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Let’s make something clear. If your marketing isn’t delivering the results you need, you have to determine why.
The fact of the matter is that selling great products and services and offering an incredible client experience isn’t enough to build a successful small business. Yes, these are key factors, but hard work can only take a business so far.
If you want to take your business to the next level, you have to be able to effectively reach and connect with potential customers in a way that makes them want to buy from you. In other words, if you want your business to grow, your marketing has to actually work.
With this in mind, let’s break down the four reasons your marketing isn’t working and how you can fix these issues.
Problem #1: Lack of Clear, Customer-Focused Messaging
Now, there could be more than one reason your marketing isn’t delivering the results you need to take your company to the next level. But, more often than not, ineffective communication is a result of one or a combination of four things.
And, if you’ve listened to even one episode of Priority Pursuit, you aren’t going to be shocked when we tell you that the biggest marketing mistake we see small businesses make is failing to create clear, customer-focused messaging.
You can build a stunning website, post a reel a day, implement sales funnels, and do all of the marketing things you’re “supposed to do.” However, all of these efforts and tactics are a waste of time, money, and resources if your messaging isn’t clear.
In other words, clear messaging—which is communication that your ideal customers can understand quickly and easily—is the key to successful marketing. Because, in order to convert prospects into paying customers, you have to know what to say to connect with your ideal customers, hold their attention, and help them want to do business with you.
The Solution: Develop Marketing Guiding Statements
The best way to clarify your message is to write or work with a marketing professional to write your Marketing Guiding Statements.
In case you aren’t familiar with this idea, Marketing Guiding Statements are written guidelines that position your brand and business as a trusted partner. And, the process of developing these statements gives you the information you need to write clear, concise, and effective messaging in a story-based framework.
Again, we use a story-based format because people are 22 times more likely to remember your offer or messaging when it’s written this way.
When you take the time to create Marketing Guiding Statements, you and your marketing team can refer to these statements as you work on developing website copy, blog posts, social media posts, or any other kind of content to make sure your marketing is customer-focused—rather than braggy or salesy—and has the power to convert your ideal customers.
Essentially, think of your Marketing Guiding Statements as the GPS of your marketing efforts. Once you write them, as long as you follow them, you’ll more easily get to where you want to go, because all of your marketing materials will be written in a way that allows you to actually connect with your best customers.
Because we know that a small business's marketing cannot succeed without clear messaging, we put together a free mini course that walks you through exactly how to write your small business’s Marketing Guiding Statements.
If you want to clarify your message so you can better connect with your ideal clients, take “The First Step to Effective Marketing for Small Businesses: Writing Your Marketing Guiding Statements” mini course.
WARNING: First messaging. Then strategy.
We want to note that before you can design and implement a successful marketing strategy, you have to determine your messaging. Because, without clear messaging, you won’t be able to connect with your ideal customers or hold their attention—making any and all of your marketing efforts a waste of time and money.
Problem #2: Not Having an Effective Marketing Strategy
Now, another reason your marketing may not be working is because you don’t have an effective marketing strategy.
The fact of the matter is that there are all kinds of marketing tools and tactics available. However, your time and resources are valuable. And, as a result, you need a marketing strategy that delivers results—not a bunch of marketing tactics and suggestions pieced together that waste time and money.
Luckily, there is a marketing strategy that’s proven to consistently generate results for small businesses: the flywheel marketing method.
The Solution: The Flywheel Marketing Method
The flywheel marketing method is a marketing strategy where your website and online marketing efforts are in sync and function as a flywheel to continually produce results—even when you’re not in the office or paying much attention to your marketing.
Setting up flywheel marketing does require a lot of work upfront, but once it’s in place, your marketing will more or less continue to work on its own—just requiring minimal maintenance—which is ideal for busy small businesses.
Because we’ve seen this strategy work for small businesses of all sizes and across countless industries, the Treefrog team is very passionate about this strategy and as a result, we’ve created all kinds of resources that walk you through why it works, as well as how you can make it your own.
In case you aren’t familiar with the flywheel marketing method, with this strategy, you need to complete four steps:
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- Understand your audience and create clear messaging
- Build a strategically built, SEO-optimized website
- Create content and a sales funnel that serves your ideal client well
- Promote your services and content
Basically, once you complete these four steps, you’ll have a marketing strategy that continually produces results.
In fact, this strategy works so well that we use it for all of our agency clients at Treefrog. We’ve found it to be the most effective marketing strategy for small businesses—regardless of industry—and have had agency clients experience more than 800% growth as a result of the flywheel marketing method.
Whether you become a Treefrog client or not, there’s nothing we want more than for your small business to succeed. As a result, if you’d like to learn more about how to use the flywheel marketing method, we would love to share our flywheel marketing guide with you.
As a heads-up, this PDF is more of a book than a guide, but it does walk you through every step of the flywheel marketing method with examples so that you, or your marketing team, can make this strategy your own.
Access “The Most Effective Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses: The Flywheel Marketing Method” Here
Problem #3: Poor or Inconsistent Marketing Systems
Now, if you already have clear messaging and an effective marketing strategy, another reason your marketing may not be working is a lack of marketing systems.
In other words, if you don’t have marketing protocols and standard operating procedures in place—such as a process for running Google ads or developing and posting social media content—your marketing efforts will inevitably get put on the back burner as you and your team work to juggle the many other aspects of running a small business.
We have witnessed countless businesses spend a lot of time and money “brainstorming” marketing ideas or even mapping out their flywheel marketing strategies. However, a lack of systems resulted in failure to implement.
This is a problem because if you want to take your small business to the next level, you have to actually implement, manage, and maintain your marketing strategy.
Solution: Develop Marketing Systems & Protocols
To solve this problem, you need to create marketing systems so that every member of your team knows exactly what tasks they’re responsible for, your marketing is streamlined, and your marketing strategy is implemented in full.
While we handle the development and implementation of systems and protocols for our flywheel marketing and fractional CMO agency clients, if you or members of your team handle your marketing procedures internally, you need to create standard operating procedures for any and all marketing tasks.
This includes detailing—even if it's simply in a Google Doc—exactly how and when to complete tasks, where information and resources can be found, what software and programs to use for each task, and simply how to get things done so that there’s no room for questions or for any tasks to be forgotten.
If you’d like system and protocol advice, listen to “Episode 118: Four Systems Every Small Business Must Have to Increase Efficiency & Growth” where Mary Adkins—our systems and protocols guru—breaks down the most important systems that small businesses need to have in place to see success—both marketing and otherwise.
Problem #4: Inexperienced Marketing Leadership
The fourth reason your marketing might not be working is simply a result of inexperienced marketing leadership within your small business.
While you’re an expert at what you do, you likely don’t have the time—or the desire—to become a marketing expert. However, having experienced marketing leadership is critical to the success of your company.
If you or a member of your team are trying to piece together different marketing tactics and learn about the latest marketing trends as you have time, your marketing may not be working simply because you don’t have the time or expertise to effectively handle and lead your marketing efforts.
While the internet can get you far, unfortunately, there is no shortage of bad marketing advice available online. And, this is why most small businesses try one marketing tactic after another without seeing results—which, as we’ve already discussed, wastes time and money and prevents business growth.
But, with so much bad marketing advice out there, where do you find solid marketing guidance and leadership?
Solution: Find a Marketing Partner with a Proven Track Record
We know it can be hard to determine what marketing educators and resources you can trust and what marketing strategies actually work. Because of this, we’ve spent more than two decades helping small businesses establish marketing systems that generate business growth and create loyal customers by providing trustworthy marketing leadership and marketing resources that are backed by data and experience.
With this in mind, we want to share a few resources with you that you can use to improve the effectiveness of your marketing and feel confident in your marketing efforts.
1. Take advantage of FREE small business marketing resources.
First, we feel called to help small businesses grow, and as a result, all of the work we do and the free content we produce is backed by decades of experience, data, and extensive research.
So, whether you’re a small business owner, running a small business, or a marketing manager, we want to invite you to take advantage of our free marketing resources, which include The Priority Pursuit Podcast, our small business marketing blog, and our free guides and mini courses.
Even if your small business isn’t financially ready to invest in marketing leadership, these resources will give you clear, proven marketing guidance.
2. Partner with Treefrog Marketing.
Now, if you’re ready to invest in marketing guidance and leadership, we want to take a quick second to tell you about the ways we help small businesses get to the next level. Because every small business is in a different place, we offer three different service levels.
Flywheel & Digital Marketing
As we mentioned previously, we’ve developed a four-step digital marketing strategy (the flywheel marketing method) that consistently generates new business. In fact, our team has successfully developed and implemented digital marketing strategies for hundreds of small businesses.
With our flywheel and digital marketing services, our team will build and implement every aspect of the flywheel marketing method for you.
Fractional CMO
In case you aren’t familiar with this service, a fractional chief marketing officer is an outside expert brought into your small business on a part-time basis as executive leadership to understand, refine, and manage your marketing initiatives, spending, resources, and staff in order to improve your overall sales.
Basically, most small businesses don’t need a full-time CMO, so we come in on a part-time basis to oversee every aspect of your marketing, even your internal marketing team.
Marketing Consulting
Last but not least, we offer marketing coaching and consulting for small businesses. With this service, you or your team will build and implement your own marketing strategy, but you’ll have access to our team of marketing experts where you will receive guidance and feel confident in your marketing efforts.
To learn more about our services and to schedule a discovery call, please visit treefrogmarketing.com.
For the record, this episode isn’t meant to be a sales pitch. As we’ve discussed, there’s nothing the Treefrog team wants more than for your small business to succeed, and we feel called to help you do exactly that—whether that means as your marketing partner or by providing data-driven content you can use to handle your own marketing efforts.
What if ineffective marketing is the only thing preventing you from reaching your business goals?
The fact of the matter is that lazy people don’t start small businesses. As a result, we think it’s safe to say that you work hard in everything you do, and we think it’s fair to assume that your natural inclination is to grind until you see results.
That’s an incredible quality—most of the time. However, what if your effort isn’t the problem? What if the only thing preventing you from reaching your business goals is your marketing?
You work too hard for ineffective marketing to stand in the way of reaching your goals. So, please use this episode to assess the performance of your current marketing efforts, and don’t wait to make changes because you deserve to have a marketing strategy that works as hard as you do.
Links & Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Download Treefrog’s Free “The Most Effective Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses: The Flywheel Marketing Method” Guide
- Access Treefrog’s Free Small Business Resources
- Clarify Your Messaging With Treefrog’s “The First Step to Effective Marketing for Small Businesses: Writing Your Marketing Guiding Statements” mini course.
- Listen to “Episode 118: Four Systems Every Small Business Must Have to Increase Efficiency & Growth”
- Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook
- Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services
- Join the Priority Pursuit Facebook Community
- Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
- Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
- Follow or DM Victoria Rayburn on Instagram
The Priority Pursuit Podcast is a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain, and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.
You can find The Priority Pursuit Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Stitcher, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
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