Marketing
Marketing Advice from someone that hates Marketing
To be clear, I love building cool stuff, and solving my clients problems. I don't enjoy tooting my own horn and telling everyone about it. In theory my clients would just tell others, and those others would show up, and I would solve their problems too, and on it would go. Everyone would be happy.
Theories are great in text books, but they often get a rough ride in real life. Below is my story of how I got to a better, simpler place, and hopefully you might learn something as you go. Or you could just laugh at my stupidity. Your choice. You have options.
Just Document
With no budget and no finished product, my initial thoughts on marketing were just to document. I expected Google & Co to parse my documentation and send interested visitors my way. It worked.
The documentation served three areas:
- [ ] It directly help my clients,
- [ ] It forced me to think like my clients and see things through their eyes (very affective),
- [ ] It proved to be good material for the various search engines.
This worked well on all three counts. I found I needed to keep my documentation fresh to keep the search traffic flowing, but that was reasonable since my product was constantly growing.
As part of this, I added an FAQ as a quick place to record answers to specific issues. The FAQ was a good draw, especially for common application errors.
Blog Posts
In 2020 I added Blog Posts and have chipped away at them very inconsistently. Sometimes with a year long gap. The blog posts usually only appeared with a major release. Every blog post was also sent to Linked-in, and my email list.
These posts usually triggered a small boost. You would think I would have clued in and just done more of that, but nooooo..., I hate marketing....
Mentoring
I then made an agreement with a marketer named Randall, where he would tell/teach me what I should focus on, and I would do the work. That relationship worked well and much was accomplished. The website was updated to be more professional and sales focused, and I made a consistent effort to make connections.
To me marketing was still this opaque collection of work with no clear wins. Fixing a bug or creating a feature was a clear win so the positive feedback was obvious. In Marketing, nope. The primary thing Randall provided was the task list from someone that knows what they are doing, with the expectation that things would just get better.
Display Ads
When I had a bit of extra money, I thought that I should outsource more of the Marketing so I could stay focused on the actual work of building cool stuff and making my clients happy. Ads seemed an obvious choice and so I tried Display Ads on what I felt was a solid industry platform. The ads fell flat and proved to be nothing other then a frustrating time and money pit. I was not able to pin down the reason for the failure. I was told that I needed to spend more for longer. I said no.
PPC Ads
Fast forward 3 years. I had a number of happy clients, but the growth had been sluggish and started trending down. At a low point, a sales rep from [[Yellow Pages (not Recommended)||Yellow Pages]] called and offered to help. I already knew about [[Google's PPC advertising]] but just did not have the bandwidth or knowledge to manage that properly. I thought it would be a good idea to outsource that to someone with experience and so I accepted the [[Yellow Pages (not Recommended)||Yellow Pages]] offer. That proved to be a BAD decision at multiple levels:
- [ ] Firstly, [[Yellow Pages (not Recommended)||Yellow Pages]] was not a good business partner. I started my own more successful low-budget Google PPC campaign just to try and show them how to do it properly. [[Yellow Pages (not Recommended)||My Yellow Pages Story]]
- [ ] Secondly, [[Google's PPC advertising]] can be a wonderous money pit if not managed carefully and constantly. The reason for outsourcing.
- [ ] Thirdly, You Need to Own the Marketing.
The only good part of the experience with [[Yellow Pages (not Recommended)||Yellow Pages]] was that it forced me to focus on the whole question of Ads and how clients found my website and moved (or failed to move) to a purchase decision. It forced me to Own the Marketing and the client experience much more fully.
You Need to Own the Marketing
The primary lesson for me was that I need to own the marketing. It's my product, and they are my clients. Having a 3rd party in the middle is not only expensive but it can seriously mess with the conversation.
In addition, if people are not buying what I am selling then I need to own that problem. I need to know what my clients want, and the problems I am trying to solve. I need to make the pivot decisions when things fail.
Back to Organic
[[Yellow Pages (not Recommended)||Yellow Pages]] also forced me to seriously review the concept of Ads including [[Google's PPC advertising]] and made me realize they are a quick, but a high risk and expensive play. Ads are the shortcut that only keeps giving if you keep paying.
The following is a quick summary of my thoughts/findings when comparing Organic Marketing vs Advertising. They are my conclusions based on what I saw and experienced.
| Organic Marketing | Advertising |
|---|---|
| Slow growth, post by post, article by article, brick by brick. Six months or more to see results. Faster if paired with an active email list that lets you push out the content directly. | Quick wins if everything is perfectly in place. A big cost if the client encounters even simple roadblocks. |
| Credibility and Authority increases with every new article or post. | Little credibility and virtually no authority. |
| High trust, users actively seek you out. | Low trust, many users actively avoid Ads. |
| Clients are more patient and put in more effort to work through an imperfect website/product. | Clients will quickly abandon if something is off, missing or too complex. Do you really want those types of clients? |
| Keeps on working, even if you pause or slowdown your efforts. | Stops instantly if you stop paying. |
| AI gets lots of raw material that it is happy to return with references included. AI thrives on Credible and Authoritative content. | AI gets nothing, you don't exist. |
| Very stable with minimal monitoring required. | Constant monitoring required in order to detect a campaign tweak that just went sideways (Been There), or outright fraud (Real Risk). |
| The cost is your time - the benefit is your and your business's stable growth. | The cost is your hard earned income and your time to monitor. If you outsource to an agency then expect to pay double. Beware of signing contracts and look out for auto renewing contracts with crazy exit notification requirements. |
| Negligible Fraud Risk because there is no free money floating around. | High Fraud Risk requiring constant monitoring. Click Farms are a real thing and target anyone with money to spend. |
| Warning: A lack of recent posts in a channel can be seen as a failure to show signs of life. That undercuts credibility. Clearly redirect to another channel if you move. | No spend means no visibility. |
My Takeaways
Paid Advertising
Paid Advertising, Display or PPC, is not a good long term solution. On the plus side, the money spent forces you to dig in and pave the rough areas in your client journey. That is a big plus and also translates to Organic Marketing. Why make life difficult for your clients?
But you need to constantly monitor your keywords and your clients on page journey to spot fraud or wasted ad spend. And finally, you need to closely monitor your All-in-"ROAS" (Return On Ad Spend). The new client value greater must be twice the the sum of [Your Time] + [Management Fee] + [Cost Per Conversion], otherwise you a loosing money.
Organic Marketing
Success requires that you create good content regularly and consistently. This is no different from many other forms of investing. Pairing this with an email list where you can send your updates really helps. Be wary of any AI "helpers". A great way to the bottom is feeding your clients AI slop. Clients intuitively recognize it and Google and Co will penalize it.
As with Paid Advertising, make a point of watching your client journey to remove any rough areas.
Mentoring
Finding a Mentor who can provide direction and motivation in your marketing journey is very important. It does not have to be expensive. A task list and some way to track progress might be just want you need.
My experience with Randall was good, I should have stuck with it longer and put in the time instead of looking for quick wins.
It's good to learn from your mistakes. It's better to learn from other people's mistakes.
- Warren Buffett.
Helping small business stay focused on their core business.