review

Which platforms are you active on?  Are they where your ideal clients are active?  What is your posting policy?  How do you deliver consistent value?  What is your strategy to open conversations with potential clients?

Blog

Adding valuable content to your website regularly is a good plan, but is it the right content?  Your blog is your opportunity to show off your expertise and position yourself as a specialist.  Do you have a content planner to keep your blog fresh with regular new material?

Email list

How do you get people to sign up for email list?  When was the last time you updated your lead magnet?  How do you nurture the people on your list?  Are you making sales through the list?

Networking

Do you attend regular networking meetings, either live or online?  What is the return-on-investment?  It does take time, but continuing to attend a group that doesn’t generate business, either directly or through referrals, is not a good plan.

These are the core elements, but there are others.  It’s a good place to start.

If you’d like to book a Marketing Focus Strategy session, check this page and contact us to book your appointment.

Repurpose your content

I hear a lot of business people say “I don’t have time to write a newsletter – besides I don’t know what to write.”

Newsletters that are a list of what’s going on in your business are boring.  So what makes a good newsletter – and one that people stay subscribed to?

Answer: VALUE!

If you don’t have time to write a newsletter, think about your potential readers.  How much are they prepared to invest in reading your newsletter?

Let’s look at this from the other end – which newsletters do you actually read?  Why?  And which ones to delete without even opening them – or maybe even get around to unsubscribing from?

My guess is that the reasons you read newsletters is because:

• They have value for you
• They are entertaining and easy to read

I’m a believer in repurposing content – I’m busy too.  It’s not lazy; it’s practical.

The audience that sees your social media posts are not the same people as those who find your blog on your website and, mostly, not the recipients of your newsletter.

Even if you’re connected to the people you want to impress with your knowledge and expertise on social media, there’s no guarantee they’ll see your posts.  Firstly, they may simply not be looking at the time your post goes live and it can be way down the feed by the time they are looking – and how far do most people scroll?  Not that far.

Secondly, people who find your blog on your website are those who you probably don’t know, and who have searched on some terms that have brought up your blog.

Finally, the people who get your newsletter are those who have provided their email address and actively said ‘I’m interested’.

That means your newsletter is reaching people who have already expressed interest.

The cheat sheet for newsletters

If you write a regular blog post, this is how it works:

1. Publish the blog post
2. Break the blog down into shorter stand alone posts for social media, you could even do a series of short videos around individual points.
3. Use the blog as the value lead for your newsletter, followed by your current offer or promotion.

If I’m writing short blog articles for a specialist audience I send the whole article in a newsletter.  But for a more general audience, I’ll lead with the first 2-3 paragraphs of the article with a ‘read more’ button that takes the reader to the full article on my website.  Then continue with an offer or promotion. 

If more than one blog article has been published between newsletters, then I will follow the promotion with more links to the remaining articles – adding even more value.

So – the only time you need is to write the original article for the blog, and then repurpose it (which can be done by an admin assistant or VA to save you time).

In fact, if you don’t want to write the article – give me a call; we do this for clients all the time!

Are you keeping up with the algorithms?

My social media platform of choice is LinkedIn.  I have a presence on others, but that’s where most of my efforts are focused.  I’ve been a member since 2005 and it’s changed a lot since then.

LinkedIn in 2005 was a sterile environment, mainly a ‘dating’ platform for companies looking for staff and people looking for jobs.  It’s massively different today, with posts, groups – and algorithms!

Getting seen in 2026 is dependent on posting content that the algorithms like and, consequently, present to more people.

Lately a lot of people who have had posts go viral in the past are complaining that they’re not getting traction any longer and creating viral content is much harder.  Is this a problem for you?

That depends on whether a viral post is your end goal – or you’re looking to connect with people who will become either customers or advocates.  Thousands of people liking your posts with hundreds of comments is an exercise in vanity if it’s not delivering the right connections.

What do algorithms do?

Effectively they apply the criteria for a ‘good’ post and the LinkedIn AI follows the algorithm prompt and then presents content that matches to the people that they’ve calculated are the best audience.

How do you find out what the algorithms for a good post are?

Well, you can, but they are changing all the time and you can spend a lot of time learning something that is out-of-date before you’ve got your head around it.  If you want to get to grips with algorithms properly, then Richard van der Blom has an Algorithm Playbook that you’ll find useful.

But understanding the broad strokes is just as useful.

10 Top Tips for LinkedIn content

Tip 1 – ensure your profile is clear and that what you’ve written in your About section is focused on the kind of client you want to work with.  That’s LinkedIn AI’s starting point for reference.

Tip 2 – good quality content wins over jazzy images.  LinkedIn’s AI likes long form content as it has more perceived value.

Tip 3 – forget about hashtags on LinkedIn, they are no longer relevant to how content is presented (or searched on).

Tip 4 – links kill reach, so only include a link if there is a specific call to action – and don’t let the link pull through a thumbnail – that just ensures nobody will see your post.

Tip 5 – get good at creating infographics, they work better than carousels – and are saved more.

Tip 6 – short (less than 90 seconds) videos do well.

Tip 7 – post daily, but remember that only one of your posts will be shown at a time, so if you post more than once a day you may reduce the reach of each post.

Tip 8 – if you can’t think of a post today, repost a previous post.  Use the repost option, don’t copy it to a new post.  If you’re reposting older content you get brownie points!

Tip 9 – Stay online during the hour after your post goes live so you can respond to comments and likes.

Tip 10 – create long form content as a newsletter rather than an article – and actively invite people to follow your newsletter. 

Remember that you’re not aiming for MORE connections, just the RIGHT connections.