Easy as fish in a barrel

We’re trying something new, answering a hot-seat coaching question. Hit reply and submit a question you’re stuck on in your business to be answered next week.

The answer to this is based on a couple of very utilitarian assumptions:

• Your business operates to provide for you (aka make money)

• Your marketing primarily serves two purposes: brand awareness (make people who don’t know you aware of who you are) and nurturing people who are aware of you to the point of making a purchase

• You have solid offers that solve the problems in your marketing

• Once your marketing creates a qualified lead, you have a sales process to convert them to a client

Based on that, this could be written as a “simple” optimization.

Honestly, I doubt anyone uses algebra to plan their marketing. But it highlights that your “success” is largely dependent on where your leads:

• Search for the solution you are offering

• Casually consume content in their free time

• Build relationships

Get painfully specific about who you serve and ask them where they spend their time, and what influences how they make purchasing decisions.

You can also look at platform stats like this chart from Pew Research showing the percentage of people that use each platform based on their income.

LinkedIn usage more than triples as you move up to higher income brackets, but TikTok drops by almost a third as you get to $100k+. So if you’re selling a 4 figure offer based on someone’s “fun” money, TikTok isn’t great for finding your ideal clients, but LinkedIn might be.

Your simple goal is to meet clients where they’re at (searching). And have as many touch points as possible (casual consumption) so that they’ll remember you when they make a purchase.

Where should you spend your marketing time next week?

1. Start with where the majority of your leads have come from in the past. Bonus points: ask some of them what type of content they enjoy, and lean into that

2. Ask the bigger question of where your clients are searching for your offers and figure out how to rank there (eg: “TikTok is favored over Google by Gen Z for searches on topics like hair and makeup (40%) and gift ideas (40%)” eMarketer)

3. Map out how you are “nurturing” people through your different platforms to form deeper & less algorithmic relationships with them. A few weeks ago the Orbit Newsletter had a great example of how this looks for a YouTube creator (you’re “core goal” is inquiries)

As you can see from this chart, some platforms have algorithmic distribution that’s great for building awareness with new people, while others are better at nurturing a deep relationship. It’s up to you to decide how you want to balance your time between creating for reach/search vs. nurturing.

My favorite hack we’ve been doing recently is, looking at our current clients and asking ourselves what content would be most impactful to them. And that’s taken our content up a level by focusing on who we’re creating for and the problems we’re helping them solve.

It’s far easier to sell to a previous client than to someone who doesn’t know you. And while you’re selling your past clients, your new clients will want to get in on the party.

As a quick reminder: hit reply and submit a question or two to be considered for hot-seat coaching next week

And if you’re feeling generous, do you like this new format I’m trying? I’d love your thoughts both positive and negative!

See you next week,

Lyndon

Ps, are you struggling to nail down your offers, struggling to convert your leads, or even just need help with your marketing? Working with a coach helps you find solutions to problems like this, instead of spending weeks or even months feeling stuck. You can see our offers and set up a discovery call here to see if we’d be a good fit for you.