You know you’ve got the skills and services to attract customers, but you are not quite seeing the funnel of leads you’d hoped for. It’s a frustrating predicament, particularly for heart-centered entrepreneurs who have poured everything they have into building their brand. But when your marketing is falling flat, that doesn’t necessarily mean your business is doomed to fail. In fact, often just a few simple tweaks are required in order to boost your efforts and get more leads.
If you’re frustrated with the ROI on your marketing, here are a few simple tweaks that can promote growth:
Create cohesiveness in your branding
If you use multiple logos, font styles and colors in various places online and in print, it may be a lack of cohesiveness in your branding that’s to blame. When you’re creating your marketing materials, you’ll want to consider every touch point that you’ve got. This means making sure that logos from a decade ago don’t rise from the dead and creep back into letterhead, and that images on Facebook match the branding seen on your website.
Speaking of social media, don’t underestimate the importance of consistency on these platforms. Many people are so focused on their website and printed marketing materials that they forget to check out what someone will see when they visit their company’s Instagram or Facebook page. If your brand is all about being motivational, for example, your company’s instagram shouldn’t be peppered with sarcastic, biting memes. Here are a few examples of brands that have nailed their approach to social media:
Your clients should be able to recognize your brand by your colors and your logo. Bonus points for consistent fonts and cohesiveness in imagery.
You post inconsistently
Social media craves consistency. If you expect to abandon your company’s Facebook page for three months and pick up right where you left off, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Your audience needs to see consistency in your posting schedule. If you struggle with this, build it into your “to do” list, like you would any other task – or hire it out. You can even develop an editorial calendar to make it easier to plan out what you’d like to post and when.
These simple tweaks to your posting strategy can offer a major change in your engagement, which helps you show up in feeds and get more leads. You gain momentum (and followers!) when you’re posting both consistently and thoughtfully.
You’re thinking like the owner, not the client
This is a huge hangup for many well-meaning, well-qualified business owners. I would venture to say that roughly 90 percent of entrepreneurs who aren’t seeing the results they’re looking for have this issue to blame. If you suspect this might be the case, I’d recommend going back through your own marketing materials and putting yourself in your clients’ shoes as you think, “Does this answer the questions I would ask?” If the answer isn’t a resounding yes, it’s time to tweak your efforts.
Clients want to know that you have the expertise to help them. But they also need to know how they stand to benefit from working with you. On your About Me page, feel free to list accomplishments, awards, honors, and all of that good stuff. On your site’s other pages, however, shift the focus and see things from your client’s perspective. What will they gain by partnering with you? Why do they need your services? If you struggle with this, don’t be afraid to ask past clients to help you understand how their life, business, or health changed after working with you. I’ve written many pieces of marketing content using this trick!
Make sure your marketing answers questions that potential clients have about your services and isn’t too centrally focused on you.
You’re not popping up in search engine results
When a potential customer is searching for a business like yours in search engines, is information about your brand readily available? If you have to scroll to the 12th page of Google before finding details about your business, you’re going to struggle to get leads. To boost your ability to show up in search engine results, think about what would-be clients are searching for when they look for a business like yours. What phrases are they typing in?
Incorporate keyword phrases into the title, content, and SEO plugins on all of your pages on your website.
You expect perfection
We’d all love it if everything we put out into the world was an instant success. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. If you’re a business owner, you’re going to need to be prepared to fall on your face sometimes. I’ve been there – it stinks – but internal fortitude and desire to learn is important as an entrepreneur! When this happens, it’s okay to have a brief pity party, but then pick yourself up and keep moving. Brace yourself for trial and error. Having to make an adjustment on the fly says nothing about who you are as a professional. How you react to making that adjustment says everything. Being an entrepreneur is synonymous with making mistakes – it’s perfectly normal.
When things fall flat, shift your focus to the simple tweaks that are necessary in order to reach your target audience more effectively.
Your website is too complicated
Many websites are so dense with information that they quickly become overwhelming. Streamline your site so that you highlight only the most important bits of information a client needs to know to make an educated decision to hire you. Save the rest for your prospect conversations. Also, keep in mind that 50 percent of your users will be checking out your site on a phone or a tablet. If it’s not optimized for these platforms, you’re at risk of losing half of your customer base! As a consumer, you know how important this is.
Simple tweaks like optimizing your site for phones and tablets and simplifying the information on your website make the browsing experience much more appealing to potential clients!
You’re not letting your personality shine through
Some business owners get tripped up when it comes to crafting the tone that should appear on their site. Of course you want to remain professional, but there’s a difference between professional and stuffy. Your content doesn’t need to be bland in order to gain customers’ trust. In fact, it should be quite the opposite! If you’ve got a fun, bubbly personality, don’t dull it because you fear it’s not professional enough. People want to work with someone they can relate to – choosing to buy is an emotional choice! Build this relationship by connecting through information about yourself, your brand, and your story on your site. Some of the questions you might want to tackle in your content include:
- How did the idea for your business come about?
- What kind of struggles did you face as you built your company?
- What personal experiences encouraged you to start your business?
Put yourself in the position of a customer. When you’re exploring different options, which brand are you most drawn to on a personal level? Probably the one owned by someone who gives a three-dimensional look at who they are, versus the person who strictly offers a list of services, hours of operation, and details about where they went to school or where they’ve worked. Be YOU!
You don’t embody your brand
Potential customers are naturally drawn to someone who truly embodies their brand. They want to see authenticity. If you’re out there doing activities that relate to your company, talk about it on your site. For instance, after a weekend spent zip-lining at our business retreat earlier this year, I posted some photos on my social media. One of my friends called to tell me she loved that I was really practicing what I preach in terms of being adventurous and finding momentum. I love that she saw that in my everyday choices! If you teach people about holistic nutrition, show off the vegetable garden you’re growing in your backyard or recipes you love for a balanced diet.
We have so many opportunities to show potential customers that we’re more than just words on a computer screen!
If you know your marketing is falling flat but you’re not sure why, this marketing quiz is the perfect starting point. It’s designed to pinpoint the areas of your branding that need love in order to create a message that resonates with your target audience.
WANT MORE COACHING AND SUPPORT?
Consider the Daily Business Momentum Online Program. You know there is so much more potential for growth in your business. You’re ready to do the work. You just need a little guidance to get there.
