From Winging It to Winning It: How to Build a Strategic Marketing Plan for Small Business Success
When you first started your business, you had lots of plans.
You had visions of being your own boss, you had visions of commanding your own time. Of being the best at what you did while serving amazing clients who loved you back like you loved them.
When you got started you did just that: you went for it. You were winging it and it was brave, and amazing and that alone means that you get a big high five because so many people never get off the couch.
There's a lot of support around starting a business. Wellsprings for developing ideas and how to bootstrap it. But after you start it, those in-between phases, the growing phases, what about what happens then? You know that winging it is a season that you want to move out of.
The Challenges of Winging It
But you’re stuck in it because:
You wear all the hats. You don’t have time to eat breakfast let alone sit down for a strategy session. Ideal world? You really want to streamline the organization in order to create more time to create like you need.
The sales aren’t quite there to hire out the experts and you haven’t the foggiest idea what something like this would cost so you are bouncing from idea to idea to see what sticks.
Data scares you and you don’t really know what to track or how to track it so you’re never clear on if anything is WORKING outside of checking the money coming in (or not).
In short? You’d love to not be winging it but honestly? It just feels like the way out of this way of doing things is unclear and over your head.
Identifying the Roadblocks to Progress
They say that “overnight successes” are actually 10 years in the making, and I 100% agree with that.
It takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work in the trenches to get to the point of being labeled “an overnight success”.
But what if you have put in the time and the hard work and you're still not getting anywhere?
Why is that?
Is it because the idea isn't a good fit for the market?
·Is it because you don't know what you're talking about?
Is it because you don't know SEO?
The answer is it’s none of the above. Let me explain.
The reason you’re not getting anywhere is that you've been relying on things that are unstable and inconsistent for lead generation and your overall marketing in general.
This looks like:
·Watching a few webinars on SEO, then trying to do a big push to do some blogs, only to flame out after a month or so.
·You’re relying SOLELY on word-of-mouth referrals, believing you don’t need organic leads from off the street (newsflash: yes you do.)
·You're dependent on your long term clients staying with you because if they leave, well, that would be a disaster.
None of these marketing tactics are intentional, strategic or predictable. Translation: chaos, stress and stunted growth. I don't think it matters whether you are in calligraphy or floral design. A consultant or brand strategist. You need profits, you need more leads, and you need consistency in your business.
Building a business, intentionally, that makes you enough money to be sustainable, takes time and hard work.
But most importantly? It takes a plan.
The Power of a Solid Marketing Strategy
Everything becomes more clear with a marketing strategy (AKA plan). A marketing strategy is a holistic look at your business and it’s focused on getting the people in the door and sitting at the table with you learning about how you help them with their problems.
Maybe the most important benefit? It can remove writer’s block and the overwhelming freeze that comes with feeling like you need to make so much content on so many channels so you just do: NOTHING. It helps you prioritize, organize, and streamline all the ideas and all the thoughts you have in your head.
There are so many things that go into building a business with intention. But the thing that makes the most difference is a strategy.
We can build you a beautiful website that looks amazing. It doesn't mean it's ever going to pay for itself unless it has a solid foundation or at least a whiff of a plan behind it. How to get people to click on buttons, how to make sure that process is easy, organized, efficient and compelling. All of those things, add up–in a big way.
Holistic Marketing: Blending Design, Voice, and Customer Experience
Holistic marketing pays you back year after year and helps your business grow by covering big and small things and blending them together into a cohesive plan. Things like:
The design, the layout, or the tech behind the scenes that shows you’re an expert.
Infusing your special kind of magic into how your voice comes across and how it sounds authentic.
Leveling up customer journey and experience: AKA how we display your enthusiasm and your expertise all over the site, not just on the home page.
It's about what proves that you're an expert in your space and that you are knowledgeable and real and relatable and most importantly, that you can solve your client's problems.
Good strategy will cover all the bases in a big package tied up with a bow to help you get the clients you need and the money you need to survive.
We all know that grim statistic about most businesses croaking within the first five years. But the stat I’m more interested in?
I want to know about the businesses that die a slow death because it's a slow trickle and march down the hill into not enough profits to make it work. Because eventually, you can’t hold out anymore. You can't wear all the hats in winging it land. You can't make the little amount of money that you're making do with. You don't want to be a mogul, but you just want to have enough to feel like the cup is always close to full, not half empty.
The real talk is this: if you don’t take your marketing seriously and budget for it both in time and in money, your business will die. There is no other way around it. It is that essential to your business wellness.
This is why we are so passionate about marketing sessions and blending mandatory strategy sessions with every website we build inside of our Signature Compass Framework system. The Compass Framework is a program that has strategy, marketing, and websites all packaged together into a three-step program that helps you get clear, get results, and make money.
All the things that you need to stay in love with your business and in love with your bank account.
Book a Coffee Chat to Unlock Your Marketing Potential
So whether you need a new website, a refresh, or just a marketing strategy to grow your business with intention in 2023, let’s get together and build a plan that you can tackle bit by bit as your year goes on. It's something that you can count on and use as both a touchstone and a guiding light.
Because every day everything is competing for your attention and you only have so much to give.
From your inbox, to your colleagues, to your dog, to your spouse, there's a never-ending carousel of all.the.things that need all of our time right now. But we know that the things that make the biggest difference are the things that we plan intentionally for, make the time for, and most importantly: track. We know that hard work and passion is not enough to succeed in business.
If you’re stuck, book a coffee chat and we’ll help you build the missing piece of your marketing so that you feel confident, clear, and ready to grow.
