I found myself rewriting the message over and over, where I had to send the awkward email to the startup founder “actually this isn’t a good fit.” After spending some time on their email marketing strategy and encouraging them to take less gimmicky tactics, I knew it was time to cut ties. 

In those moments, I realized that I had to ask a lot more questions especially around business goals and strategy because as exciting as it when people want to collaborate, if there isn’t a foundational understanding of how business and marketing relate, the efforts I put in from a marketing perspective will fail.

So, let’s talk #MoneyandMarketing! Not an easy topic to talk about. Most businesses, in general, don’t like talking about money, how much money they pay their employees, or what their budgets are. I often sit on both sides getting asked often how much my marketing services cost and along with setting my prices that best reflect what I do.

If I could impart three things I wish every conversation I entered already had a baseline understanding of marketing and revenue, these would be the top three. There’s way more but let’s start here!

1. If your first tactic is spending money on ads, it won’t work

I’ve missed out on certain business deals because all they wanted were ads. As a strategist and just an honest business person, I’m not going to do something when I see limitations in copy, messaging, and inbound marketing strategy.

If this is your business, it’s great that you want to reach a wider audience with ads but quick tip most people aren’t ready “to buy” or “sign up” right away especially with a cold audience. So you won’t see an instant conversion or flux of revenue.

Get a better understanding of how everything ties together — this is marketing.

• Looking at the experience of your website, is the layout confusion?Do you have too many menu options or tabs?
• Read your copy, does it speak to your customers and audience? Does it make it clear the action you want them to take?
• Is there a clear lead magnet? Or initial service/product offering? Most business simply have a “sign up for our newsletter” but that’s not it.

After you’ve mapped out the journey that someone ideally takes with your business, then start to think of the various ad routes you can take. And make them sound goals:

“Run a brand awareness ad to get 100 new followers”

“Run a conversion ad to a warm audience to get 20 people to sign up for our event.”

Ads are not your saving grace to more revenue. 

2. Time versus money

Everything is energy including time and money. Oftentimes these are directly related, the more time and energy you put into something the more money you may see.

But one thing you need to know about marketing is that it does and will take time. Developing a relationship, trust, likeablity, and brand authority will not happen overnight. Set up your business expectations accordingly.

Putting up one “giveaway” campaign will not have 100’s of people in your email list in one week. So, if you’re putting money into content marketing or brand strategy look for other metrics to track.

3, Business Goals versus Strategy versus Tactics

The marketing world is great at tactics. We see lots of content on social media, and businesses saying things like,

We ran some Google Adwords
We did some social media in the past, but it didn’t really work
People seem to like our Facebook and Instagram, but no leads
We’re going to try YouTube for a bit and see how it goes
We’re on Facebook, instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tiktok, Twitter, blogging, and in person events. All of that will work right?

Tactics are good, we need tactics but when they are rooted in business and strategy.

Business goals: What’s your purpose? What are you trying to achieve? And by when?

Strategy: How will you do it? In understanding your ideal client, what’s the best marketing approach?

Tactics: Take action and implement the strategy that you developed.

If you’re looking for support on how to best navigate strategy and tactics, reach out! Let’s connect and get the right mindful marketing strategy in place for your mission-driven work.