Why your marketing may not be working!

I know we are always quick to blame when something isn’t working, but when it works, it is the best thing, right? So quite often, my clients will blame marketing for their business performance, but marketing is a very broad term, so what aspect of marketing are they actually blaming? And is it even ‘marketing’? So what I have done is created a list of common things I hear people saying all the time about ‘marketing’, and then I have created a more concrete list of reasons why I think people might be blaming ‘marketing’.

So, let’s start with some of the common ones

Over the years that I have been in business, consulting, supporting, and helping my clients with their marketing, I have come up with a short summary list of things that I hear people complaining about all the time and simply blaming marketing.

1. It takes money
2. I don’t know what to do
3. There isn’t a manual to tell you
4. Everybody is an ‘expert’
5. The one who screams louder gets your attention
6. Everyday there is something new
7. Everyone says you must be on Facebook
8. I am not a marketer
9. I personally don’t think marketing works
10. I just don’t have the resources to do it

However, having a better understanding of marketing with actual real-life experience in it, and a solid understanding of the marketing framework and benefits thereof, I have come up with the following 10 reasons why I believe people may be blaming their marketing.

10 reasons why you may be blaming your marketing

1. Not knowing how to articulate what it is you do in 1 to 2 sentences: There are still a number of business owners who find it difficult to explain what it is they do and then wonder why the recipient may not understand them.
2. Don’t know who your target market is: This is by far the greatest reason why many businesses blame marketing, because they have not defined a clear target market and lack understanding thereof. With a clear target market, it will give you better clarity and direction for your business, offering and even your life!
3. Don’t know how to translate what you do in benefit driven content: It is always so much easier for you to talk about yourself, but when you really understand your audience and the questions they are asking, it helps you create content that is easier to read and understand and relevant to your audience because it removes the ‘facts’ and rather connects.
4. Nobody even knows you exist and have not and will not find your website: Did you know there are currently just over 1 billion websites? So why should someone find yours? Have you given them an easy path to follow? Or have you given them a good enough reason to engage? You cannot play fish with your website, you cannot put the line in the water and wait, you need to drive people to your website.
5. You don’t have a good consistent online presence: You complain you don’t get engagement, or you don’t get any new leads, but what does your online presence look like, are you showing up on different channels, are you being consistent, is your message clear with call to actions? Because remember not ‘everyone’ is your target market and marketing is not an overnight success (so ignore the noise), marketing takes time.
6. You lack a professional brand image, reputation, or personal branding: Sometimes, you need to look within, how are you establishing your online brand, how are you as the expert in your mastery using this and how are you establishing your reputation amongst current and prospect clients. If you are doing anything at all?
7. There is a problem with your offering and possibly the pricing too: Again, another sweet oversight, you go to market with an idea that you think is going to rock…not having done your research and defining your market you soon realise there is no market for it or quite often it is too broad and confusing (or overpriced). So do your homework, do your research, define your audience, and then create an offer for your customer (not yourself).
8. You have no strategy and lack of cohesiveness with all your marketing service providers: It is easy to get lost in translation, and yes marketing being one of them as there are several ‘experts’ out there offering ‘expert’ services and you just want to win. So, what we find ourselves doing is listening to the one who makes the most noise and buy into their short-lived offer and move on or why not have more than one service provider at a time all working in their own direction because you could not give that to them neither. No, take back control, put together a strategy and plan and hire service providers for this intention, not theirs or their fancy sales pitch!
9. Unable to create any content: Ok, ok, this is probably one of the biggest reasons people blame marketing and that it doesn’t work, because you don’t know what to say and when you need to show up you feel overwhelmed and start the blaming game. But if you have a clear target market in mind (can you start seeing the pattern here), a strategy to follow and clear benefit driven content, then content writing in fact becomes so much easier because you can create content pillars with ease and topics for days, months and years!!! And remember, step and repeat, the biggest advantage of repurposing content.
10. You have no system to manage your customer journey from beginning to end: Finally, we all on a mission to GET leads, GET new clients and BE SEEN!! But remember, you too have several awesome clients in your pipeline just waiting to buy in to you, or you already have a list of clients you already servicing. So, what are you doing to continue to add value to these clients, so they want to continue to do business with you, or better yet, tell their friend just how awesome you are!! Remember marketing doesn’t only happen in the beginning, it must follow through to the end and beyond too!!!

So how can you fix this?

Get an accountability partner to guide you. With a marketing mentor or guide by your side it makes it so much easier, I am here to help my clients put a framework in their business to get back to the basics of marketing, to re-establish themselves so they can move forward in their business with a clear marketing strategy. Because as I say, marketing will set you apart, not your business (or some overnight success).

Join our free weekly sessions at Mi Lifeline Learning to learn all things marketing or visit our website to see what online programs we have to offer you to create the business of your dreams.

Know your customer – Attract your customer.