The problem with techniques and templates that oversimplify your business
There are endless resources online for those looking to ‘up’ their marketing game.
There are templates you can fill out to hone in on your target audience, specific formulas you can follow to grow your social media account or increase your email list, and techniques for getting clear on where and how you should be showing up online, to name a few.
And, while there’s nothing wrong with the intention behind these resources, there are a few issues that tend to come up when business owners rely too heavily on them.
They tend to oversimplify things
Templates are often a shortened version of a larger process that a coach or consultant follows when supporting their clients.
In a downloadable format, or as part of a quick Instagram live, their technique has to be simplified. They can’t possibly outline all of the varying factors and considerations that go into the process like they would when working with someone one-on-one for weeks or months.
Plus, a simple checklist or fill-in-the-blank download often sounds more appealing to entrepreneurs looking to make quick progress on their business.
The problem with this of course is that these fun exercises often do little to truly support business owners with boosting their sales or creating a marketing strategy and plan they can follow.
To illustrate, I’ll share a theme I’ve been seeing in my marketing circle, which actually inspired this blog.
Recently I saw a Facebook post where someone eloquently described their ideal audience. They clearly outlined who they wanted to work with, using descriptive words to share their personality, and how she feels whenever she works with them.
However, the reason she created this Facebook post was because she was looking for insight on how to narrow this description down.
She had recently downloaded a “fun template from the internet” (her words, not mine), that was all about how to describe your ideal client in one word.
I was also recently in a group where a speaker wanted us to describe our entire business in one word.
This narrowing down was based on the concept that if you, “can’t sum something up in one word, do you really know what it is?”
Here’s the problem with that thought process. Effective communication requires more than one word. It requires pairings of words or phrases combined with context clues, rapport, body language, and a host of other elements that help people to interpret what you’re saying and how you’re saying it.
If you’ve ever seen the episode of The Office where Kevin attempts to “save time” by speaking with fewer words, you’ll know how ineffective and confusing it can be to try and condense entire thought processes into a word or two.
Here’s the clip if you haven’t seen it:
People simply can’t narrow down their entire business to one word – at least not in an effective way. No business is simplistic enough!
And even if you could choose one word that sort-of describes your business, what’s the point? That word likely does very little to give the reader any real context or broader understanding.
For example, if I was to narrow my business down to “marketing,” you might start to develop a picture in your mind of what you think I offer, but is that picture helpful? Does it help you to decide definitively if you want to work with me?
Of course not!
Do I work with solopreneurs or large teams?
Do I physically create your marketing ads or social media posts and write your copy, or do I support you in creating realistic marketing plans and strategies? (It’s the latter, in case you were curious).
What kinds of businesses and people do I specialize in supporting?
The word marketing in and of itself is far too vague to give you the information you need to decide if booking a consultation call or taking next steps to work with me makes sense.
Of course, being able to succinctly communicate what you offer and who you support is important.
Having a clear, elevator pitch style introduction to your business that you can use when meeting people for the first time, or in your Instagram bio is extremely helpful.
And being able to identify your ideal client concisely so there’s a clear understanding when a potential client is or isn’t a good fit, is a great way to ensure your business operates effectively.
However, putting a word count on these marketing tools is completely unnecessary. And any marketing consultant telling you to narrow an important piece of your business down to one word is forcing you to do a pointless exercise.
They often don’t give you clear next steps for implementation
I love the idea that business owners are looking to gain clarity on their target audience or marketing strategy.
I also understand that different online templates or tools can be fun ways to play with new ideas, inspire creativity, or start gaining a better understanding of your business.
However, these tools do little to inform you on what to do after you’ve completed the exercise.
How do you implement this fill-in-the-blank you now have, or utilize this one-word description of your business?
Where is the strategy and planning?
Marketing isn’t a one-and-done process. It’s a long game. It takes time to build a robust marketing program for any business.
Marketing involves brainstorming, strategizing, planning, testing, collecting data, analyzing, tweaking the plan, re-testing, re-analyzing, so on and so forth.
While an online template might be a good way to get your creative juices flowing, it’s far from a true marketing solution.
And unfortunately, many business owners get stuck in the templates.
They’re constantly looking for one more quiz to take or sheet to fill out or tool to utilize, instead of making true forward progress on their marketing (though to be fair they feel like they’re being productive).
And, after a few weeks, endless free downloads, and little to show for it, entrepreneurs tend to feel overwhelmed, are second-guessing themselves, and find their initial passion and motivation is starting to fizzle out.
Once you’ve taken some intentional time to get clear on your ideal client persona or business description (for example), ensure you also make time to outline where this fits into your marketing strategy.
How can you use this information to improve your online presence or increase your reach?
How can you create content that’s more likely to appeal to the person you outlined in the persona?
What words can you embed into (or remove from) your writing to speak more directly to your ideal audience?
What marketing tactics will you now implement? At what frequency?
Utilize tips and tools where it makes sense, but don’t get so caught up in the planning that you forget to actually execute on all of these ideas.
They don’t take into account the intricacies of your unique company
There is no one blueprint or template that’s going to have all of the answers for you.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of ‘gurus’ out there promising just that: a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s overwhelming, and enough to make anyone burn out.
Every business is unique.
You have unique circumstances, unique experience and perspective, a unique drive and mission, a unique ideal audience, and all of this together means you need to implement a unique approach to your marketing.
To create that plan, we need to consider:
An understanding of the current market (which is constantly changing)
A clear breakdown of what your company offers
What sets you apart from other similar companies
How you serve your ideal client, and who that ideal client is
How you’re going to reach that ideal client through various marketing channels
The resources you currently have available (budget, energy, time) and how to best allocate them
And more
I’ve yet to find one word that effectively answers any one of these questions for any business, let alone all of them.
In fact, when I work with clients on their client personas or company description, we’re generally looking for more details, not less. Any description of your business or your ideal client should help your audience understand what you do so they can decide if you're right for them.
Even if you don’t share those specific details with anyone outside of your business, the clear understanding of who you want to serve makes it so much easier for you to say yes to the clients who matter most to you, and no to the ones that aren't right.
Doing this kind of strategic thinking about your business shouldn't require mental gymnastics to reduce words, because there aren’t single words that can encapsulate all your business offers, who you serve, and why people should work with you.
The most important narrowing you should do is to your target audience as so many businesses tend to target "anyone with money." Even then, this narrowing down isn't about a word count. It's about clarity and precision. And those are only accomplished with more than one word.
While we can shorten things when required down the road to satisfy character counts or to give you an effective elevator pitch, we need to have a clear and comprehensive understanding of your business to be able to pull from.
So, feel free to skip the mental gymnastics required to get to a single word or a specific number of words on certain things and focus on the right concepts you want to convey before you start playing with the words you use.
What’s the right way to go about using personas, templates, and other online tools?
I’m not saying you need to steer clear of all online tools and templates (unless maybe they revolve around this one-word theme in which case I do not see any point in wasting your time on them).
What I’m really encouraging you to do is to utilize these tools simply as a starting point.
Use them to brainstorm, to get your creative juices flowing, to start to have fun around marketing.
But also know that they need to be part of a larger picture which includes strategy, planning, and tangible tactics.
And of course, clarity with that strategy is more important than any character count.