Since making my announcement, I have nothing to sell you. This means that right now is an ideal time to (between selling you things) share the top tips I learned after (almost) five years of having a go at marketing, Branding, content production, and running a small business.
Five years. Fifteen points. Ten minutes. Here we go.
1. Don't spend money on Branding.
Clickbait title aside, here's what I mean.
When you're starting out with a new idea, you're testing, seeing if there's a market for what you're offering, trying to work out if seeing if people will buy the product from you.
This stage is tricky, precarious, and expensive. So, spend your money trying to get clients and validate the idea instead of spending it on Branding and Brand Identity.
Sure, there are workshops, and in some industries (for example, cafes, real estate, and car dealerships), you need to show up with a well-dressed brand from day one. But in many cases, you can do the minimum and find out if people want what you're selling.
Once you get past the "will this work" stage (also known as finding product-market fit), you will have a steady book of clients and cash coming in. Congratulations, you are selling something people want to buy.
That's the time to invest in Branding: a logo, colour palette, fonts, business cards, websites, brochures, PowerPoint decks... the lot.
Is it expensive to do this properly? Like thousands of dollars? Compared to knocking something up on Canva or hiring someone on Fiverr. Yes. Yes, it is. It's lots of money. But keep in mind that the assets, concepts, and themes will be used over and over again. Every email. Every time someone visits your website. Each time someone picks up your business card (or look at your digital one). They will see your Branding.
Your brand identity represents you both when you're present and when you leave the room and log off.
Also, put it into perspective: fast forward to when you're a business turning over $2M a year and someone comes along saying our branding services will cost you $50,000 and take six months to deliver. Taking everything into account, that $50k worth of work will be used and reused for the next (most likely) five years. In simple terms, yes, it can be an expensive upfront investment. But you will lose count of how much value you get from that investment (assuming it has been done by a good operator).
Top Takeaway Tip: Spend your first 10k on getting clients. Then, spend 20k on Branding.
2. Building a Brand is like Building a house.
It takes time, and you won't know how good it looks until your mates come over and tell you - making you feel good. And you won't know how valuable it is until you go to sell it.
As I said in point 1, Branding—like your house—is something you use daily. The hard part is justifying an improvement over a necessity. You Need to fix a leaking roof in your home, but you Want to render the brick wall to improve the façade.
The same thing—or at least—the same attitude exists in business when it comes to Branding. You Need a website that works, but investing in a new one feels like a Want, even though it's critical to how people see you and perceive your professionalism.
For some, it's ideal to be unrecognisable. But I didn't talk to those people because they... well, err, didn't need brand identity or content marketing.
Top Takeaway: Branding is a long-term investment.
3. Don't use generalists. Use specialists.
Whether it's for running Google ads. Meta ads. Creating video content. Or LinkedIn ads. Especially anything to do with ads. Use people who come recommended and check their portfolio. There are many reasons for this; here are the top few:
- There are many places to put your ad budget.
- Platforms change daily, weekly, or monthly, and the algorithms - these changes impact your budget and campaign performance.
- You want someone who will track those changes and tune your campaign accordingly to get the most out of your spending.
- A generalist who can run ads "anywhere" is likely providing a cookie-cutter service that "can work anyone". This is crap.
If you need to run ads on Google, for example, find someone who only does Google ads and only Google ads.
Caveats and things to note:
- Suppose you have enough money to spend with a big-time agency. In that case, they will have teams of people to run every platform for you with a comprehensive and interconnected level of detail. Or at least, they should because you will spend tens of thousands, hundreds, or millions on the privilege.
- When to spend money on a specialist? You don't need to spend money on Branding till you have a product people want. You don't need ad help with ads until you spend at least $500 a month. Once you go over that, engage a specialist.
It may be tempting to sign up with one of the many "compelling" emails offering "bespoke SEO services", the ones that magically appear in your inbox every week. They all sound the same, and who knows, probably come from the same place. These services are the 'Nigerian prince of fortune scam' for small businesses. Engage at your own risk. My advice: talk to your network and ask for people who come recommended.
Are there agencies selling themselves as specialists on a particular platform but are terrible and don't get you results? Unfortunately, yes. It's also important to note that other factors contribute: the market you're in, your budget, the quality of your website, and lots of other things that even I can't list off the top of my head because...well because I'm not an ad specialist on [insert platform name here].
There are three additional points here: 1) even with this approach (of working with a specialist), you may need to change service providers, 2) don't be afraid to do so; it's your money, the lifeblood of your business, it's your mandate to manage it responsibly, and 3) you need to set these things up with security and transferability in mind. For example, don't give an agency your personal login details; use a marketing email to manage permissions. That way, when it comes time to make a change, you are not at risk of being held to ransom if things end poorly.
Top takeaway: When possible, seek out specialists.
4. There is no set-and-forget. Change is constant.
As mentioned, platforms change constantly. Service providers may need to be changed out. Pandemics, politics, and Tuesday mornings happen. You can't set your marketing and leave it.
You need to be adaptable to have a solid core—your foundations, your brand strategy and key content. The stuff that gets updated slowly every once in a while.
Plus, you need to combine this with your tactical, more flexible content and ad layers that can be changed and applied on an ad hoc, daily, hourly, weekly, or whatever you consider a "more frequent" basis.
Top Takeaway: Marketing takes maintenance. Practice using your marketing muscle.
5. Don't try to outsource your soul.
An agency is a third party, the same as a plumber; they are hired to do a job. Their job is not to manufacture a soul for your business. So when you engage someone to help with our Branding and Brand Identity. You will need to spend time with them and tell them why your idea exists, who you are, why you decided to do this, and the ethos behind it.
Sure, if you pay enough money, the heart and soul of your business can be manufactured to seem like it came from a human being. But if your company is small, getting started, or even medium-sized. Maybe you don't want to be a huge corporation.
In all of these cases, you will need to have a view of what drives you, your business, its culture, and the values and ideas that determine your decisions and goals. And you'll need to share that with whoever is helping you create brand identity, content, ads, etc.
The good news is that you will likely have a soul; there's probably one lying around. You just need to find an agency you gel with that will help bring it to the fore.
Top Takeaway: Even though you hire an agency, get ready to talk.
6. The logistics of marketing is about distribution.
The concept of 'shipping' your idea is the same as making something in a factory and shipping it to a customer. The rest are nuances.
Because if you don't already, you need to produce content, be it an annual report to shareholders or an Instagram Story posted every hour. Creating content is the norm, and frankly, that's great. Content keeps people informed and aware that you exist.
But you need a way to share the message and get it out there. You need distribution, whether that's distributing a printed flyer or releasing your post across multiple platforms in the right order.
Top Takeaway: Look at all of your platforms, decide where is best for right now, and write out a process for posting.
7. Diversify; you don't own the platform.
Diversify the distribution of your content because you do not control the medium. Go back to the logistics analogy in point 6. When you make a product in your factory and put it into your own truck with your own driver to deliver that product to your customer, you control the supply chain.
If you use a third-party courier, you outsource delivery to a more cost-effective service; however, you are not the only customer for that carrier. You're promised that the product will be delivered within a specific timeframe and handled with care, but how that happens is out of your control.
The same applies to marketing and using a platform like Google or Facebook. If you don't have enough reach, it is more cost-effective to use a third-party platform that already has an audience to carry your message.
The risk is that your message is being carried along with Billions of other users, which means it's likely to get lost (unless you pay). Anything that needs to handle that kind of volume comes with risks—here is a whole blog post that expands on this topic.
Top Takeaway: Protect yourself and post in more than one place.
8. People are professional stalkers.
Whether it's a website, a Google profile, a LinkedIn page, an Instagram profile, or all of them combined when people hear about you, they will all do the same thing: find, click, scroll, stalk, and leave.
There are no comments, no clicking 'like', no extra following—none of it. They will come for a sniff around and leave. Like Google, Apple Facebook, and ... Literally every digital platform is surveilling you to figure out ways to solicit more business from you or sell you to someone else. People will do the same thing in a less creepy and technically advanced way.
This is a by-product of today's world, and to be honest, it makes sense to check the star ratings and reviews before purchasing - see point 3 above.
I've called this approach as people going around collecting Trust Points. The more points (of contact and content) you put out there for people to find, the easier someone can work out if you are consistent and trustworthy.
Top Takeaway: People are looking for reasons to trust you. Make it easy for them.
9. Don't let the tail wag the dog.
Don't let trends on a given platform determine your self-worth or impact how you perceive your Brand.
In other words, don't tune your Brand to suit whatever a platform is prioritising to improve its own business model.
Control your Brand. Use platforms to help you achieve your goals. This approach is also a better way to manage resources responsibly and helps you feel more in control.
Top Takeaway: Develop a Brand Strategy, even a simple one, to help you make marketing decisions.
10. Everyone struggles with consistency.
Don't be too harsh on yourself. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, struggles with consistency.
Making content takes a lot of work (this post took a week to write), especially if you want it to be good. Churning out oodles of it is unrealistic and exhausting for any operator, not just the smaller one.
Be it digital, print, or in person. Consistency is a pain whether you're trying to make a video, keep a flyer up-to-date, or attend a networking event every week.
Top Takeaway: Be nice to yourself; everyone struggles with consistency.
11. Good Branding can't cover up trash service or product.
Mark Wahlberg has a great brand. But makes shit movies.
Good Brand design can be artistic, compelling, and beautiful. However, if the product or service delivery is lacklustre, poor, unfriendly, or average, pretty Branding won't save you.
Just look at some Google reviews; some of the most outstanding-looking companies can have the most average ratings.
Top Takeaway: Go back to point 1 and prioritise figuring out how to serve people.
12. Small business is lonely; find some friends.
Small business is challenging. There's a lot of stress, anxiety, hardship, and customers who, when you pause to look back, just aren't worth it.
Add marketing and putting yourself out there into the mix (because that's the cheapest way to do it when you're getting started), and it can feel like a vacuum of loneliness and despair.
Top Takeaway: Find some people to hang out with—ideally in person. There are plenty of business groups out there. Some are cute, and some are cultish. I'd recommend finding one stocked with kind people (and maybe even fun).
14. A decision is better than indecision.
In most cases, you can change something after it has been put out without any real issues or anyone noticing. This means that you're far better off making a decision and running with it rather than circling around and going nowhere - delaying a decision.
Delays make projects more expensive and frustrating for those involved, and ultimately, what you come up with will often only be marginally better than what was initially thought of.
Does that mean you ignore quality and strive for sub-part standards? Absolutely not. However, marketing, making content, and building a brand are practices that take a long time. You can't be afraid to make a decision. Think about that house you're building. If you paint a wall a disgusting colour, you can repaint it later, and two coats of paint are better than living with a bunch of patches because you can't decide which colour to start with.
Top Takeaway: Make a decision and keep moving.
15. Skip the spreadsheets and get a money system.
This last point has little to do with Branding and marketing and more with running a business. Fun fact: I used to get paid money to sit in spreadsheets all day. Because of this, when launching Storytime, tracking every transaction in a spreadsheet felt only appropriate. Then, another one to do price modelling. And another for historical trends. And another for forecasting the future. And on and on and on until one day, my accounting said, "This is rubbish."
When an accountant, a professional nerd whose job it is to live and breathe spreadsheets, tells you, "I can't make sense of your spreadsheet," you know it's bad.
That was the week I set up a digital invoicing system, linked it to my bank accounts and went from spending eight hours a week in spreadsheets trying to understand what was going on to spending ten minutes a month fixing up irrelevant transactions and never needing to look at a spreadsheet for the money matters of my business.
Top Takeaway: Don't be a tool; buy one.
That's it for the list. I hope it was helpful. It could be relatable. I'm sure I missed some points, but it probably wasn't painful enough if it didn't come to mind in the top fifteen.
Thank you for reading.