243: When Your Marketing Is Not Working

If you are frustrated and overwhelmed by marketing, or just not doing it because... you're frustrated and overwhelmed by it, you need to listen to this week's episode of the Superabound podcast.

In the episode, you will discover:

• The easiest and fastest way to solve any marketing problem, so you can stop guessing and start reaching your ideal customers
• How to create authentic and lasting relationships with your customers that make them raving fans who love to tell others about your business
• How to have more fun and creativity in your marketing, so you can enjoy the process and get better results

Don’t miss this episode if you want to transform your marketing and grow your business faster.

To learn more about the Authentic Marketing course and the ways it can help you create more growth through marketing, click here.

Episode Transcript

Steve Haase  0:01  
Welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches, Erin Aquin and Steve Haase, where business owners like you learn tools that helped you clarify vision, clear up static and overcome challenges. You are listening to episode number 243: When your marketing is not working. Today is going to be a short and sweet one, helping you with some of our most powerful tools that we use with our clients and with our own business. When things are not working with your marketing.

Erin Aquin  0:32  
I actually think this is a really interesting one because you know, we talked last week all about beliefs, money, beliefs, specifically, and with marketing. And we even were kind of baiting you a little bit when we say when marketing is not working. Because it's not very specific. And I think the very first thing to to do is when you feel like things aren't working, nothing's working. marketing's not working. And it's kind of a blanket statement, it's a really good sign that you're probably experiencing some static and, and you're not alone. I mean, I totally do this all the time. If you don't have a co founder who happens to also be a coach, then you really just have to be that much more like onto yourself. It's really important that when something isn't working, you know exactly what that is. When you say marketing, do you mean the leads coming in are qualified? Do you mean that people aren't entering your funnel at a stage in their own journey that makes your product aligned with what they need? Like, there's just so many things that that statement could lean. So it's really important that the very first thing you do when you feel like marketing, as a whole is not working, is get very, very clear with yourself as to what aspects what pieces what, what numbers aren't where you want them to be,

Steve Haase  2:07  
Knowing exactly what your "problem" with your marketing is, will help you de-dramatize kind of defuse that statement. Right? Because, like Erin said, the bait for this episode was that marketing is not working. So if you're listening, you might have thought that thought in the in the past, which we all do. But believing that thought is what will create a feeling of frustration, will create a feeling of, you know, thinking you're a failure, all that kind of stuff that actually prevents you from doing things that will, quote unquote, work. But knowing exactly what the problem is, and also knowing exactly what it is that you want to create. What result you want in your marketing and for your business will help you turn it help you shift it from almost a personal failing into an interesting science experiment. Right? What can we change here, in order to achieve this result, right? If you think about your marketing less as a judgment on your, on your self worth, right, because especially if you're in a business of selling your own brand, or even selling you know, the brand that you've built as a company, sometimes we're so close to it, that when we experienced those setbacks, we almost feel it personally, like our own character is being judged our own creation is being, you know, dismissed or people aren't loving. People aren't loving our baby, how dare they. But when you're clear on what it is that you want to change, then you become more of a scientist, you become more of you become freed up to experiment with real creativity and curiosity. And that is the key that will help you move forward.

Erin Aquin  3:57  
Yeah, and I mean, the simplest way I think we could break this down is when when you're feeling like, for some reason, you are not gathering the attentive audience full of perfect ideal customers into your world in a way that has them get to know you, and build a relationship with you and have that turned into a sale, then, yeah, we could say there's an issue with the marketing. And I think the easiest way to talk about it is to say some of that issue is going to be static. It's going to be your own personal thoughts and your marketing teams thoughts about your marketing about your customers about the platforms that you use. I hear so many entrepreneurs just shit talk social media, and then wonder why nobody buys their stuff from social media. Like it could have something to do with the fact that you hate it. The platforms that you're using, you don't believe in them. And then you're like wondering why it's crickets? Well, I mean, your beliefs, I do think your beliefs have a lot to do with that. And that can come down to static. The other area where there's going to be issues for every business owner is what we would put in what we call the challenge category. And the challenge is the science experiments that you were talking about, Steve, how do we invite our particular customers into a conversation that has it turned into a sale? How do we build relationships with people who really need the product that we happen to sell? So I think we can make take something that feels very big, and break it down into the category of static, being all of our thoughts, all of our beliefs, all of our inner dialogue about how we promote and sell and the very real challenges like are people in the industry that you sell to? Are they really feeling or believing in like, the recession? can't spend a dime right now? Because something the markets, like, whatever their static is, is that a challenge for you to solve in your marketing, I had this conversation with a client today, actually, we were talking about how marketing can also be if you want it to be a creative outlet. So I think about marketing is a way that we get to connect with people, and understand and articulate what our perfect, best clients best customers really want and need. And I think that if you're struggling with your marketing, often, it's going to be an issue with failing to do that in some way. And you're not alone. I don't think there's like an answer where you, you get to this point where you always articulate everything perfectly. You don't, marketing is really the playground, where you get to experiment with things and play with things. And I think it can be a creative outlet. This is kind of I think, on my mind, too, because we are writing the Superabound book right now. And no one's gonna see that for a while. Like, we're not going to get feedback on that for a good long time. But if I want to connect with people, if I want to have impact, a social media post can be a way to do that. And that's marketing, I can offer people a journal prompt that will help them deal with the static they're having about their business today. We can create a podcast in 15 minutes, as a personal challenge to say what do we what have we got to say about marketing. Another way we did it last week is we created an ebook, talking about the six bottlenecks that really get business owners stuck when it comes to marketing. And we wrote a 12 page little book that help you get unstuck from those six bottlenecks.

Steve Haase  8:02  
We're also just building relationships. The people in our lives, could become clients, they could know people who are clients. Marketing is so much more than just your Instagram post or your email. And so before you say, my marketing isn't working, take a step back and consider everything about your brand, everything about how you're getting out into the market, how people are talking about you. Because that's your marketing to if people are telling their friends that you are the best thing ever, and they need to come and work with you. That's marketing. So if that's happening, you can't say your marketing isn't working. Because that's working. Getting us back to the original point about the way you're thinking about things and getting clear on that specific challenge. And once you're clear on that specific challenge, like one that we're really interested in is how do we bring more new people into our world. And so then, that is the one specific thing that we're writing eBooks about. We're creating podcasts around, we're having fun on the social platforms with and that is constrained, and it exists within us fun little experiment to grow our reach. In a business where the marketing is working. Right? There'd be a view on it. We're like, our podcast hasn't grown 10x This year, our marketing is not working. But you're like, No, our clients are listening to the podcast. Hello, we love you. People are into it. They're sharing it. So yes, the marketing is working. Same situation, but you can have a completely different view on it, which actually puts you in a spirit of experimentation, creativity. And then you can try out things like a one week launch of a new ebook to help you get unstuck with your marketing. And because we love the playful approach to marketing, we want to To invite you to a workshop that we're doing this week, it is Wednesday, May 31, that we're doing it live, you can also join us for the replay, and it is on creating your authentic marketing strategy. You can learn more at besuperabound.com/workshop.

Erin Aquin  10:20  
And we're gonna give you some of the I think like some of our our best stuff, our best tools, one of the things you will leave that workshop with is a content template. This is a way if especially if you feel like you're not always the most creative, or you just run out of things to say, don't feel inspired. We're going to help you create a repeatable format for your marketing. And we're going to, we're going to teach you that whole framework and you're going to have a little, a little document you can fill out you can use it. Whether you do most of your marketing online, or whether you create content for in person things or podcasts, you can really use it as a content creation starter. The other thing you will learn in that workshop is how to create authentic inspired marketing quickly, especially if you don't love marketing, if it's not your most favorite thing of all time. You don't need to be spending hours and hours on this. And you don't need to maybe hire a whole team if you're not a huge, huge company yet. Even if you have a team, this will really help you get more done in less time in a way that connects with your potential customers. Nothing cheesy, nothing sleazy. We don't believe in sliding into DMS or I don't know who's who's out there teaching good marketing is like harassing people in their DMS on social media, we definitely are not going to teach you how to do that, because we hate we hate it. This is really about how you build relationships with your customers, they feel like they know you before you've ever met them. That to me is good marketing. And they're ready to buy before they've really ever interacted with you or your sales team.

Steve Haase  12:10  
And authentic marketing is the kind of that makes you feel better about your business and makes your perfect client know that that is their home, that is where they belong, that you are their person for the needs that they have. So it has your vision wrapped up in it. If you're thinking to yourself, if you're kind of looking around and saying, Well, my marketing isn't working. I want to invite you to get back to the foundation of why is your business here? Are you just trying to do the tactics that will get the thing to work? Or are you actually in the marketplace, sharing your why sharing your passion and sharing the things that will have your perfect person know that you are there for them that this is the product or service that they need. Because you are coming from a place that really matters in yourself. You're connected to your purpose. That's authentic marketing, and that's going to make it work, even if the early indicators aren't quite what you want it to be. It's actually strengthening your business strengthening your brand by coming from your own vision and your reason why in your business. So we hope to see you in the workshop, head over to besuperabound.com/workshop to join us. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai