Ep 480: Million Dollar Marketing Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make – 2023 Marketing Mastery #1
This week, I’m coming at you with a new series called Marketing Mastery in 2023! This 5-day series will cover the latest trends and the TOP strategies in the world of marketing. Each day, we will explore a different aspect of marketing including marketing mistakes, content and organic strategies, sales funnel strategies, email and text messages, and Facebook ads.
My goal here on the Not for Lazy Marketer’s Podcast is to provide you with a comprehensive and practical guide to marketing, while cutting through the noise and focusing on what’s most important. Trust me, I know how overwhelming it can be to navigate the contact barrage of information about marketing, and I want to be your one-stop resource for all of your marketing needs. So sit back, relax, and get ready to level up your marketing game with the series. First up, million dollar marketing mistakes you DON’T want to be making. Tune in!
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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Emily Hirsh:
Almost everybody in my dms, when I come and talk to them, they tell me like, I wanna get more sales, or I want to, you know, increase my sales, or I am not getting sales and I need to get them, or I need to grow my audience, or I need to grow my list. And when I ask, how are you going to do that? They don’t have the answer. Or they’re super overwhelmed and they have like five ideas, but they don’t execute anything.
You are listening to the Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast, episode number 480.
Hello my friends and welcome back to the podcast. We are coming in on a day that we don’t normally come in. I am bringing you guys a series. It’s been a little while since I’ve done a series. If you’re new here, every so often like to do some bonus episodes, all with a similar topic and theme. And so this week we’re gonna do a series Monday through Friday and release an episode every day. And the theme of this series is going to be 2023 this year, current Trends, marketing Mastery, and I really wanna dive into different components of marketing and the best strategies and the top converting strategies within those areas. So we’re gonna talk about, today I’m gonna talk about marketing mistakes just to kind of set the stage, but then I wanna talk about content and organic strategies. I wanna talk about what sales funnel strategies, like actual funnels and marketing strategies for different businesses are going to work this year.
Then I’m gonna dive also into email and text messages, strategies, and then Facebook ads and kind of tie it all together around the theme of what do you need to focus on now? Because one of the things that I see so often is people get so overwhelmed and overstimulated and just constant bombardment about what they should be doing with their marketing, and they end up really having no solid strategy that they’re executing, and so they’re not making progress because there is so much noise out there. So I really try to be that one resource if you were to just consume my content that you would know what to do with your marketing and that you can apply it to your business. So every day this week, there will be an episode on this Not Related Marketers podcast and it’s totally free, obviously. And the one thing I ask is if you enjoy any of this content, share it for me.
That’s all I ask. Or leave me a review. I put a lot into my content. I love doing it. I love serving you guys, I love showing up and, and making a difference in your business, in your life, and your marketing and your success. And so if you get anything out of any of these episodes or this episode, all I ask is that you just share it, tag me so I can thank you. And if you want, leave a review on the podcast is also always appreciated. Okay, so today’s episode specifically is going to be about million dollar marketing mistakes. And I love talking about mistakes because I think that when you hear a mistake that someone made, it’s just wisdom about something that you may not see or realize or be aware of that if you hear it, you won’t do it. Or alternatively, you could be doing this right now and you hear it and you’re like, oh, I’m totally doing that.
I need to go change what I’m doing, right? So I wanna dive through about six marketing mistakes that could be impacting your business right now. And they’re definitely things that I’ve talked about on the podcast before, but I’m gonna put ’em all into one cohesive podcast so you can really analyze. And as I go through it, I think just listening and asking yourself like, am I doing these things or if this is a, a belief that I might have that I’m not even really aware of. So the first mistake, this is probably the number one and it’s so easy to say to do this, but I think it’s so much harder to actually execute this. And so I know this is a huge mistake because not only do I talk to a lot of people in my dms where I realized like they’re making this mistake and that this would change things for them.
I know because when we have clients come in or we have a new person coming to work with us or I’m supporting their business in one way or another, this is always lacking. And the reason why it is, is because of that overwhelm I’m referencing because people don’t know exactly what to focus on or what to do next. And that is not having the mistake is not having a fully mapped out customer journey and strategy. Like if I were to sit you down right now and we were to have a conversation and I asked you like, can you clearly describe to me what your strategy is to generate your grow, your audience to generate leads and to generate sales? Would you be able to explain that to me? Would you be able to say, yep. Like here’s the steps. Here’s how somebody first sees my content, here’s my content strategy.
You know, once they see the content, they go here and then they do this, and then this happens. And this is how ultimately they become a, you know, a customer, right? And so what happens is people have a lot of like random throw spaghetti at the wall strategies. And what this could look like is maybe you have like a lead magnet over here, but it really doesn’t have a complete email sequence attached to it. Like it might have just a couple of emails but it’s not, it’s like just kind of floating, but it might be getting you some leads and it is really valuable and you worked really hard to create the pdf, but you got a little distracted or it didn’t work as well as you hoped. So then you created a webinar and then from there you went and created you decided you’re gonna live launch and you’re gonna launch a new product or you’re gonna change this, right?
And so you and your content is sporadic. You don’t know how many times you’re posting, you don’t know the goal, you don’t know why you’re doing things, you don’t know the outcomes, you don’t know the KPIs, like you don’t know what that customer journey is. And they’re, and they’re definitely like all the things you have out there are definitely not talking to each other. And ultimately what this does is it makes you have to work so much harder because what you is not cohesive and together. And the thing is with marketing, if you have a clear strategy defined and you know what you’re going to try and do, like, okay, I know I’m gonna post this many times a week. I’m gonna release a podcast this many times, I’m gonna send it out to my list. Like you’re very clear on what all that is.
Then you also know what you’re trying to achieve. And you know, when you’re not achieving it, what the issue is, right? And so when you don’t have a strategy, you don’t have a customer journey mapped out, you are just throwing spaghetti at the wall. And almost everybody in my dms, when I come and talk to them, they tell me like, I wanna get more sales or I want to, you know, increase my sales or I am not getting sales and I need to get them, or I need to grow my audience, or I need to grow my list. And when I ask, how are you going to do that? They don’t have the answer or they’re super overwhelmed and they have like five ideas, but they don’t execute anything. So first of all, like top priority for you in this year is to make sure you have a very clear, fully mapped out customer journey.
The second mistake that people make is not connecting with your ideal customers regularly. And what do I mean by that? I mean making sure that you have a true connection and a true understanding and emotional connection to what your ideal customer is struggling with, what they’re frustrated with, what their desires are, what they’re saying right now, what they’re going through right now, what they’re going through this season when maybe they weren’t six months ago, what they’re afraid of all of those things. Because also those things evolve and change as the economy shifts, as society changes, as those things shift, so does your ideal customer’s experience in the world and their problems. Not like they’re huge pro, you know, they still need whatever the big problem is you solve, but they might be running into different roadblocks. And so that understanding and that connection is what is going to drive your content.
It’s what’s gonna drive your strategy. It’s what’s gonna drive if you launch or change your offer, launch a new offer or change your existing offer. So if you lose that connection, you’re going to lose the touchpoint that should be driving your marketing actions. So how do you create that connection? Well, one, the most deep way you could do it is actually get on a handful of calls with your ideal customer, which is something I teach. It’s something that we have people do in the early stages of their business and it’s something that I actually recommend doing at least once per year. So that can be one way that you create that connection is actually getting on Zoom calls and asking your audience these questions. Another way that you can create this connection is just creating intentional time to engage. So setting aside time that you are going to be in your dms and you’re going to be responding and you’re gonna put up polls and you’re gonna ask questions, or maybe you do a zoom call that’s like free q and a, come ask me anything and I’ll solve your problem for you at this time, and you open it up to your audience or maybe you don’t have a big audience that you go in Facebook groups, you find a way to create that connection because if you have that deep connection as the founder of your company, then you will be able to let that guide everything you do in your marketing.
And I see this a lot with businesses who start to grow and start to gain some traction. And so hear me out here because this may be you and I have been in this place and so many of our clients have been in this place, and that is they start to grow. And when they started their business first started, they had a very strong connection with their ideal customer because it was just them. They had to, in order to sell their offer, they had to be deeply connected with their ideal customer. They likely had to be talking directly to them one-on-one in order to sell the offer. Then they start to sell the offer, they start to get a little bit of success and they start to remove themselves. And they start to think, oh, well I’ve got it figured out now. I don’t need to have this connection.
I don’t need to create this for them. I’m gonna hire a team, or I’m gonna keep doing what I’ve always done, or like I’ve figured it out and I get to go and kind of walk away and start a new business or launch this thing or create a new offer and they mess up their entire business because they lose that connection. And I’ve done this in my own business as I’ve grown and scaled. I’ve also done this with my delivery. I’ve lost my connection and it’s completely messed up my business and taken six months to fix. And so as you grow understanding that no matter what stage you’re at as a c e o, as a founder, your job is to be connected to your ideal customer and your customers. You’re paying customers. That doesn’t mean that you have to be talking to every single one of them every day, but you have to have a pulse on how things are going for your audience, for your customers, okay?
The third mistake that most of us make or you could be currently making is trying to do too much in your marketing and then therefore doing everything at 50%. And so this doesn’t even mean strategies. This could be you’re trying to do too much organically, you’re trying to launch too much content, you are trying to launch too many funnels, you have too many offers. And I think when you’re in this place, it’s really hard to see it because I’ve been there where I’ve convinced myself like, it’s maybe too much, but no, it’s not. I totally got this. Like it’s not too much. I I’m able to handle way more than most people. And so I have to do this a lot with, with clients we work with. I also just recently was helping someone in a workshop and I noticed that they had like my number one priority is to launch a podcast this year.
But then they also were like, but I also wanna do a YouTube channel. And then that was like a bunch of goals related to it. And I said, how are you going to do both all by yourself? Like, and that was related to content. Like how are you going to successfully and really well launch an entire YouTube channel and a podcast in the same year? Maybe you could, but I knew she didn’t have a huge team or a team at all. And so it can come up with content too. And, and again, I go back to that overwhelm. There is so much you could be doing in your marketing. One of the most impactful things you can do is figure out what is going to move the needle the most and then focus on those things and make them only a couple things. And with the categories of marketing, we have audience and content, we have lead generation and we have sales.
We should only have like one or two things in each category that we’re actively working towards. And depending on the size of your team and where your business is at, you may have less or more, but if you try to do too many things, you will not do them well. And that includes having too many offers to sell and too many things to market. And I cannot tell you how many times I’m on a training and someone says to me, well, I have two businesses, I have two ideal customers, but I have the same social media profile. So what should I do? Who should I talk to? And my hard answer for them is, most likely you either have to create two whole different social media channels and create content for both, which we both know you’re not gonna do well or you need to pick and you need to go all in because if you have two different customers or even two different offers, you’re talking to different people, which means the content, the messaging, the copy, the strategy, all has to be shifted for that person.
And doing both at the same time is almost impossible. And even very successful people with big marketing teams don’t spread their focus too far. They would rather their entire teams focus on a few main outcomes and initiatives than way too many at one time. Okay? So sit back and analyze what you’re doing right now and ask yourself, am I trying to do too much? And if I like, what if I told you tomorrow you have to stop doing everything you’re doing. Like you can’t work on your projects, you can’t work on the initiatives you have set up, you can’t work on what you think you should do, you have to stop. And if you did that, what are the things that would actually make an impact if you stop doing them? Like for me, if I stop publishing my podcast, that would make a big impact for my business, right?
A negative impact. And so I’m not gonna do that, right? My podcast is my priority, but there are likely other things that if I looked at and I said, why are we doing this? Like if I stop doing it tomorrow, is it really going to negatively impact our results? And if the answer is no, why am I doing it? Why don’t I focus on the things that are working? And I think you have to step outside of what you’re doing and get perspective from higher up and just like step back and look at things from that viewpoint to really know if that’s the case or not. Okay? The next mistake, this is a big one and I talk about this a lot on my podcast, but that is trying to search for or take a blueprint or a template or a course that someone gave you or you bought or a coach’s advice or an agency’s advice even who doesn’t know how to do the way we do and customize things without making it your own.
And you know, if you take one thing from this episode, this is honestly what I want you to take. And that is, there is no such thing as an easy button in marketing or in life. There is no such thing as a set it in, forget it. And there’s no such thing as a one size fits all blueprint or strategy or template, okay? Every single person who has created success in marketing and found success one way or another has taken foundational principles. And maybe it’s a blueprint or strategy or formulary, whatever, and made it their own. Because I can tell you that every one of you listening to my podcast, you have different values, you have different skill sets, you have different ways that you show up. You have a different offer, you have a different audience, you have a unique gift that created some sort of initial success for you or gave you some sort of a desire or dream or vision that you are following.
And if you eliminate that because you’re focused on a template you’re trying to follow or a formula you’re trying to follow exact you will ruin your strategy. And I, I’ll give you guys an example. I just was involved with a client and, and I onboarded them about 90 days ago. And when they came on, they said, I hired this other company before us to create me a VSL funnel. And she made the funnel and she recorded the video and she let that company write the entire script exactly word for word, edit the video, make the funnel. And she was like, I just wanna run ads to that. I’ve paid them a lot, I just wanna run ads to it. And I, I’m just gonna go with exactly what they’re saying because, because they claim to be able to get good results for people. And so I was like, okay, we can do that, but we’re gonna get some data and then we’re gonna maybe make some changes.
And it didn’t convert, it didn’t convert in the first 30 days. So we did a complete audit of the vsl. We changed everything, we changed the messaging, we changed the landing page, we changed it all. And what ended up happening was when we did the audit and we actually pulled a previous training she had done and then looked at the VSL she had recorded and we were like, what happened to you? Like you in this previous training that you created and you were connected to yourself and you showed up for your audience is not the same person in this bsl. And she’s like, I was just following what they said and once we ex like broke it down and said all the things we needed to change, she was like, I totally understand and knew this in my gut, but I was committed to following this template because I paid these people, right?
And so once we changed, it created massive shift in success. I mean it went from like $35 cost per lead to the VSL to nine and getting calls booked and it like started to bring this momentum that wasn’t going to be there before. And the reason is that template may have worked for those people who created that for a couple of clients. That doesn’t mean it’s a copy paste, it’s never going to work like that. Another example that I’ve had is working with a client who, same thing, like they leaned on experts, they had them write the emails, they didn’t feel in alignment with what was happening, but they said, you know what? They’re the experts, I’m gonna do it. And they continued. And so one thing that I train my team and that I am adamant, adamant about with clients is I say, if you have a small amount even of discomfort or misalignment with this and this doesn’t feel in alignment with you and your voice and your brand and how you wanna show up, you do not let us go forward with it.
You give us feedback until we get to a place of alignment because that alignment and that gut feeling and that connection that they have with their audience, we can’t replicate. We can only amplify that. So, so many people make this mistake where they’re like, well, I hired the coach, I hired the, the agency. I hired this person to do X, Y, Z and they’re the experts. So I’m not gonna speak up when something feels off and I’m just gonna do it anyways. And I promise you this, if you get on a video, if you make a webinar, if you create a strategy and you are not in alignment and you don’t show up as you, it will not convert. I promise you, I will bet my life on it. It will not convert. I have never seen it work. I feel like I’m going, I’m like yelling at you guys. <Laugh>,
Do not take blueprints or templates or somebody else’s strategy and blindly execute it. Always take the things you love from it. Take the best practices, take the principles and make it your own. And this is something we do with clients inside of our strategy. This is why we watch past webinars, why we look at their Instagram when we pull out their voice, why we pull out who they are and we help them understand what that strategy is and then we work together on it. Obviously we’re coming up with the strategy, but again, if there’s any part of misalignment, we are shifting it because that is the magic sauce that is like the unexplainable, you cannot replicate magic. Part of marketing is that connection and that emotion with your audience and your leads, which only comes from that authenticity. Okay? The final mistake, this is a little bit more tactical one than I wanted to talk about, is not live launching or changing the wrapping paper enough on your marketing.
And so I’ve talked about this a lot. When I say changing the wrapping paper, I mean maybe taking something that is working like a webinar or a lead magnet or you know, a a way that you’re getting somebody to book a call and wrapping it with different paper, changing the title, changing the promise, shifting the angles that you use to promote it. Or doing a live launch, doing something that is live that is very interactive, that is exciting, that has buzz around it. And I just said this earlier, but there is no such thing as said it and forget it in your marketing, there is no such thing. And so people really get stuck on, I never want a live launch or I, I wanna have something and I just want it to work on automation for me. And I never have to touch it that set it and forget it doesn’t exist.
And it’s actually one of the hardest things for people to even get to convert is that evergreen model of it’s working ongoing and it’s bringing me in sales daily. And it’s possible to create that success. It’s possible to create evergreen success however you need to live launch and you need to change the wrapping paper on what you’re putting out there or it will go stale, it will stop working. And you know, when you dig into this, why do you think that is? It’s because the energy, when you’re showing up and you’re interacting with your audience the way you do and you’re creating buzz that you do in a live launch or a live promotion or you name it, anything that has that live energy is just 10 times more powerful than evergreen. And then automated, you need both. The best marketing strategies have both. They have something that’s working on automation on autopilot and then they throw in about four live launches, four fresh wrapping paper things a year.
So if you are not planning to do this, and you have the mentality of like, well, this used to work and so I want it to work on autopilot and I don’t want a live launch and I don’t wanna put the effort into that, you might be able to be successful, but I’ll tell you this, you’re losing out on opportunity. And so one thing that we always plan for clients when they come into work with us is these live launches or promos or changing the wrapping paper freshening things up because you need to stay fresh to stay relevant to, to still garner the attention of your audience and of your leads. It also gives you this opportunity to capitalize on leads who might have been sitting on your list for six months or 12 months and now is the right time for them. You don’t know when that is.
And so creating opportunities and events and different times where this can bring people in and attract people in this way is very impactful for your marketing. So those are my six mistakes that could cost you a lot of money if you are making, and honestly, most of them are mistakes that we have to check ourselves throughout the year and ask ourselves, are we making these? Cuz they’re very common and, and they’re easy to make without realizing that you are doing it. So if you enjoyed this episode, I’d love to hear on Instagram what your biggest takeaway was. If you are listening to this and you’re like, I want a custom marketing strategy done for me, I want that support. I know that’s gonna get me to the next level in my business. We have five spots left for February for new clients. We’ve sold out half of them in less than half of the month. And each month we open up spots, but it is truly only so many. Obviously with a done for you offer, you have only so much capacity. So if you want to even explore that, you can go to help my strategy.com. Otherwise, I’m gonna be back here tomorrow as an episode number two in this series, and we’re gonna talk about organic content and specifically content that will help you convert your buyers.
Thanks for listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers Podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support with your marketing, head over to helpmystrategy.com to see how Hirsh Marketing can help take your marketing to the next level no matter where you’re at today. We help our clients scale faster than ever, find hidden leaks in their funnel, experiment with new creative marketing strategies, and help their business explode and be more profitable than they ever dreamed possible. Head over to helpmystrategy.com and see if you qualify for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh.