Are you one of the 80% of business owners making this mistake?

Are you one of the many entrepreneurs, freelancers + business owners who are rightly wondering how on earth to go about finding new customers + getting new business? If the answer’s yes, I’m not surprised - and you’re NOT alone!

ARE YOU ONE OF THE 80% BUSINESS OWNERS MAKING THIS MISTAKE_.png

I guess we all kinda know that the answer is an effective and highly visible marketing campaign.

But what does that actually meeeean?! What does an 'effective and highly visible marketing campaign' consist of?! What should we actually DOOO?!

80% of business owners + marketers have absolutely no snickety-doodly IDEA what works + what doesn’t (recent study by Harvard Business Review). That’s MADNESS!

Nobody (okay, almost nobody) is analyzing their marketing to figure out which tactics raise their brand awareness, generate new leads, create new customers - and which simply, well, don’t!

Please don’t keep spending 2 days every single month recording + uploading YouTube tutorials if nobody’s watching + your only comment in the past 3 months has been from a spambot. I bet your videos are kickass, but something clearly isn’t working! Either investigate what that is + find out how to get the tactic performing better for you, or cut your losses!

Click to Tweet.png — “If we do what we’ve always done, we’ll get what we’ve always got.”

- Henry Ford

Yes, possibly one of the most overused quotes in business (+ life!) ever but keep this in mind next time you’re feeling like you’ve hit an income plateau, ladies.

Analysing your marketing is so freakin’ important:

· MEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF YOUR CONTENT

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Which videos had the most views on YouTube? And which provided the most click-throughs to your site or other call-to-action?

Which Facebook posts did people really engage with + share? Is there a correlation between certain image types or hashtags + the number of authentic likes + follows you gain on Instagram?

Look at the traffic on your past few blog posts - which seem more popular? Is that because of the content or is it because of the way you did (or didn’t) promote + push traffic from other places?

Analytics helps you to see what kind of content is resonating with your audience (remember to keep your target audience in mind, though - don’t fall prey to trying to appeal to the masses just for the vanity metrics!) You can then create more of that type of proven content, even as you experiment with new + fun mediums and channels. (think: my audience loves how-tos, but doesn’t seem interested in product reviews. Let’s try a how-to video rather than blog post + see how that goes down!)

· ASSESSING YOUR TRAFFIC SOURCES

Where does your customer base spend most of their time? Where is your traffic coming from?

For example… if most of your visits are landing from Instagram + they tend to show good ‘goal completions’ (ie. they do the things you want them to on your site, e.g. download your freebie, browse around certain pages, spend time reading your blog…this means they are qualified traffic + not just people who are going to bounce in and out again), then you know it’s worth investing time/energy/money into creating awesome Insta content - like some brilliant original photography and short 5-min vids - so you can maximise your visibility on that platform + funnel even more qualified traffic through (to your site, your list, your FB group etc).

· MEASURING ROI (RETURN ON INVESTMENT)

Don't just look at the number of visitors you're getting. Look at the behaviour they're displaying..png

Why would you spend money without knowing whether it is going to good use?

Analytics help you do a cost-benefit analysis. I know, I know, this sounds really dry, but bear with me for just a moment!

As a fledgling business, freelancer, coach or entrepreneur you surely understand better than most the challenges of doing business with a very limited budget. And so it’s IMPERATIVE that you’re squeezing every last bit of value out of the time + money you spend promoting your business.

It’s easy to remember to check the results on your lovingly-crafted Facebook ads and get all excited as you see the cost-per-conversion coming down, but what about the TIME you’re investing in writing those lonnnnng blog posts of 1500 words (that take you two hours of faffing just to psych up to starting…I see you!)??

Don’t forget that your time is a finite resource and so you need to pay just as much, if not more, attention to how you’re spending it as money!

How many people are reading those 1500 word blogs + engaging with your brand or business as a result?

Don’t just look at the number of visitors you’re getting. Look at the BEHAVIOUR they’re displaying.

20 readers on a blog post who become qualified leads by signing up to your freebie, … of which 40% then convert on your $15 tripwire product … are worth more than 100 readers … of which only 6 become leads … + none convert.

Those 20 are worth $120 more than that 100, actually.

Calculate the value of a lead to your business + use that figure to guide you when it’s not obvious to you if something you’re doing is worth it.

From the money you’re spending, how many leads have you acquired? What’s your average conversion rate?

A clear picture of which tactics produce the best results means you can invest your time + money much more wisely.png

If you are doing Facebook ads, for example, how does the cost-per-conversion compare with what you’re achieving with your Google AdWords campaign? If Facebook is falling flat in comparison, it’s time to figure out what’s causing your ad to flop (so many variables!) or cut your losses + focus, for now, on maximising your results from AdWords!

It just makes sense that with a clear picture of which tactics are producing which results, you can invest your time + money much more wisely.

So HOW do you go about actually finding + figuring all this stuff out?! Well, you talk to an expert. There’s enough here for another blog post - you can find part 2 here!