076: Stop Trying to Be Everywhere: The Marketing Strategy That Actually Works (with Niki Hutchison)

It's music to my ears because I you know it takes me back to I've been in business a long time and originally before social media or just Facebook and MySpace and When you said if you're taking a social media first approach, you're going to struggle.

And I think it's because it looks so easy as a consumer of socials when you see people that do well.

And they're talking of, obviously, in their marketing, they're talking about their results.

They're sharing their wins and successes because that's how they market themselves.

And as a consumer of that, you think...

That what you're seeing is how they are winning business.

But it would just be one aspect of that.

And so I think there's sometimes a naivety for startups, especially thinking that that's what they need to do, or at least that's their main thing.

And then relying upon it or even having a bit of success with it, but then sort of being complacent and thinking that that's it and it's not.

And it's quite, I think, quite dangerous.

And I see this happen all the time.

One of the businesses that I own is a franchise model and the franchisees will... to regularly lean on socials which is crazy really because the model I started a long time ago and there was barely any socials it was all real world stuff the socials came in as a layer later but when I talk about exactly that which is you want both you want to be meeting people in the real world they're going to look at your socials likewise you want to be finding people on socials that can kind of meet you in the real world and yeah blend this together but I think The choosing channels as well can be difficult because really, if you wanted to get In the most cases, your people are probably on all the platforms.

Yeah.

So it's like determining which platforms they're on when they're likely to become your customer or when they're thinking that way.

Because, you know, yes, they might be on TikTok to scroll around, but they might then be more looking for you in a business capacity on LinkedIn.

Or they may be on Instagram for fun, but they're never going to buy.

Yeah.

I think that's the bit that makes it even more complex because, you know, knowing where to put your time and energy because it's so, it's time consuming.

Yes, it is.

And also it's increasingly difficult, as we know, to stand out on socials.

So I really like what you said about this blend and then it becomes this almost self-fulfilling prophecy or this virtuous circle, doesn't it? of people finding you in one place following you in another place checking up on you so that you they know that you are who you say you are coming back sharing results and this is an ongoing thing that can so easily just drop off that's why accountability and support and all the things that are available out there are so important and it doesn't matter what level you're at I mean I still need accountability not for my own marketing but for different elements of business and I don't think there's any shame in that but You can shortcut your results by getting help from someone, can't you? To find out, okay, how do I work out what frame of mind my people are in? I call it go detective mode, which stems from being a brand strategist in agencies and having to spend half my life on the road speaking to people.

Really, genuinely being able to go deep and put yourself in your customer's shoes, not just the psychographics, the demographics, but actually how are they feeling in any one moment? What have you produced? How did that make them feel? If something hasn't worked, you know, if you've done one of these pieces of handraiser content, maybe on Facebook, and you've said, I'm creating this thing who wants details and nothing has happened.

okay, right, let's go out to some of our regulars and find out, did you see that? A, probably not.

If you've only measured it once.

And B, if you did see it and you didn't want it, why not? That's where the gold is.