Three steps to marketing: Part 2

· Branding and Marketing

The first two phases, branding and stories, go hand in hand. They fit well. The third phase, performance marketing, is about how you invest money to get a Return on your Investment (ROI). Almost every platform these days will happily host your content and then accept your funds to boost that content to a broader audience. For example, an Instagram post can be made for free by anyone with an account, but to reach more people, you will need to invest $50.

 

On the one hand, this is a good thing. The average business person now has the access and ability to run ads in several places and organise this directly for a dramatically lower cost than the mad men era of gatekeepers and agencies.

 

As a result of this commodification of ads and, in a way you could say, the 'gamification' of ads, a race has also been developing for who can get to the bottom quicker. This is because you will have a certain amount of money which will be less than your competitor. Plus, it takes time and mental energy to administer these ads.

 

Add to that the fact that there are only so many ads someone in your audience can see a day before they stop paying attention to what you're trying to tell them. Combine all that with the number of places you can put an ad increasing, you could have an ad budget of $10,000 that will go pretty quickly into the slot machines we call Google, Facebook, and Instagram. The house is the massive winner.

 

How to avoid falling over. Avoid these two things that most people do.

One - see something shiny (like Tik Tok) and say they want a presence there because that's where people are. This is not a good idea. If the new platform of the day has someone you want to talk to and can host the conversation you are trying to have with the community (the message you're looking to share and discuss), then sure. Build a presence on a new platform.

 

But suppose the new platform is famous for being popular and doesn't fit your strategy. What you're trying to say, to who, where, and how often, then investing time, money, and resources to build a presence on that shiny new platform will most likely be a waste of time, money, and resources.

 

The second thing that most people do and you should avoid doing is letting the tail wag the dog. Typically it looks like this: a business owner or manager looks at their business and says, "I need more sales; let's spend money on ads", so they go and spend a small fortune on easy-to-access ads that give them some validation because more likes come in.

 

The problem is that you may get some easy wins here and there, but running ads without first addressing your content based on your brand ethos and your strategy is throwing money out the window.

 

You're letting the ad determine your story, not the other way around.

 

The third thing - bonus thing - you should do to avoid throwing money out the window, under the guise of 'performance marketing', is to have a plan and for that plan to feature a Diversified Distribution Strategy. This means that when you have a piece of content, you made a blog post, you don't just put it on your website where nobody will see it. You post it to your website, post it to Instagram, repost it on Instagram as a story, tell your friends on LinkedIn about it, tell the local paper, AND run ads to make sure people know about what you've done.

 

Which platforms you post, the method for distributing this content, and how to consistently produce stories to build your brand is a matter of strategy, planning, and the basis of why Storytime exists.

 

Each person's plan is unique. You do get to be creative with this type of work. But there is pressure, and there are a lot of easy ways to lose your money. We developed the one-on-one and group workshops to help people use their resources wisely, and walk out not only with a plan of action, but to be more excited than ever to make their dream idea a reality.