The Power Of Having A Strategy In Your Digital Marketing

"We tried it. It didn't work!"

Picture a bakery owner named Dana. Last spring she paid a designer $6,000 for a new website and committed to posting on Instagram five days a week. She photographed every croissant, every loaf, every frosted cake.

Six months later, the website had a few hundred visits. The Instagram account had 400 followers. The register looked exactly the same.

So Dana did what most business owners do in that spot. She decided digital marketing doesn't work for a bakery.

The real cost is the lesson she learned

The $6,000 and the hours behind the camera are real losses. But they aren't the biggest cost. The biggest cost is the conclusion Dana drew.

She now believes websites and social media don't work for businesses like hers. That belief will keep her away from channels that could have paid off for years.

Here's what actually happened. Most of her Instagram followers turned out to be other bakers in other states. Her real customers, parents within a few miles of the shop, were searching Google for a birthday cake and finding the bakery down the street. Her new website didn't show up, and even when someone landed on it, there was no way to place an order.

The channels didn't fail. Dana skipped the step that comes before any website or post: deciding who she was trying to reach, what she wanted them to do, and how she'd know it was working. Without that, she wasn't marketing. She was just busy.

What "just diving in" looks like

Most businesses that skip strategy don't realize they skipped it. They feel productive, because they're doing a lot. It usually looks like one of these:

• A beautiful website with no clear next step, so visitors admire it and leave.
• Posting every day on a platform where your customers don't spend their time.
• Celebrating likes and followers when the business actually needs calls, bookings, or orders.
• Boosting a post once, getting nothing back, and quitting without knowing what you were measuring.

If one of these sounds familiar, you're not alone. It's the most common mistake I see in small business marketing.

Strategy is just five questions

"Strategy" sounds like something that needs a consultant and a 40-page deck. It doesn't. At its core, a marketing strategy is your answer to five questions:

1. Who exactly are you trying to reach? Not "everyone." A specific kind of person with a specific need.
2. Where are they already paying attention? Google, Facebook groups, LinkedIn, email, the local paper. Go where they are, not where you think you should be.
3. What do you want them to do next? Call, book, buy, sign up. One clear action.
4. Why would they choose you over the alternatives? If you can't say it in a sentence, your customers can't either.
5. How will you know it's working? Pick the number that connects to revenue, and check it.

Notice that none of these questions mention a platform. Choosing the tactics comes after you answer them, not before.

If Dana had started here, she might have learned her best customers were local parents ordering birthday cakes. That points to a Google Business Profile, a website with a simple order form, and maybe no Instagram at all. Same budget, very different results.

Before your next post

Here's your homework, and it takes about 15 minutes. Before you spend another dollar or another hour on your website or social media, write down your answers to those five questions. One sentence each is enough.

If you get stuck on one, that's your answer about where to start.

And if you've written off a channel because it "didn't work," take a second look with your answers in hand. The channel may not have failed you. The plan may never have existed.

Hit reply and tell me which question was hardest to answer. I promise, I read every email that I get.

-- Seth Goldstein

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Friend Of Marketing Junto Shoutout! The One And Only Ric Forbes...

I wanna share something that I think you’ll get a kick out of.

I met this unique person who specializes in contrarian ways of life.

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Well, he’s this guy who will go against all others and back it up.

I spoke with him last week, and this guy impressed me.

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-Seth and Brian

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