Two Reasons Your Marketing Isn’t Working (and How To Fix It)

By Doug Bennett with special guest Al Tepper

If I told you that you spend 100 per cent of your time on marketing, would that surprise you? 

As a business owner, you spend more time than you realise on marketing. The question is: whose? 

You’re either creating and implementing an efficient strategy, or you’re making it easier for the competition to swoop in and steal your target customers away.

I know from experience that every business relies on marketing for growth. If your marketing efforts aren’t yielding any results, then it becomes difficult to maintain a steady flow of qualified leads and customers, which ultimately stunts business growth.

But what if you could tackle this problem from the root?

Recently, on the Goals Do Come True podcast, I was lucky enough to interview Al Tepper, Founder of TepFu, and I found out what my marketing score was!

Al has over 25 years of strategic and operational marketing leadership experience, and has worked with large global brands, including Accenture, IBM and KPMG.

1) Lack of consistency

One of the biggest problems most business owners face when it comes to marketing is consistency. Here’s how Al explains it:

Al: “Consistency is your best friend in marketing. Your marketing doesn’t have to be perfect, but if you do it consistently for a year, you’ll see what happens. I know someone who built his entire brand just by posting 100 comments a day. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing specifically, but if you’re not consistent, you won’t build up momentum.

If your audience sees you every day sharing the same message, it will eventually sink in and drive them to take action.”

Effective marketing takes time and requires consistency. It’s not enough to share your message once then sit back and hope for the best. It takes repeated touch points – and multiple channels –  to see the results you want. 

2) You’re struggling with pricing

Al: “The reason many entrepreneurs struggle, especially in relation to marketing, is because we’re rubbish at asking for the business. We don’t like to talk about money. When asked about our pricing, we pause or hesitate, thereby lowering confidence and increasing risk.We have to get better at asking for the business and making it easier for people to not only come to us, but to give us their money in exchange for the valuable service or product, or solution that we provide.”

As a financial adviser, I’ll be the first to admit that money can be an uncomfortable topic. However, you have to be confident about your pricing and prove to your target audience that you’re offering them real value in exchange for their money.

Marketing and sales: two ends of a spear

Marketing and sales may feel like two distinct departments, but in reality, they’re more connected than you think. Creating an effective marketing strategy means thinking about the customer journey and weaving the sales process into every single thing you do.

Al: “Marketing and sales are not enemies. The best chief marketing officers in the world will tell you that these two are best buddies. You have to realise that they both make up a spear, with sales being the tip that will push through and open into revenue. However, 99 per cent of the spear should be marketing. If your sales are moving slowly, it’s because the sales process is taking up more than it should. Imagine a spear that’s just made up of the tip – it wouldn’t go anywhere. So if you get your marketing right, your sales get easier, and that’s a huge win for the business.”

How long should you spend on marketing?

According to Al, the amount of time you spend on marketing isn’t always proportionate to the results you see. You don’t have to spend seven hours a day working on your strategy when you could actually spend less and gain better results.

Al: “I always tell my clients that one to two hours a week is how long they should spend on marketing. I see business owners trying to do everything on every channel, but in reality, 99 per cent of their efforts are meaningless, because they’re not actually measuring or analysing it. When you have a proper, strategic approach to marketing –  you know what your messaging is and who your ideal clients are –  everything starts to flow smoothly. This means that as quickly as possible, you can start to outsource the low-hanging tasks to a marketing admin, and free up your time.”

As a business owner, it’s highly important to streamline how you work. You need to focus on building the business, solving the bigger problems and doing the things you love.

With a strategic marketing plan, you can stop being so involved in the minute details and turn your attention to the things that actually matter.

If you’d like a more introspective look at your marketing strategy, feel free to check out your marketing score here.

And if you’d welcome professional support to help you realise your overall business and financial goals before normal retirement age, grab a copy of my guide to Work Optional Lifestyle Financial Planning® here.