Episode 80: Solidifying Your Marketing Strategy: Why Consistency is Key for Small Business Owners
Mastering Consistency in Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide for Small Business Owners
In today’s highly competitive market, having a solid marketing strategy is essential for the success of any small business. But creating a marketing plan that works and sticking to it can be challenging, especially for solo entrepreneurs or those with small teams. That's why in this episode of the Collab with Kiva podcast, we'll be discussing the importance of solidifying your marketing strategy and being consistent with marketing efforts.
First, let's talk about the benefits of having a solid marketing strategy. A well-crafted plan can help you define your target audience, differentiate yourself from competitors, and ultimately drive more sales. It also helps you allocate your resources effectively and measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
But what does a solid marketing strategy look like? Here are three key components to consider:
Define your target audience: Understanding your audience is crucial in creating marketing that resonates with them. Consider demographics, psychographics, and what problems your product or service solves for them.
Choose the right channels: Knowing where your audience spends their time is important in choosing the right marketing channels. This could include social media, email marketing, content marketing, and more.
Be consistent: Consistency is key when it comes to marketing. Regularly showing up with quality content and messaging will help build trust with your audience and keep you top of mind.
Now that we've covered the basics of a solid marketing strategy, let's talk about the importance of consistency. Consistency means showing up regularly, keeping your messaging consistent, and using a variety of tactics to reach your audience.
One way to ensure consistency is by creating a content calendar. A content calendar helps you plan out your content ahead of time and ensures you have a steady stream of content for your audience. It also helps you plan for holidays and special events, so you can capitalize on those opportunities.
Another way to stay consistent is by repurposing content. Take a blog post and turn it into a video or podcast episode. This allows you to get more mileage out of your content and reach your audience in different ways.
Finally, make sure you are measuring the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Use tools like Google Analytics or social media analytics to track your results and adjust your strategy accordingly.
In conclusion, having a solid marketing strategy and being consistent with marketing efforts is crucial for the success of any small business. Define your target audience, choose the right channels, and be consistent in your messaging and tactics. And don't forget to measure your results and adjust your strategy as needed.
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva.
See you next time!
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Podcast Transcript:
Kiva Slade 0:01
Welcome to Collab with Kiva, where we let our inner nerd geek out on all the non sexy parts of your business. I'm talking data and operations. Neither as flashy or glamorous, but both are foundational to your business growth. I'm your host, Kiva Slade, your strategy and analytics guide here to break down what feels complicated, so it is understandable and executional. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Collab with Kiva. I'm your host, Kiva Slade, and today we are going to talk about marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. And, interestingly enough, marketing is one of those areas that I find others and myself included, struggle with, if we're honest, in many instances, we did not go into business to think about having to market ourselves on such a regular basis. However, marketing is a really important part of being a small business owner. So we really want to talk about solidifying your marketing strategy and being consistent with marketing efforts. Yes, the C word. It's almost feels like a curse word consistent consistency, in all of its forms, it is definitely something that is key to seeing results in your marketing.
Kiva Slade 1:31
Recently, I shared on social how I have completed the NASDAQ's milestone circle program. And one of the things I really liked about the program is that it is literally about setting one milestone. One thing that you were going to focus on for the 12 weeks that you are involved in the program. And that way, and especially in the cohort I was in, I want to say just about all of us, it was something related to marketing. That was our milestone, whether it was seeking additional speaking engagements, creating a sales pipeline, being more consistent on social media and having an actual strategy. So many of us were really focused on the marketing aspects of being a business owner. And recently, Audible has been reminding me of my accumulating credits. And I started listening to how to grow your small business is six step plan to help your business take off by Donald Miller. Well, let's just say I was listening to it, and it was like, I can't just listen to this on Audible. So I had to purchase it. Because there are so many things in there that relate to this. And if you know Donald Miller from building a story brand, like obviously, you know, he talks about that a bit. But he likens growing your business to putting together an airplane. And he's talking about lift and thrust and engines and all these things, but it makes so much sense to what he's talking about. And so often we get some of the steps and building our airplane out of order. And one of those steps tends to be marketing, we kind of kick that can down the road. And actually marketing is like the second thing that he I believe it's the second thing that he actually recommends.
Kiva Slade 3:34
And he also has another book marketing made simple. But anyway, he literally tells you like yeah, first thing is leadership. Second thing is marketing. Third is sales. Fourth is your products, five is overhead and operations, and six is cashflow. And what's interesting is even about the marketing portion, he's like, look, I didn't even go back to building a story brand to rehash that, like he actually feels that what he has put together and condensed is even better than what he had in his book. So all of that to say, let's not kick the can the marketing can down the road. So we all know marketing is an essential component of any successful business. You cannot drive without saying, Apple. We are so conditioned. Now, we see that Apple we know exactly what that means that brand recognition. And that brand loyalty is so high. The same for Google. Like you see those primary colors in the shape of a G, you're like Google, you know, a yellow bag of Lay's potato chips. Like there's just so many things. But all of those ways that we recognize are all a matter of marketing. So it marketing helps us reach like our target audience, build brand awareness and ultimately, though, drive sales and that's why of course it's making them Back is why you went into business in the first place in many instances. But it can be overwhelming, especially for solopreneurs. Or those of us with limited resources, you know, it's like having a solid strategy and being consistent, really are the two elements kind of like sun and water for making things grow in, in this case making our marketing efforts grow. So let's just kind of dive in. And let's start with defining your market strategy.
Kiva Slade 5:29
The first step in building any successful marketing strategy is really defining who the heck are you talking to? Who is your target audience. And granted, as your business grows, or as you evolve and your services evolve, you might start talking to different people, that's fine. But if you're starting to talk to different make sure you are actually talking to different people. And so understanding who they are, where do they hang out? What do they like? What exactly are their and I don't really love this, like pain points, but what are the things that keep them up at night? What are the things that the tabs that are in their brain that they cannot close? And what do you do to solve that, to close the tabs for them to allow them to sleep. And so once you have a better understanding of who you're trying to reach, you can start to tailor your marketing efforts so that you're speaking to their needs, you're speaking directly to them. Now, obviously, in marketing lingo, understanding your unique value proposition. It's what sets you apart from your competitors.
Kiva Slade 6:44
Each and every single one of you listening has your own special sauce, just like McDonald's. As it relates to your experience that you bring your things that you've been exposed to your take on things, your education, your values, so many other things that really do set you apart from someone else who might be doing or have the same title. And it's important, like what do you offer that nobody else does. In this is like that opportunity. Highlight your strengths and your position. But again, going back to Donald Miller in a way that A. it's a story, and B., you are not the hero of the story. The hero of the story, is actually who you're talking to your target audience. Okay. So setting some specific goals, also is another key part. When it comes to like defining your marketing strategy. What do you want your marketing to do? Like, are you trying to increase website traffic, generate leads boost sales. Now you all know that I would be remiss if I didn't say if you're trying to increase website traffic, and you don't know exactly what your website traffic is, right now, how will you know that you increased it? Hello Google Analytics for so you want to generate leads, you want to boost sales, you have to have clear objectives in mind, which you know, help you A. again, measure the effective effectiveness of your marketing strategy and make that justments that you need to make. If you don't know where your current baseline is, you won't know that you improved, you won't know that you saw an increase, you won't know these things, you will feel that you did. But you will not know. The data helps you now.
Kiva Slade 8:32
So I really want us all because I've actually been challenged to do this in my certified OBM community, I have to develop my own marketing plan. I have to basically like OBM, myself, for me for our next meeting. But it's super important to do these things and really take maybe some time away from your business for a day or so or a few hours go somewhere else where you're not surrounded by the staff of your business, you know, the emails or this or that. And really take time to think through. Who are you trying to talk to you? What when you think about clients that you've served, what has been some common denominators in terms of issues, in terms of concerns in terms of things that they come to you with? And then how did you work your magic, sprinkle your pixie guys, and make everything glitter.
Kiva Slade 9:31
So think through those things. The second part that was the, I think is the harder part, and that's staying consistent. I Yay. So you've defined your marketing strategy you've taken the time, you've laid it all out. Now it's time to stay consistent. And this is where we struggle. I'm just gonna say it, but it's so necessary for that consistency to happen to build that Brand awareness and stay top of mind with our audience. And I see this in myself, because when I see that I'm posting regularly on LinkedIn or engaging on LinkedIn, all kinds of numbers and metrics are off the charts. When I do those things, take a dive, you know, and it's the dives are going to happen, I'm not going to say that they're not because life happens. But we have to want to have fewer dives than we do. And I think this is a part in that strategy development. Don't over commit yourself to doing more than what you can actually do consistently. If you cannot consistently post five times a day five times a week, don't say in your strategy, that that's what you're going to do. Be realistic with your self. What are you capable of doing on a consistent basis?
Kiva Slade 11:00
So creating a content calendar. I know you're probably like, seriously, Kiva that's so basic. Honestly, though, sometimes it's basic things that do the job and make things easier. So what kind of blog posts social media, what other marketing do you have going on? If you plan ahead, like, really, you can ensure a that your content is timely and relevant to your audience, but also by planning ahead? You're not in that panic mode. And maybe you guys don't go through this, but I do. And I'm like, Oh, crud, I didn't post what am I gonna post that? And I'll just like, pull something completely out of the air. Totally not probably relevant to anything that I talked about. But I was like, Oh, I post it like, good, I'm good. I'm not really good, because I did nothing really to advance the marketing that I was trying to do. So really wanting to have a content calendar. And if you think about retail, for example, like it's May, I had to think like, It's May right now. So obviously, we have graduations, but we also know wedding season is coming. But most retailers, they are not in our May, June, July, August. They are thinking ahead to what's coming out in like, When is Halloween basically. And after that Thanksgiving Christmas, in like, that's where their mind is they're always several months ahead of where we currently are. And there's a reason for that, like, you'll start to see summer stuff go on sale. Why does it go on sale like August when it's still summer, because we can get that stuff out the way because we're about to bring in winter coats. We got sweaters down box. So retail is always ahead.
Kiva Slade 12:52
Fashion, you know, if you follow fashion, and you understand like, they will show they're like right now we're about to start seeing winter collections like spring and summer collection down and gone. So it's really important to create a content calendar and really think about a comprehensive ecosystem. As it relates to your marketing, like your blog posts, or in forming your social media and vice versa. And whatever other marketing, like you have pillars, themes, things that you were talking about, so that again, people connect you in those things, so that connection is clear. And they're like, oh, Kiva, they connect you with those things. Another tip is really repurpose your content. I am terrible at it. So I'm really speaking to myself throughout this entire episode. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. We all have so much content. Look for ways to repurpose it into new formats. You can turn a blog post into a video you can create an infographic from something in a report that you did you can grab a snippet from a case study you did. There are so many ways that you can repurpose content so that again, you have things that are consistently available. But it does, I'm not going to lie, it takes time to build and assess your content library so that you can repurpose much more effectively and efficiently. So there is a level of commitment and investment that's needed on the front end, but it pays huge dividends as you continue down the road.
Kiva Slade 14:39
And then I think the last thing is we have to give ourselves grace be patient with ourselves. Like building a successful marketing strategy takes time. Apple did not come out the box being apple. Okay. Literally, yeah, no, they were in the garage. You're not going to get it right the first time. Marketing is about testing, you are going to have to tweak, tweak and tweak, test, test and test that didn't work. What about it didn't work. Okay, how do we tweak it to see if that works better over here. But I think the key is if we stay consistent, and we keep that refining, approach to how we're doing things like that testing and tweaking approach, will see the benefits of our efforts. And the thing about marketing is like, you can't just go it's not a foul set a spigot, you can't just go and turn it on when you're like, Oh, my referrals aren't referring anymore. So now I need to go, tap the marketing pump, it takes time, if you just go and pop on over there and tap it, nothing's coming out in most cases, because you've not put in the time. And so it's really important to always be marketing, and always delivering good content. Because of the simple fact that again, you can't just go turn it on when you want it. It takes I think they say about a good 90 days to really even start for people to like associate you in something that you've said. And if you're not saying anything for 90 days, then you start to say something, then you're basically looking at another 90 days before that connection takes place. And the amount of touches that people need now to buy from you has increased from what used to be like seven till something like 23 or something like that. So again, it's that content you're putting out, it's that energy that you invest into having a solid marketing strategy and being consistent, that will help you reap the benefits.
Kiva Slade 17:02
So actionable takeaways from today. First thing go out there, define your target audience, your unique value proposition, all of those things that are the your foundational building blocks to having a good marketing strategy. Second, set specific goals for your marketing efforts. Like don't just sit there and say like, I want to do more marketing. What do you want to do? How do you want to do it? What are the results you're looking for? When you do what you said you're going to do? This is going to help you measure success and make adjustments as needed. And let's be real, I don't know about you, but I need to care sometimes I'm like, Okay, I need to be able to measure success that this thing is actually working and doing what I thought it was going to do. And then lastly, just stay consistent. Create the calendars that you need, repurpose what you need and be patient. Like literally marketing is a long game. There's definite rewards, but it is a long game. So do not go in with the hidden credit mentality because it's just not good for you. So I want to thank you for listening. Again. This episode is really a lot about me preaching to me. But I do hope that you found something that was helpful in a good takeaway for yourself, and you can solidify your marketing strategy and stay consistent with your marketing efforts. If you enjoy this episode, I would greatly appreciate it if you leave a review on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. And make sure to tune in next week for more insights and advice for service based small business owners. Until then, let's keep collaborating and growing our businesses. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva. I'm wildly cheering you on as you go forth and execute data and operational efficiencies in your business. If you need additional support, connect with me via my website, the516collaborative.com your reviews on Apple are appreciated. See you next week.
Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.
Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.