Priority Pursuit
A podcast dedicated to helping small business owners define, maintain, and pursue both their business and personal priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love.
Priority Pursuit
How to Lay the Foundation for Successful Marketing: Two Crucial Steps You Can't Skip
When you’re ready to make your mark in marketing, skipping the basics is a big mistake. Get the foundation right, and everything else falls into place.
I’m Victoria Rayburn, and in this episode I break down two crucial steps that will set you up for marketing success. These foundational elements aren’t just nice-to-haves; they’re must-dos for any successful marketing strategy.
I can’t wait to show you why these steps are so important and how to put them into action. Tune in now!
Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes:
- The importance of clear, customer-focused messaging.
- How to build a strategic, lead-generating website.
- Tips for optimizing your site for search engines.
Other Mentioned Links & Resources
Episode 106: How to Optimize Your Website for Search Engines
https://treefrogmarketing.com/how-optimize-your-website-search-engines/
Get access to this free mini-course - Marketing Guiding Statements:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/marketingguidingstatements
Get a Free PDF Guide: 8 Things Every Small Business’s Website MUST Include to Convert Visitors into Paying Customers:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/8-things-every-small-business-website-should-include
Learn More About Treefrog’s Small Business Marketing Resources & Services:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com
Receive 50% Off Your First Year of HoneyBook:
https://www.treefrogmarketing.com/honeybook-coupon-code
Book a Strategic Marketing Coaching:
https://treefrogmarketing.com/marketing-consulting-small-businesses
Join the Priority Pursuit Podcast Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/179106264013426
Follow or DM Treefrog Marketing on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefroggers
Follow or DM Kelly Rice on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/treefrogkelly
Follow or DM Victoria on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/victorialrayburn
Victoria Rayburn [00:00:00]:
But in order to be your most powerful marketing tool, your website needs to serve your ideal clients well by helping them quickly and easily understand what you offer, how you can help solve their problem, and how they can work with you. In other words, your website needs to include the right information because if it takes longer than 5 seconds for website visitors to determine the answers to these questions, they are practically guaranteed to leave your site, meaning you'll miss out on business. Hey there, you're listening to the Priority Pursuit podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping small business owners and leaders to find, maintain and pursue both their personal and business priorities so they can build lives and businesses they love. I'm your host Victoria Rayburn and today I want to talk about mistake that we often see small businesses make, which is spending time and money on marketing before building a firm marketing foundation. You see, in a world where new marketing tools, tactics and trends are constantly changing and emerging, small businesses often assume that they need to put their energy and resources into the latest marketing fads. And while there is don't get me wrong, there is certainly power in capitalizing on trends and it's important to know what's happening within the marketing industry. All of these tools and tactics are a waste of time, money and resources if you have yet to lay the foundation for successful marketing, which includes clarifying your message and building a strategic, lead generating website. So in this episode, I want to break down why these two critical steps matter and exactly how you can set yourself up for marketing success.
Victoria Rayburn [00:01:32]:
Now, if you've listened to a single episode of Priority Pursuit, you already know the importance of clear, customer focused messaging. However, in case this is your first time tuning in, and because this should be your top marketing priority, let's talk about it. The fact of the matter is that you can build a stunning website, post a reel a day, implement sales funnels, capitalize on all of the latest trends and do all the marketing things you're supposed to do. However, all of these efforts and tactics are a waste of time, money and resources if you dont know what to say to your ideal customers. In other words, clear messaging, which is communication that your ideal customers can understand quickly and easily, is the key to successful marketing. Because in order to convert prospects into paying customers, you have to know exactly what to say to connect with your ideal customers, hold their attention and ultimately make them want to do business with you again. If you don't take the time to clarify your messaging and determine what to say, all of your marketing efforts are useless. Now, the best way to create clear, customer focused messaging is to write what we call your marketing guiding statements.
Victoria Rayburn [00:02:38]:
Now, we have talked about marketing guiding statements and I don't know how many episodes at this point, but in case you aren't familiar with this idea, marketing guiding statements are written guidelines that position your brand and business as a trusted partner, and the process of developing these statements gives you the information you need to write clear, concise and effective messaging in a story based framework. And when you take the time to create marketing guiding statements, you can refer to this language as you work on writing website copy, blog posts, social media posts, or literally developing any other marketing piece to make sure that your marketing is customer focused as opposed to being braggy or salesy, and that your marketing language, your marketing pieces, have the power to convert your ideal customers. Now with this in mind, clear messaging is a crucial aspect of your marketing foundation as it is going to first of all, ensure that your marketing uses the right language in order to be effective and then secondly, is going to give you so, so much time back. I mean, how many times have you started like you stared at that blinking cursor just not knowing what to say? Well, when you take the time to write your marketing guiding statements, you'll know exactly what to say. You can even copy and paste a lot of the time. Essentially, I want you to think of your marketing guiding statements as the gps of your marketing efforts. Once you write them and make them the cornerstone of your marketing efforts, you're like be mortal, easily get to where you want to go because all of your marketing materials will be written in a way that allows you to actually connect with your best customers. Now, I know this has been a very, very brief overview of a very critical step, but to give you a little insight into the effectiveness of queer messaging, I can honestly say that back in my wedding photography days, which literally only came to an end like a matter of months ago, my marketing though, it worked because I knew exactly who I was talking to and what they needed to hear.
Victoria Rayburn [00:04:36]:
And this resulted in my business standing out as couples searched for wedding photographers. You see, I specifically targeted type A brides in the Indianapolis area because I knew my ideal client was highly detail oriented. My messaging very much revolved around the fact that I would provide thorough communication and pay attention to the little details so that my detail oriented brides could enjoy their big days while being confident that they would love their wedding photos. And this messaging made me the obvious choice for my ideal clients because I was able to speak directly to their problem, which was the fact that they were worried that they weren't going to love their wedding photos because they were afraid that their photographer wouldn't be as detailed oriented as they were. Again, this messaging made me the obvious choice for my ideal customers, but it also helped differentiate me from my competitors. I mean, if you're looking if you're a couple looking for a wedding photographer, who are you more likely to remember? A wedding photographer who simply offers wedding photography services and says cliche things like yay, marriage. I mean, there are better examples than that. Or a wedding photographer who empathizes and helps solve a problem for type A brides.
Victoria Rayburn [00:05:43]:
And who are you more likely to remember even if you don't necessarily resonate with that messaging? Now, truly knowing my ideal client and having clear messaging didn't just help with my marketing, it also helped me to thoroughly enjoy my job. You see, I'm a highly detail oriented person and I just was not going to enjoy working with couples who didn't care about timelines or the many little details that go into a wedding. So in addition to improving your revenue, take the time to understand your ideal clients and take the time to create messaging specifically for them. Because this is what is going to help you attract more of the people you actually want to work with and who doesn't want that. Now, because we know that small businesses marketing cannot succeed without clear messaging, we put together a free mini course that walks you through exactly how to write your small businesses marketing guiding statements. To take the first step to effective marketing for small businesses writing your marketing guiding statements mini course, visit the link in the show notes or go to Treefrogmarketing.com marketingguiding statements, which is all one word without any spaces, hyphens or special characters. So Treefrogmarketing.com marketingguiding statements. And just to make this clear one more time, your marketing will not be successful, meaning it won't convert or attract your ideal customers if you don't have clear, customer focused messaging.
Victoria Rayburn [00:07:02]:
So before you spend another minute or dollar on your marketing, please, please take the time to write your marketing guiding statements again. You can learn how to write these statements with our free mini course, which can be found in the show notes or@Treefrogmarketing.com marketingguiding statements. So yes, your first marketing priority should be creating clear, customer focused messaging.
Natalie Franke [00:07:34]:
What would you do with an extra 45 minutes every workday that would save you 16 hours a month or roughly eight days a year? And over the course course of your career, we're talking about over one year of your life. Saved all that time back well, many independent business owners spend far more than 45 minutes a day on administrative tasks, and with honeybook you can get that time back and then some. Honeybook lets you easily manage projects, contracts, invoices, scheduling and client communication, saving you time and allowing you to better serve your clients. For a discount on your first year of Honeybook, visit honeybook.com and subscribe with the code Priority Pursuit. 45 minutes a day adds up quickly. Use it to focus on what matters most.
Kelly Rice [00:08:19]:
Many small businesses don't have an effective marketing strategy, and because of this, they try one tactic after another without seeing results. This not only prevents consistent business growth, it makes managing marketing efforts more difficult than it should be. As a marketing agency for small businesses, we understand how frustrating it can be when hard work doesn't deliver the results that you want. Because of this, Treefrog has developed a proven four step marketing system that will help any small business grow on our website. You can also schedule a 30 minutes discovery call to discuss working with Treefrog to build a marketing strategy that will allow your small business to finally see the growth you've been working so hard to achieve.
Victoria Rayburn [00:08:57]:
Now, let's move on to the second step of building a firm marketing foundation, which is creating a strategic, lead generating website. While social media, email marketing and other marketing tactics and tools certainly matter, your website is the foundation of all your marketing and communication efforts and is your small business's most powerful marketing tool. At the end of the day, all of your marketing tools exist to help drive traffic to your website, and your site is where your ideal clients will get the information they need, decide to take action and convert to paying customers. That said, it isn't enough just to have a website. So many small business owners assume that if you just slap up a website, business will come. But in order to be your most powerful marketing tool, your website has to do a couple things. First, it needs to serve your ideal clients well by helping them quickly and easily understand what you offer, how you can help solve their problem, and how they can work with you. In other words, your website needs to include the right information because if it takes longer than 5 seconds for website visitors to determine the answers to these questions, they are practically guaranteed to leave your site, meaning you'll miss out on business.
Victoria Rayburn [00:10:08]:
Now, in our experience, there are eight things that every business's website needs to include to convert site visitors into paying customers. If you'd like to learn what those eight elements are, visit Treefrogmarketing.com website to access our free guide. Eight things every small business website must include to convert visitors into paying customers. When your website includes these eight elements and any other information that is pertinent to your ideal client, specifically which you can determine when you thoroughly understand who your ideal client is, your website will be so much more likely to convert your ideal customers and repel those who just aren't the right fit for your business. Basically, when your website includes the right information, it's going to serve as a 24/7 salesperson that generates business and saves time by filtering out unqualified leads. Again, please be sure to visit Treefrogmarketing.com website or the link in the show notes to access our guide. Eight things every small business website must include to convert visitors into paying customers so that you can turn your website into a lead generating machine. Now, in addition to including the right information, your website also needs to be found where your ideal clients are already likely searching for your products and services, which is among the top of Google search results.
Victoria Rayburn [00:11:23]:
You see 97% of people use Google when they're in need of a product or service. As a result, if you can get your website and business to rank on the first page of Google, you can get your information in front of prospects who are actively searching for and likely ready to purchase exactly what you have to offer. Basically, when your website ranks the top of Google search results, you don't have to spend so much of your time going after new leads. Instead, many of your strongest leads will start coming to you through Google. With this in mind, in phase two of the flywheel marketing method, you want to take the time to optimize your website and business for search engines. SEO, which stands for search engine optimization in case you aren't familiar, is a free process that helps your website rank well on Google or other search engines when users conduct searches related to your product, services or content. There are a lot of moving parts to a successful SEO strategy, but SEO has the power to do big things for your small business. After all, when people intentionally look for a service or product, most go to Google and many are ready to make a purchase.
Victoria Rayburn [00:12:22]:
So when your website is one of the first solutions that they see in search, they will be more likely to purchase from you. Now, as a side note, SEO only works if your website serves your customers well. If your site isn't built well and it doesn't include the right information like we just discussed, it isn't going to convert website visitors into paying customers, which yes, is a problem. So SEO can get people to your website. Just to make this clear, SEO can get people to your website but it can't convert them. So don't waste your time doing SEO work if you don't have a site that your that serves your ideal customers well. That said, if you are going to spend time and money on a website, you are shortchanging yourself if your site isn't optimized for search engines because you're limiting the reach of your site. So these two things, including the right information and SEO, go hand in hand.
Victoria Rayburn [00:13:14]:
Now, there are a lot of moving parts to a successful SEO strategy and we aren't going to get into the technicalities in this episode. However, if you want to learn exactly how to optimize your website for Google, go back and listen to episode 106, how to optimize your website for search engines, which you can find at the link in the show notes or wherever you listen to podcasts now I know that spending time and money time or money honing your messaging and developing a strategic website might not sound like a lot of fun when you could be creating reels, TikTok videos, or working on or thinking about another aspect of your marketing that is just seemingly more exciting or that you enjoy a bit more. But here's the thing. If you don't know what to say in an Instagram reel, just as a for instance, your ideal customers aren't going to notice or engage with it, making the time that it took to create it a total waste of time. And if you do get people to your website but your site doesn't include the right information, prospects aren't going to convert, meaning your site was a poor investment of time or money. Basically, all of your marketing efforts are a waste of time, money and resources if you don't have a firm marketing foundation. So if you don't have clear messaging and you don't have a strategic lead generating website. So friend, before you spend another minute or another dollar on your marketing, make sure that you have a clear message in a strategic website.
Victoria Rayburn [00:14:37]:
As a reminder, you can find the marketing guiding statements, mini course, the website guide and all other mentioned resources in the show notes. And on that note, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of the Priority Pursuit podcast. If you enjoy this episode, we hope you'll take a moment to share it with your small business friends to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. And then you'll join us next week for even more marketing boundary and priority driven tactics you can use to build a life and a small business that you love.