If there's one thing I hear over and over again, it's, "Brian, our marketing doesn't work and we don't know why." Well, there are a plethora of reasons why that could be happening, but today I'm going to share the nine top reasons your marketing isn't working.

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HELPFUL LINKS

The Ultimate 97 Point Marketing Audit Checklist

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TRANSCRIPT

Brian Webb:

This is the Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast.

Brian Webb:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Brian Webb. This podcast is designed to be your number one premier place to learn the framework, secrets, and growth hacks, to grow and scale your business smarter and faster. While you're working on pursuing your dreams and growing your business, I'll be here to help you make better decisions and avoid costly pitfalls and expensive mistakes along the way. So, let's go ahead and jump into today's episode.

Welcome back, everybody. As I said, in the intro, there are a myriad or a plethora of reasons, I think is the word that I used, that marketing doesn't work. But today I want to share nine of them with you that I see the most frequently. So, let's start with number one, you're marketing to the wrong people. If you haven't precisely defined exactly who your perfect ideal customers are, and if you don't understand exactly what their problems and challenges and dreams are, this is going to give you a few problems. One, you might be getting in front of your ideal customers, but you're probably saying the wrong thing. Or two you're spending money to get paid traffic to your website, to your offers, to your landing pages and you're wasting money on people who will never, ever buy from you. So, if you haven't defined exactly who your ideal customer avatar is, and you probably have multiple of them, by the way, then it's going to be difficult or impossible for you to really get in front of the right people. The people that you want to be doing business with.

Second, you are saying the wrong things. When you don't know what to say in your marketing effort, this is called a failed message to market match. I want to encourage you to speak into the dreams, the problems, and the challenges of your ideal customers. And by the way, use the same vocabulary they do. Once you've been through step one and you have precisely defined your ideal customers, you'll know exactly how to communicate and engage with them. And always remember, by the way, every single customer that you're looking for has the exact same two goals. They want to move away from pain and they want to move toward pleasure. When you can help them to achieve that, and they believe you when you tell them, you're going to get more customers more quickly. So again, number one, you're likely marketing to the wrong people.

Number two, you're saying the wrong things. And three, you're asking them to do the wrong thing. "Well, thanks, Brian. That's really helpful. What are we supposed to be asking them?" There's a scene in the film, Ocean's Thirteen, that I've never forgotten because I see businesses doing the same thing. Al Pacino is just talking to one of the contractors and he's working on building the most beautiful, the most luxurious hotel in the world. And one of the contractors is basically talking to him about the delays that are coming. And Pacino says this. "I don't want the labor pains. I just want the baby." I'd be willing to bet that if I were to walk through all of your marketing collateral, all of your messaging, that you are saying the same thing but in a different way. You don't want the labor pains. You just want the baby.

In other words, "I don't want to say much to you. I don't want really start a relationship. Give me your money." Your marketing probably sounds a lot like Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character in the film, Jerry Maguire, when he says, "Show me the money." It takes at least 21 to 24 interactions with your brand before someone goes through the three phases of a relationship. Some level of curiosity and awareness, trust that gets built over time through enlightenment, then the engagement, then the commitment. If you're not inviting people into a story, if you're not using all of the sales funnel strategies that are available to you, then you're asking them to do the wrong thing. Every time that you run an ad, you're basically saying, "Give me your money." Every time that you put something on some social media, "Give me your money." You're selling, selling, selling. And I get it, we're all out here to grow our businesses and generate new revenue opportunities.

Start using generosity as your lead foot. Not only in your marketing as a business, instead of buying now, right now, upfront, say things like, "Download this checklist. Let me send you this video series. Let me show you how to accomplish X, Y, or Z." Then, once you've had some time to nurture your prospects over time, then you can get to what you want to ask them to do, which is to set up that meeting, buy your product, and engage with your services. The fourth thing that you're doing wrong is thinking that you can advertise anywhere and everywhere. 40 years ago, choosing the right media or the right platform was easy, but in today's modern era, new platforms and new channels emerge seemingly every day. Once you've identified where your ideal customers are, you're going to want to show up only where they are. But everywhere they are to the best of your financial ability.

You and I are not Coca-Cola. We don't have a $3 billion a year marketing budget and advertising spend. You need to hone in on exactly where they are and then show up all the time. And number five is probably the most overarching problem that you have is that you have no effective marketing systems. We'll get back to the show in just a moment, but first, a quick word from our sponsor, WhatBox Digital.

Did you know that most marketing doesn't work at all? Did you know that most business owners and leaders are making the same mistakes over and over and over again? Like so many others, you are likely tired of relying on hope, which is a failed marketing system. This is when you're spending valuable time and money on marketing, and then hoping it works. You've thrown tons of money towards marketing mistakes and failures, and you wish you could get that money back. When you don't have a reliable system for generating leads and acquiring new customers, then you're doomed to exclusively rely on the loyalty of your existing customers and word of mouth. But it doesn't have to be that way. I'm Brian Webb, the CEO and senior guide at WhatBox Digital. And I've had the privilege of owning and leading a successful marketing agency in the greater Houston metroplex for over 18 years.

Having worked in over 60 industry verticals, I've led my team and clients to achieve business growth, time and time again. And I want to give you a resource for free. You heard me right. Free. I've put together the ultimate 97-point marketing audit checklist, which will allow you to assess and diagnose what is and is not working in your marketing. And it'll only take you about 10 or 15 minutes to go through it. Think of it like an MRI for your marketing, without the expensive medical bills to follow. And to get this free marketing checklist delivered right to your inbox, simply go to getmymarketingchecklist.com. Provide your info and we'll get it out to you right away. And again, it's totally free. I'd encourage you to walk through this checklist with your team, and honestly discuss and evaluate every action item on the list. It will be the best 10 minutes you've invested into the growth engine of your business in a long, long time.

Don't waste another day or another dollar on failed hope marketing strategies that do not work. If you want to grow and scale your business smarter and faster, and with fewer mistakes, you're in the right place. Again, it's totally free. Simply go to getmymarketingchecklist.com right now. Let's fix what's broken in your marketing.

And number five is probably the most overarching problem that you have is that you have no effective marketing systems. Without a system you're just flying blind, right? When you don't have an effective marketing system, you do have a system, it's just called the spray and pray system or the hope marketing system. You're just going to go and do a lot of stuff. There's going to be a lot of activity. You're going to spray a lot of marketing into the air, and then you pray that something comes back from it. You hope it works. And what's ironic to me, is that marketing is typically the one system that most businesses don't have. You have accounting systems, you have HR systems, you have IT systems, you have accountability systems. I work with 7, 8, 9 figure businesses and you'd be amazed at how the vast majority of them had no marketing systems in place before I got there.

Lead generation is the ongoing acquisition of leads for your business. Conversion is the process of taking those leads and converting them into customers. Retention, referral, ascension, this is the system for ensuring that you keep the customers you've acquired, ascending them to the new products that you want them to have or services and income opportunities, and then generating referrals for new customers. If you're hearing this and you're thinking, "Oh my goodness, this is us." We really need to talk. Don't forget you can visit whatboxdigital.com or just text me, at 832-324-2432. But moving on. Number six, you're chasing your customers instead of magnetically attracting them. Let me ask you this, what is your natural inclination when you discover yourself being chased in hot pursuit? I know the answer. You run away as fast as you can. But when you leverage the power of sales finals, again, which almost always starts with an irresistible offer, a lead magnet, or a lead generator. Instead, now you're going to magnetically attract your ideal customers and prospects to raise their hands and just take a tiny step in your direction.

Don't chase, instead, magnetically attract them. And I kind of covered number seven earlier, which is thinking that you have the ad budget of Coca-Cola. Like I said, we don't have billions of dollars. I think in 2017, I saw it reported that Coca-Cola's advertising budget or their expenses rather were just shy of $4 billion. You're not going after every single parched throat on the planet. You want to be smart with your financial resources and only spend money on showing up where your customers are. And number eight, racing to the bottom in low price without an effective marketing system, which includes branding that's in place. It's going to be tempting to look at the competition and see what they're doing to grow their business, which oftentimes is lowering their prices. But the problem is there can only be one numero uno, lowest cost provider. Bottom-dwelling is not the path to success, and it's not going to give you the business model that you desire anyway.

So don't do that. And last but not least, number nine, no follow-up. Most audio customers are not ready to buy from you at the moment that you show up. And they're certainly not ready to buy, just because you are ready to sell. Some will take weeks, others will take months. Sometimes, and this has happened to me and it's happened with my clients, for years. It takes years. Once you've attracted the right ideal customer into your brand's ecosystem, it's imperative that you follow up forever. Something that's kind of silly, but really it's not. It's actually true, that I tell my customers all the time. You follow up until they buy, die, or unsubscribe. And it's okay if they unsubscribe, but you are going to follow up with them forever. I don't mean you're calling them every week, right? You don't want to be a pest, but until they buy or die or unsubscribe, you can continue to nurture them, send them resources, things that help them, again, move away from pain and towards their goals, towards pleasure forever.

And let me close with this thought, isn't it fair to say that you owe it to yourself and you owe it to them. Your products and your services solve a problem. But you can't solve the problems of your customers until they hire you. So, if you give up prematurely if you just stop following up. It's almost like you have the cure for cancer and you said, "Eh, we're done. We're going to leave this alone." Meanwhile, your customers continue to suffer with the problems that they have. So, follow-up is king, until they buy die or unsubscribe. That's how you're going to follow up moving forward. That's it for today. I hope you enjoy this episode. And I know this is covered in the outro, but when you go to our podcast, especially on Apple, but all the platforms, wherever you listen. And you go and leave a rating and review, you actually help me and us to help more people because you help us to do better in the algorithm.

So just by doing that one little act of generosity, not for any vanity metric, I don't care about that. But if it helps us to help more, then you get to be a part of that calling and that legacy. Thanks for being here today. Thank you for listening. And please know when I say thank you, I say it from the bottom of my heart. I feel like I'm a steward of your time. I have a fiduciary responsibility to be as valuable for you as I can. So if you're showing up and you're listening, thank you. Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will see you on the next episode. Let's keep going and growing together. Blessings, everyone.

Thanks for joining me today and listening to this episode of the Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast. We can be found on all the major platforms like Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and even Amazon Music. I genuinely hope you enjoyed today's episode. And if you did, I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to the show and leave us a rating and an honest review. I'd love to connect with you on Instagram. You can find me at @BrianWebb. And the show sponsor WhatBox Digital can be found at, as you might guess, @whatboxdigital. You can also find me and WhatBox Digital on Facebook and LinkedIn, with the links in the show notes.

This will allow you to stay up to date and never miss out on exciting new announcements, events, special offers, and opportunities. And you'll be in the know when we drop a new episode of the Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast. And if you'd like to send me a DM on Instagram to say hello, or share your thoughts on how we can make this podcast even better for you. I'd love to hear from you. Again, thanks for listening. Let's go and grow together. I'll see you on the next episode.

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DESCRIPTION

The Learn More Earn More Business Growth Podcast is sponsored by Whatbox Digital, a marketing and consulting agency in the Greater Houston Metroplex. This podcast is your premier place to learn the frameworks, secrets, and growth hacks to grow and scale your business and revenue smarter and faster.

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