If marketing isn’t working the way you like, the issue may not lie in your website, ads or social media posts. It might be time for a deeper analysis (no, no…not a Freudian analysis, merely healthy self-check time).
Marketing alone does not make an organization successful. When clients get on my marketing therapy couch and want to jump blindly into buying ads or doing social media campaigns, I’m quick to call them out on being a danger to themselves and others. When marketing is not working, it’s often time to take a hard look at operations and administration too, as these areas work in unison with marketing.
Operations is the actual act of delivering what you sell (this can be a product, service or both). Operations is not just doing the work, but how you do the work. Offering stellar customer service and a positive experience is not optional, it’s critical. Administration work includes things like contractual agreements, bill pay, bill collection and managing systems at your company.
Marketing is the act of maximizing exchanges, which sounds terribly transactional, so at Web Marketing Therapy, we positively replace the word “exchanges” for relationships. Marketing, when done well, serves to build awareness, share information, educate, create meaningful connections and enhance/support customer service…all to support sales (because we all want to make money honey…right?!).
Let’s say a company wants to do more to elevate their reputation online. They want a new website and social media marketing. If this company stops to understand why they have reputation issues and start fixing the issues or insure steps are in place to not repeat these issues before they start all the shiny new marketing, they will see a return on investment. If they don’t, they will spend all this money only to bring customers in and have the same issues arise.
We repeat mistakes until we learn from them.
When you take time to look critically at all areas of your business and improve holes and optimize, then you are on the right path to making healthy progress.
For many entrepreneurs, issues with marketing might lie deeper than operations and admin issues…it might be time to do an even deeper dive into some self-work.
I can’t tell you how many inspiring professionals I have had on my couch who love what they do, but haven’t taken the time to invest in themselves. To succeed professionally, you have to be honest with yourself personally. If you are an entrepreneur, make darn sure that your organization is serving you (not just your employees and customers!)
Is your work nourishing you intellectually, financially and spiritually?
I find that if the leader at an organization is not fully aligned with the work they and their company are doing, all the fabulous marketing, ops or admin support isn’t going to get them to where they want to go. The deep stuff is the right stuff to address to brand, build and boost business in a meaningful way so all work (marketing, operations and administrative) matters…AND PAYS.
Self-work can include wellness (fitness, diet, retreats), networking, education, coaching and unplugging to recharge.
Yep, you heard me! I’m diagnosing more vacations to make your marketing better! DO IT!
You can’t pour from an empty cup. If business issues are beyond some tightening of practices, then do that deep dive as a leader and make sure you are whole so you can lead with love.