What's the point of marketing my business?
In today's episode, I'm discussing the changing landscape of marketing and challenging some of the traditional approaches. Sharing insights from my conversations with various business leaders and highlighting some common misconceptions about marketing. Whether it's the MD of a successful engineering firm questioning the value of marketing or a frustrated business owner trying to manage multiple platforms, we’ll explore a fresh perspective, emphasising the importance of building and strengthening your brand to attract the right audience.
I’m urging businesses to look beyond traditional marketing methods and consider a more holistic approach that focuses on long-term sustainability and engagement with various stakeholders.
Key Takeaways:
Broaden Your Perspective: Move away from traditional marketing concepts and think holistically about your brand and its values.
Know Your Audience: Understand who you're trying to attract and why they should choose your business.
Internal Marketing: Engage your team as brand ambassadors, starting from the inside out.
Focus on Retention: Think of your business as a bucket; focus on retaining customers rather than constantly filling the funnel.
Test, Track, Tweak: Implement the four T's in your marketing strategy - test, track, tweak, and try again.
Word of Mouth Marketing: Embrace and encourage word of mouth as a powerful and sustainable marketing tool.
To wrap up, I encourage businesses to align their marketing efforts with their business goals and to be open to testing and tweaking their strategies for better results.
Resources:
Join me in my membership The Future-Proof Club here -
Come and join me and lots of other small business owners like you in my FREE Facebook group:CWP (Communicate with Purpose) Group | Facebook
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Future Proof Your Business EP59
[00:00:00] Lucy Rennie: Welcome to this week's episode of the Future Proof of Business podcast. I'm Lucy Rennie and this week I wanted to touch base with you on a topic that keeps coming up in conversation a lot and obviously is really linked to what I do, which is business communications and helping you to future proof your business.
[00:00:15] Lucy Rennie: And that topic is the topic of marketing. The reason why I wanted to have this conversation and I'm not going to it's not going to be a long episode today. It's really just about touching base and encouraging you to think a little bit differently in terms of, how you market your business or how you approach marketing within your business.
[00:00:32] Lucy Rennie: And. I think probably over the next few weeks and months we'll delve deeper into the different areas of marketing and how I can really help you to move forward on that and feel more confident in what you're doing and in your approach. And one of the reasons why this week I wanted to talk to you about that is because I've been having lots of different conversations.
[00:00:51] Lucy Rennie: With lots of different people, whether that's the MD of a UK engineering manufacturing business that is leader in its niche who has basically been saying to me, what's the point of marketing? I don't really know why I should be investing time, energy resources in developing a marketing plan why they should be personally on LinkedIn or why they should be Investing in or starting to think about creating some videos and having more of a digital presence.
[00:01:20] Lucy Rennie: Because, for him, he's at full capacity. He's got sales coming through the, through the reef and, why should he think about the sort of the traditional concept of marketing, which is that product to market and encouraging more people to come and buy from his business. So there's that kind of conversation going on.
[00:01:36] Lucy Rennie: And then on the other side of that, I've got somebody who's been talking about marketing and thinking about, you know, encouraging Thinking about how to encourage more of their team to, to do more marketing, to start to bring more sales in through their marketing. And this person was going on, we need to be present on all
these different sites.
[00:01:57] Lucy Rennie: And it's frustrating because they're not on TikTok yet, or they're not on Snapchat. And They're basically frustrated with the team because they're not moving fast enough. And then on the other side of that, I've got people who are one man bands who are exhausted because they are doing all the things and they're spending hours and hours on social media, creating this digital presence and what they esteem to be marketing their business, but they're exhausted and not necessarily seeing the benefits of that in terms of sales or in terms of, viable profit in the business.
[00:02:25] Lucy Rennie: And so I suppose really today is just a bit of a reminder and a bit of a nudge really to help you to think a little bit differently about marketing and move away or broaden the perspective from that traditional approach of marketing, which is, ultimately about thinking about your how to get your product to market.
[00:02:45] Lucy Rennie: So thinking about the process of getting people interested in your goods and services we always think, don't we, of the sort of the four P's, which is the product, the price the place and the promotion of that. And I suppose I want to encourage you to think a little bit differently in terms of that and think of it more in terms of how can we build and strengthen your brand so that we are helping you to attract more of the right kind of people in the right way.
[00:03:12] Lucy Rennie: And I suppose really stop being one of the UK's best kept secrets or one of the world's best kept secrets and to think a little bit more holistically. So it's not just, for example, about communicating with your customers. It's also about maybe thinking so for, if we go back to the manufacturing business I was talking about in the beginning, his challenge right now, actually, Isn't necessarily about making sales, but it's about actually the fact that he's growing really quickly.
[00:03:39] Lucy Rennie: And he's struggling to find the right kind of people who want to come and work for him and his brand. Okay. And that's because, like I said, he's the world's best kept secret. So nobody actually knows about him. And so when he's looking to advertise, to gain the right kind of people who are brilliant, who are experts, who've got the experience, or we've got the right fit and culture for the business, people
aren't coming because they don't want to come.
[00:04:00] Lucy Rennie: First of all, they don't know, but secondly, because it's not actually telling the story, it's not actually communicating the brand values, the vision is not getting people excited about wanting to come and work for him. And this is the, what really I'm trying to say is that we need, I'd really encourage you to think a little bit differently in terms of broadening your scope as you market your business and thinking a little bit more long term and thinking more about the sustainability of your brand in terms of a wide range of Stakeholders, whether that's customers, whether that's future employees, whether it's suppliers, partners, the local community, whether it's your local MP because you're thinking about going, expanding your business and you're going to need some support in terms of either investing in expanding your premises or looking for new places, or you want some support in terms of whatever that might be.
[00:04:50] Lucy Rennie: So with that in mind, I think one of the things that we need to remember, and this is going back to the previous episodes that I've been talking about, where we're talking about building trust and those different trust factors that allow and help people to make that decision, whether they're going to engage with our business or not.
[00:05:05] Lucy Rennie: We also need to think about it and the fact that. In today's world, there's so much noise out there. There's so much out there that actually to be able to break through that and stand out from the crowd is a big enough challenge in itself. And then secondly, when we think about the number of touch points that we actually people need to go through on average to, to start to build those tick off those tick boxes and engage with us is a minimum of kind of eight touch points, if not 14, 15, 16, in some cases.
[00:05:31] Lucy Rennie: And so if we can think differently about how we're doing this and think about being that constant, nudging people, being on the tip of people's tongues being in front of people at the forefront of them so that they come, our brand comes to them, as soon as they're looking for us, then that's really where we should aim to be.
[00:05:52] Lucy Rennie: And so I think with that, it's about, again, I would love to encourage you to think of this as how to attract the right kind of people in the right way And as effectively and as quickly and as
easily and as sustainably as possible. So ultimately we're getting the right kind of people who love what we do.
[00:06:10] Lucy Rennie: And secondly, they stay with us because they love what we do and because we're doing such a great service and we're doing such, creating such a brilliant experience for them. And then finally, they love it so much that. We developed that word of mouth marketing, which means that people will get on top of the rooftops, become our cheerleaders and start talking about us and shouting about us to their connections, to their people, to their families, their friends, to their colleagues.
[00:06:32] Lucy Rennie: Okay. And that's what for me is this ultimate future proofing. It's that continuous sort of infinite. Cycle of, for our business, because, why would people leave? Why would they not shout about us if we're doing such a great job? And so it's thinking about the longterm of actually building that up so that we can really benefit and harness the benefits of the ripple effect.
[00:06:53] Lucy Rennie: So with that in mind, I really want to encourage you to think a little bit differently, a little bit more strategically about what your, if you want to call it a marketing plan is and incorporate, What I call business communications and that experience into it. And ultimately the reason being is because we don't want you to be a busy fool.
[00:07:10] Lucy Rennie: Okay. We, it's exhausting being on that hamster wheel and constantly trying to keep up with the Joneses or trying to keep up with all the different platforms and all the different things. And. It doesn't have to be like that. We can really think of this strategically and really think of this intentionally.
[00:07:24] Lucy Rennie: And I promise it's not rocket science and we can actually make a really big difference by doing it in a way that feels good to us and that is done in a way that fits with who we are and our business and our brand. With that in mind, I think the first thing to say is it's really important to think of.
[00:07:40] Lucy Rennie: Marketing and our communications in a way that's in support of our business goals. So very often what happens is and I'll speak to people who are telling me they've got these marketing plans and these marketing strategies and they're doing all these different
things and they're on these different platforms.
[00:07:54] Lucy Rennie: They've got print brochures, events, all these different things and they're spending so much time and energy. And then when I ask them, okay, so what are they trying to achieve with those different Channels with those different tactics with all that different activity, they can say, Oh, I want to build more engagement on TikTok, or I want to build my followers, or I want to get more hits on my website.
[00:08:14] Lucy Rennie: That's all great. That's all, that's all good. Of course it is, but is that actually helping us to make more sales? Is that actually helping us to recruit the right kind of people? Is that actually helping us to strengthen our brand or, Enter into new markets. Okay. So the one thing, if there's anything that you take away from this podcast today, it's about really remembering that marketing and communications is in support of our business and support of our business goals.
[00:08:39] Lucy Rennie: Okay. It's really important. And with that in mind, it's thinking about, so if you're going to create the business, we're going to come onto it, but thinking about the business goals and how are we going to know that we're going to get there. So making sure that they are smart. And I've got lots of resources on that and we can maybe delve into that on a different, on another day.
[00:08:56] Lucy Rennie: So that's the first thing that I want you to remember. And then the second thing is. To move away from thinking that word of mouth marketing is taboo. It's almost like people are embarrassed to tell me I've not really done any marketing because I've just grown my business through word of mouth.
[00:09:11] Lucy Rennie: Hats off to you because actually that for me, that's the best form of marketing that there can possibly be because it means that actually you do such a good job that you don't have to spend lots of time and energy reaching new people because your customers and your Yeah, your people are doing it for you.
[00:09:27] Lucy Rennie: Okay, so let's get rid of that taboo bonuses, if that's a word. And really focus on actually that's, developing more of that word of mouth marketing because for me that's the most sustainable way, say su sustainable way of doing this. And I think it's, Alex Hormoze talks about that marketing is actually there to replace word of mouth
marketing until you can develop that and it's fully functioning so that you don't have to do any other form of marketing.
[00:09:52] Lucy Rennie: So with all that in mind, I just wanted to give you a couple of tips and pointers really this week just for you to, as you're commute, on your commute, if you're walking in the trees or the forest with your dogs, or you're going for a run just to think about things a little bit differently, or just as a reminder to get you to focus back in on what's the essential in terms of getting the most return on the investment that you do put into your marketing or your business communication strategy.
[00:10:17] Lucy Rennie: So the first one really is clarity and it starts with just being really clear on what you do, who you help. So getting really clear on your, on who the people are that you want to attract. And understanding, why should they, why should people want to buy from you or why should they want to come and work with you?
[00:10:32] Lucy Rennie: Why should they choose you? Okay. So really getting clear on that and understanding kind of You know, what is behind your brand. And again there's so many podcast episodes, so many resources, my book included that, that helps you to develop that and get really clear on it. And it, it comes back down to that sort of doing a good job and building that trust and that goodwill.
[00:10:53] Lucy Rennie: The second thing I think is about The felt leadership, which we talked about a few episodes ago as well, but it's about, again, this is the whole ethos of high work, but starting on the inside. So it's the inside out approach. So if you are a one man band you've got 10 or a hundred, a thousand, 10, 000 people in your team I really encourage you to start on the inside.
[00:11:12] Lucy Rennie: So very often we think of marketing as external to the business. So it's about working with your customers, but actually it's for me, I think it's incredibly important to start on the inside because the best ambassadors that we can possibly have are going to be your team. It's the people who are working with you already in your business, who are delivering the products and services to your customers, who are engaging with those key stakeholders.
[00:11:36] Lucy Rennie: And so You know if they're not happy, then
they're not going to be doing a good job, are they? So starting with them and helping them to really buy into what you're doing, helping them to feel proud about what they're doing and helping them to introduce, even just simply to have the right tools and resources to be able to do a good job, to have those communication channels so that they can feedback, that they can, Share with you ideas or improvements or, 1 percent little tweaks here and there.
[00:11:59] Lucy Rennie: Then for me that's key in developing and sustaining that, that trust and those products and services. So start on the inside, start with your team and really put them first. That even comes with everything from announcing to them before the rest of the world, what's going on, to sharing with them the vision, the good and the bad.
[00:12:17] Lucy Rennie: And again, There's a whole other topic that we can delve into, but yeah, start on the inside out. And then thirdly, it's about, you hear me talk about this all the time, but it's about that leaky bucket. So very often in marketing terms, we think of we've got to get more leads into our funnel so we can bring them down to the business and make sales.
[00:12:36] Lucy Rennie: And what happens is very often is. There's a whole team working on bringing leads in and then those leads come into the business, they might buy something and then they drop out and then it's that re, never ending cycle of filling them up, filling the funnel up with new people, get them into the business, they buy something and then they go away and then we start again.
[00:12:56] Lucy Rennie: Where I'd really like to encourage you to switch your focus is to think of your business as a bucket. And one that we want to make sure isn't a leaky bucket. So basically the more that we can capture and retain those people who are coming into our business that are building that trust with us, the more we can really do a good job and look after them and delight them and spend our time, really focusing on that customer experience.
[00:13:19] Lucy Rennie: And that doesn't have to be about VIP things. It's just about delivering on our promises and doing what we say we're going to do. Then ultimately, if they're happy. If we're delivering on what we promised, then they're going to stay, aren't they? Either they're going
to keep buying more, or they're going to stay with us, or they're going to that we're going to be able to retain them.
[00:13:36] Lucy Rennie: And Ultimately, it's two things from that. The first thing is that it's much easier to sell and to develop relationships with people who already know and trust us, whether that's a new product or service, whether it's adding extra extra bits and pieces to it, to increase that lifetime value.
[00:13:50] Lucy Rennie: It's much easier to do that with people who, you know us. You get us who have shared the same values. And secondly, if those people are happy, then what they're going to do is they're going to talk about us. They're going to shout about us from the rooftops and they're going to create what we call that trip advisor effect.
[00:14:04] Lucy Rennie: If you've read my book and it's about, making those recommendations and those referrals and ultimately that word of mouth marketing. So it all feeds in and it allows us to really strengthen that pot of people who are the right kind of people and who are going to Basically market our business for us.
[00:14:20] Lucy Rennie: So it's really worth spending time thinking about the lifetime value and thinking about our leaky bucket. And then as I talked about before, I think one of the things as well is to think holistically. So not to think just about promoting to customers, but also to think about the other key stakeholders.
[00:14:35] Lucy Rennie: So that's where I suppose my my focus on business communications comes in and we talked about the planning and how we can do that and engaging with them. For me, that's an absolute form of marketing because we are really we're marketing our brand, aren't we, to them and we're making sure that people know exactly what they need to know from us and that they're happy and they want to engage with us and that trust is there.
[00:14:55] Lucy Rennie: And then I suppose really more tangibly when we're thinking about then bringing all that together and going okay, so where do we start? How do we start to do this? How do we build the plan? Again, the first thing that we need to think about is coming back to those business goals. So those smart, tangible business goals, whether that's making sales, whether it's recruitment, whether it's building your
reputation, whether it's launching a new product or service, whether it's about engaging with your local community, whatever that might be, being really clear on that and asking yourself what you're trying to achieve and how will you know that you've achieved it?
[00:15:27] Lucy Rennie: Okay. So if it is about sales and it's about selling a certain amount of products, then make sure you've got a number on that. You know exactly how many you want to be selling, by when and to who. Okay. So that we can track that. And again, it doesn't have to be rocket science. So just using. As a basis, the five W's.
[00:15:46] Lucy Rennie: So the what, the when, the why, the who, and the where. Okay. Just make yourself a little spreadsheet and really think about what that is. And then the how, that's when we're going to start to think about the tactics. Okay. And so remembering that tactics are not strategies. So going on TikTok is not a strategy.
[00:16:05] Lucy Rennie: Going on TikTok is a tactic. It's a tool that's going to help you to achieve your goal. Okay. And it's part of that bigger strategy, but it's not a strategy by itself. It's a tool. So don't get caught up in that whirlwind of doing all these different things and not really knowing whether anything's working or not, but you're just thinking, Oh yeah, I need to be on there.
[00:16:23] Lucy Rennie: Okay. With that in mind, one of the great things to think about is to map out those touch points. We talked about the minimum at the moment. I think in 2024 is minimum between anything between eight and 16 touch points, depending on your business. And remember, it's not a one size fits all approach.
[00:16:39] Lucy Rennie: So for different businesses, it's going to be different ways, but try and identify what those key touch points are. And the best way of doing that is to actually go and. Speak and engage with some of your customers or some of your key stakeholders who've already been on that path and ask them, what was the first time they saw your brand?
[00:16:56] Lucy Rennie: What did they feel? What did they, what did they like about it or what didn't they like about it? What was this, and ask them to go, yeah, I saw you on Facebook and then I heard somebody mentioned you. And then I saw you, went and had a look at your website
and I liked the look and feel of it.
[00:17:09] Lucy Rennie: And then I clicked on here and got some free resources, or I did, I got a test or I came into your shop and just. See if you can identify and map those out so that then you can be really focused. And again, it's a little bit like that leaky bucket. We can really be paying attention to those different touch points and make sure that they're working as.
[00:17:27] Lucy Rennie: Effectively as possible, really, and making sure that they are ticking those trust boxes off that we talked about last week. But yeah, so based on those touch points, then you can think about, okay, so maybe we need to tweak it this way, or maybe we need to do it a little bit differently and.
[00:17:43] Lucy Rennie: I suppose really where I'm going to stop for today is the key. And I think one of the things that we very often forget, or maybe it becomes scary, or maybe we don't want to know, or it's a bit like sometimes when you get those bills or the letter from the DVLA coming through the door so yeah one of the things that I think I'm just going to stop with today is the bit that very often we don't like to do. Because we get so excited and we get carried away and maybe actually we don't want to necessarily know if something's working or not, because that's when we're going to have to make a decision on it.
[00:18:11] Lucy Rennie: Or that's when we're going to have to see, are we actually doing any, is it working? Are we getting the results that we want? And sometimes that can make us feel a bit icky, can't it? And again, I can, I see that in small businesses, but also larger businesses. I really encourage you to think of marketing as almost like a game so that it's, it doesn't have to be perfect.
[00:18:31] Lucy Rennie: And actually there is no right or a right or wrong way of doing this. But the key is to implement what I call the four T's, which is to test things out, to track what you're testing, to tweak it. As you're going and then to try again. Okay. So it's a continuous loop. Get really clear on, on what you're trying to achieve.
[00:18:53] Lucy Rennie: Come up with the plan. Think of the tactics, map it out, and then test it. Track it, tweak it, try again. Test it, track it, tweak it, try again. Okay. And as you're going to do that, you're going to
hone in on the things that are working really well. In which case, do more of it. Okay. And, transfer it. If it's working somewhere in your business, can you then apply that same process in a different part And if you're marketing of your communications so that you're basically reinforcing what you're learning.
[00:19:23] Lucy Rennie: And then if it's not working, if it doesn't work, if you don't get the results, and sometimes you can, it can be the things where you've spent the most amount of time, you've invested the most amount of energy and resources, and it just flops, or it just doesn't work. It just doesn't land well. One of the key things is to stop it.
[00:19:38] Lucy Rennie: Okay. It's not to waste too much time pushing it because you're convinced that it, it is the right way. Again, test it, track it, tweak it, try again. So don't be a busy fool doing the same thing over and over again, getting the same results. Listen to yourself, check out the results, be open with, if you're working with a team or you're working with a partner, have those conversations and don't be afraid To see when something's not working to stop it and go, okay, that's fine.
[00:20:05] Lucy Rennie: We've learned from it. Just don't make sure you don't do it again in the same way. So you're learning from the mistake and then those things that are working build on them and use them again and again. And, to develop this as you go forward. And don't forget as well, this is a dynamic world.
[00:20:18] Lucy Rennie: So it can be sometimes that something that, works really well, all of a sudden will stop working for various reasons that we can't always put our finger on, but the key is to be able to know whether it's working or not. That's the bit that so many businesses I know aren't tracking things.
[00:20:33] Lucy Rennie: So for me today, I didn't want this to be a long episode. We are going to delve deeper into this and it's particularly in the future people we're going to be looking a lot more at helping our members to share experiences and to really. Understand what's working or not and being brave to go, do you know what?
[00:20:50] Lucy Rennie: I really don't know. I've not actually worked out how I can track that, or I've not really been measuring it, or I've just been doing lots and lots of things and I'm exhausted and it's time to stop and
we're going to change things. If you're not already in the Future Proof Club, you can come along.
[00:21:04] Lucy Rennie: And it. Actually by accessing my book, you can then get a complimentary month in the Future Proof Club to come and see what it's all about. And it's not necessarily about a full on membership where we're learning and training and doing. It's actually about community. It's actually about having that safe space where we can come and have those conversations.
[00:21:21] Lucy Rennie: We can ask questions and we can openly share what's going on and help each other out. And I think in this world today, this is really important and very valuable because it's a busy world. And it can be a super lonely world, whether, when we're running a business, whether we've got massive team or we're just a one man band, we need to be able to join those dots and come together and help each other out.
[00:21:42] Lucy Rennie: So on that note, I'm going to leave you. I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you are wanting some more support on how to map out. Map out your marketing, your business communications. If you're thinking a little bit more about being strategic about this, then please reach out. I've got lots of different resources on this and I'd love to help you or have a chat and see yeah, and give you some pointers for your business.
[00:22:04] Lucy Rennie: Whether that's inside your business, working with your teams, which is something that I'm super passionate about, or whether it's about how you tell your story and how you build that brand externally and how you communicate and How you communicate and how you connect with your wider audience and create those, your bank of cheerleaders, let me know, get in touch.
[00:22:22] Lucy Rennie: And if you've enjoyed this podcast, I would also love you to subscribe. That would be really cool to share it with anybody that you think it might be of value to as well. And on that note, I'm going to leave you. I'm going to go and enjoy the sunshine because it's a lovely evening this week. And I will see you next week for another episode of the Future Proof Business Podcast.
[00:22:40] Lucy Rennie: Thanks for listening. Take care.escription text goes here