The Problem with Marketing (And Tips to Make it Better)

If you run a business, of any size, you will be doing marketing, there is no getting away from it. If you are running a small business you may be doing it yourself, and if you are, then you’re probably getting frustrated with it. That is because marketing is hard and all the tutorials you watch and courses you complete miss the vital aspect of context.

I shall explain. As you know, there are tons of tutorials and courses all over the internet teaching how to do marketing. But they can’t teach you how to apply it to your business because they don’t know your business, and that's where you get stuck.

This is why a good marketer is worth their weight in gold, they can apply all these techniques and marketing knowledge to your business. Marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all, but the training you see the majority of the time is designed for mass consumption.

Think about it, if you watch a tutorial on how to lay bricks, would you be able to go and build a house? No. But after watching a video on ‘How I Grew to 10k followers in 100 Days’ in 100 days, you’re expecting to be 10k followers up and that simply isn’t how it works, and it’s incredibly frustrating.

So let’s answer some questions:

Why is there so much out there like this?

These are techniques and theories that are founded in tried and tested campaigns, either conducted by educational establishments or individuals. But without a marketing background knowing the HOW to do isn’t going to give you the same results. Those who are teaching this know what they are trying to achieve, who the audience is and have the experience to be able to effectively APPLY IT. Context is impossible to teach on mass and experience takes time.

If you sign up for a ‘How I Grew to 10k followers in 100 Days’ webinar or course you are going to watch a detailed plan for the next 100 days. But there will be nothing specific about how you ‘add value’ or ‘research your niche’ because that is unique to your business. Normally at the end of the webinar, they will offer you discounts or free somethings as incentives to join their coaching programme. This proves my point, it’s hard to apply and get results from, so you go with the expert you know as they are already trying to help you. 

What should I do?

What you need to do is look at your marketing as a whole, from start to finish. You don’t need to learn marketing, you are not a marketer, you need to learn how to market your business. So before you start watching videos on how to get 10k followers, look at your business. 

• Who are you and what are you offering that no one else is?
• What is your business great at?
• What is your USP (Unique selling point)?

Then look at who wants that.

• Who is your audience?
• What specifics are they looking for?
• How can you better serve them?
• What do they want to know from me? (This bit is really hard)

Then look at your competitors

• What are they doing well? 
• What are they missing?
• What gaps have they left?

Learn about your industry, your market and your audience and this will give you a great marketing foundation to apply your marketing learning to.

But, it’s hard, so what else can you do?
You have a few options:

1. I would strongly recommend you skip the generic courses, ’ how to do social media for your business’, ‘how to market yourself online’ tutorials, at least to start with, and favour a coaching session or one-day training with an expert who will look at your business and your struggles and help you better interpret what you find online into practical working knowledge. 
2. Do a brainstorming session after you have gathered all your information.
3. Bring in an expert. Nothing is saying that you have to do it all. If you set up your business because you love doing yoga, or tattoos but you need to market your business, there is no harm in handing it off to a consultant who can do it for you, or help you do it. 
4. Look at what you are personally engaging with online, what companies you follow, and what are they posting that you are interested in and engaging with.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy fix that I can offer a 1, 2, 3 step answer to, because if it was you wouldn’t have so many marketing consultants out there. This is more about arming you with as much knowledge as I can as to why you are finding marketing hard. 

I am doing as much as I can to support small businesses with marketing education but as I have said I can’t give you specific answers because I don’t know your business, but throughout my articles, I will try and give you as much context as I can to help you make more informed decisions.

I hope this sheds light on some of your marketing concerns but please feel free to drop me a message below if there is anything you would like to discuss further and I will help as much as I can.