Scaling With People
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Scaling With People
Marketing Doesn't Happen Overnight: Cultivating Growth Over Time
Dive into an insightful discussion on how to navigate the complexities of marketing from the perspective of Katie Smith of Wild Path Consulting. In this episode, we unpack the essential elements of building a long-term marketing strategy that emphasizes relationship-building over quick sales. Discover the importance of setting clear business goals, understanding customer needs, and transitioning through the various phases of customer engagement to build lasting trust.
Katie draws on her extensive experience as a fractional chief marketing officer to share actionable insights that every founder and CEO can implement. We explore the significance of authenticity in brand identity and how understanding your customer journey is crucial for effective marketing.
Are you tired of the pressure to be everywhere at once? Join us as we emphasize the importance of staying focused on one marketing strategy at a time for sustainable growth. Tune in for practical advice, thought-provoking discussions, and a new perspective on what it takes to succeed in today’s ever-evolving market. Don't forget to subscribe, share your thoughts, and leave a review to help us improve!
Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm Gwendolyn Curry, your host and founder and CEO to Guide to HR, and I'm excited to have Katie Smith on the call from Wild Path Consulting. We're going to be talking about marketing and how to grow and scale your business from a marketing perspective. Katie, welcome and introduce yourself to our audience Well. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited to talk with you today. I am a fractional chief marketing officer, which means that I can come into companies that are small, starting to grow, and provide high level marketing strategy for them. So I come up with the plan, help them figure out what the goal is, who's going to do the plan that's a big thing that we need to figure out and then I help guide us along that path so that we can have high level of success, you can keep your team lean and nimble and that we can adjust on the fly really quickly as markets shift, as opportunities come.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Okay, so I got to ask your name Wild Path. Where did that come from?
Speaker 2:So before I got into marketing, I was an outdoor guide. So I spent my 20s leading people into the wilderness. I was a Nordic ski guide guide in Yellowstone National Park, horseback riding guide and that's really where I have developed a lot of my approach. When I'm taking people outside, I want to be focused on our goal. I know where we're going. I kind of have that map and that plan.
Speaker 2:So, for example, when I am horseback riding, guiding people on horseback, I don't sit forward in my saddle. Riding guiding people on horseback, I don't sit forward in my saddle, I'm always sit side, because I've got one eye looking back on my clients, making sure they're good, they're safe, everybody is coming along, they're having fun. And then I've got one eye on the path. What's coming up ahead of us? Is there a bear, is there a moose, is there a downed tree? What do we have to navigate? That's really my approach is making sure that my clients are good, they're safe, they're happy, they know the path, moving forward. I can help, you know, adjust things as they come, and then I've got one eye looking forward, looking ahead, so that we can adjust as things come up. So I really take that ethos into my work.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's awesome and that sounds a lot of fun. I got to ask, side note here, what is your favorite trail that you've ever put group together and guided them through? Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I can think of a moment. So there's uh, I I guided at this ranch in Big Sky, montana, and we would go into the northwest corner of Yellowstone and my favorite would be we got some advanced riders. Um, I could take them out on this trail and there's kind of a wide meadow section full of wildflowers and just like loping, galloping through that field, I just remember like cause I'm still sitting sideways, you know I'm making sure everybody's safe? But and then just the scenery, and I was just like I can't believe this is my life, like I'm getting paid to do this.
Speaker 1:That is so awesome, and now you transitioned it into loving what you do inside the corporate landscape. So tell me, you know, we we talk about what we want founders to know and, uh, you know, be able to help themselves before they need someone like us. So what is it some like? What would you wish a founder or ceo that's listening today would know about marketing before you step in front of them and started helping them grow their business? Oh my gosh there's so much.
Speaker 2:So marketing is marketed to us, you know, kind of incorrectly, like people want to show you the quick sale or make it sound like it's magic. But marketing isn't. It's you know it takes a long. It's it's building relationships with people and that takes time. So I think um having a realistic expectation of your marketing, of the timeline, of of how long it's going to take, um consistency, I think, is the most important thing in marketing. So if you start a marketing activity, you need to let it go, let it run its course for at least like three, three to six months before you start to see, get an understanding of that real return. You can affect that timeline by increasing the amount of money that you're putting in, but you know, but I think that what's going to help your company if you're trying to build a company for the long run and really working on sustainable growth, thinking of your marketing as a long-term plan, not just what's going to happen right now, but how do we want to set our company up, set our customers up for the future?
Speaker 2:I think that that's key. Understanding that timeline is really important. Understanding you know the amount of resources and time that you're going to need to commit in order to see marketing through. There is like a tipping point, like you're putting in money, you're putting in money and then eventually it gets easier, you know, and you can start to see that growth take off. But I think the timeline is something that people just don't really think about and and, um, people try not to talk about it. Uh because, because it's hard.
Speaker 1:But I think it's important that we and does that timeline get impacted by your sales timeline? If you have a short sales cycle versus a long sales cycle, is that connected at all or no?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think that the next thing that people need to think about with marketing is that it goes through phases, right, and we know this because we do this ourselves. So if you're making the decision let's say you're going to buy a washing machine you go through a process, right, like you're not looking for a washing machine until you are, and then you start to become aware of your need, right, and we call that the discovery phase. When something sparks, where somebody has an issue or they're looking, they start looking for something, right, and and if you're looking for a washing machine, if you haven't looked for a while, you don't really know what's out there. If somebody comes to you when you're in that phase and says buy my washing machine, it's $500. This is all the things that it does, you're like get out of here, like that's too much, right, that's not the information that you need when you're in that awareness phase.
Speaker 2:There are phases that our customers go through. You need to kind of understand, like what's the new technology with washing machines? What's happening, um, out there. You need to, you need to start building trust and the longer your sales cycle. So if it's like a big ticket item, um, it's not. If it's not like necessary. Like if you're a plumber, this is different. You know, like people need a plumber and they need a plumber now, um, but if you have a big ticket item that has a long sales cycle or there's like multiple decision makers that are going to be involved in that sales cycle, then you're going to need to what we call nurture, have a plan to nurture them along that cycle.
Speaker 2:A lot of times what we do is we say here's all the information you need, and then we kind of like leave and leave people to their own devices. And what works better is if you develop a marketing plan where you kind of are building and leave people to their own devices. And what works better is if you develop a marketing plan where, where you kind of are building trust with people, so you're dripping information out. That's where you see, like you know, you get to the awareness phase and now we're in the learning phase, which we in marketing would call the nurture phase, and that can have, you know, there's like a beginning of the nurture phase. There's that you can get. You can get very nuanced with it, depending on your industry, but that's where people build trust with you and that is, I think, the the most important resource that we can do as a brand, because if we build trust with people, not only will they buy from us, but they're going to tell other people to buy from us too if they have a good experience. So it's really important in this middle part where you're just like slow dripping information. So you can do that with your social media. Email lists are really great at nurturing people so you can let them know about new products you can let them know about.
Speaker 2:You know, e-commerce is like a little different but um, but you can just like, if you have like a white paper about what's going on, or you have you have a new guide, or you have like a really compelling story of a customer, you can kind of plan to just like it's like just little breadcrumbs for people to follow along, to nurture them, to build their trust um with you and educate them about your product or service and help them along until they're ready for that sales cycle, um. So then you know the the third phase would be kind of that sale um. And then there's a fourth phase which we often forget about, but that's the delight phase. So think about, like, when you buy something. What does that feel like, when you feel like they're really taking care of you? Maybe you buy something and the box comes and it's packed really nicely, or someone you buy like a software and there's training that's involved and you develop a relationship with your rep and they're always there for you and they're checking in on you, like those kinds of things can really help too.
Speaker 2:That's part of the marketing cycle that a lot of people forget about. When you're just starting out, it can be really that can feel like this whole process can be really daunting and you kind of feel like you have to do everything. So I would say, you know like, take it. So when I work with people, we'll kind of you know like, take it. So when I work with people, we'll kind of you know you have to start with what's your business goal. I think that's maybe like if you're like, where do I even start with this?
Speaker 1:What is the normal answer? Well, to make money right. Is that like what you normally hear?
Speaker 2:No, I mean the goal, like what do you want the business to be?
Speaker 1:You know, it's like that?
Speaker 2:that dreaded question. But do you want to grow it, to sell it really quick? Do you want this to be a business that you hand down to your family? Do you want to move into new markets? Like those can all be different goals and those will change how you want to what your marketing strategy is. If our strategy is we need to grow fast to sell, it's a totally different marketing strategy than if we are creating a family business or if we're going into a new market.
Speaker 2:So, understanding what are the business goals, short term and long term, that is kind of like if we're talking wilderness, like that's kind of like your North Star or that's like your point on your compass that you're, that you're going to orient everything around. The second step yeah, the second step is understanding your customer. And this is where we often, like everybody wants to jump into marketing in the middle, like what are we doing? Let's put, let's design the pretty things and let's put it out there, but that's the middle. So get your goal. And then you have to understand your customer, because the customer dictates where you show up, where you spend money, what you're doing, and it's not just like the demographics of your customer, like what's their age, you know, where do they live, like those things are important. But the psychographics are really important and really understanding what they're thinking at, you know, at each phase of of your customer journey, but also, like, what are the questions that they have, what are the fears that they have and what do they need to know at that moment. So, slowing yourself down and really looking into that, and there are a few ways you can do it and you don't have to get it perfect at first. Like you can just interview a couple people who are your customers or who are like your customers, and you can kind of go off that for a little bit, you know, or you can do a little bit of market research. So it doesn't have to be perfect, you know, you don't need all of these things perfectly aligned and you can set things up in your, in your communications, to constantly learn more about your customers. So don't, you know, don't let this bog you down spend a good amount of time and just know that you're it's always evolving and you can always learn more, but you really want to get an idea of that. Um, so I, yeah, I am, I'm really adamant about that, because that those are kind of the two. Those are like the things we need in order to map it out because, um, you following trends is not always going to help you if your customers aren't following the trends.
Speaker 2:So I'd say, like, really get a handle on your business goals and your customers and then you can say, okay, what does my customer need to know when they're first trying to solve this problem? And then you can develop. You can have a whole list of things that you want to do, but just try one. Just try okay. What are you want to do? But just try one, just try it okay. Um, what are we going to do for acquisition? Uh, we're going to do some paid social media ads, you know. Or we're going to really work on our seo and we're going to write content for that, you know, and, and that's like your long-term goal, and you're just going to keep working it.
Speaker 2:And then you move to that nurture phase and you say, okay, so I'm going to capture my audience, but how am I going to keep them interested?
Speaker 2:And I'd say, each phase the awareness phase, the nurture phase or the consideration phase some people call it that what do we need to know?
Speaker 2:How are we going to do that and what's the goal of each phase?
Speaker 2:I think that can be really helpful, too is putting mini goals that aren't just make a sale, like it just helps you to just target things better. So if you're in that awareness phase, our goal in the awareness phase is to get them to come back to us. So does that look like getting them to sign up for a webinar? Does it look like getting them to sign up for an email? Does it look like getting them to follow us on social media or come to an event that we're doing? You know, that awareness phase goal, that mini goal, helps them get to the next level, which is okay. Now we want them to engage with us more. We want them to comment on our social media, we want them to download something, we want them to attend our webinar. You know, like you're just kind of giving them those little breadcrumbs and you just set those goals, mini goals, within your journey and then eventually you'll get to the sales goal. But you haven't just been like here's all the information, now make your decision. You're just helping reach mini goals.
Speaker 1:Well, I like what you said earlier. It's about the North Star, your goal, and so many of us founders, ceos we get a little bit like squirrel, like we want to do everything all at once, and I think it really is important to make sure that you focus on one thing, that you are continually going in that direction and not letting yourself get sidetracked and try to do 20 billion things, because then nothing's going to be good and you're going to get very frustrated in the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of pressure too.
Speaker 1:I want your listeners to really give themselves some grace, because there's so much pressure to be doing everything, all the things, and you can be on all social media when maybe they don't need to be right, like you may not need to be on TikTok, or you may not need to be on LinkedIn or, you know, depending on your ICP, your ideal customer or client profile, where are they at? That's where you need to be. You don't need to be in everything. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:And what are your resources? You know like you've got to give yourself a break. Everyone's telling you to do everything all at once and you know the best thing you can do is just take a step back and make a plan and then start working the plan because you don't want to spread yourself out too thin. So, master, one platform fit. So, master, one platform master. Okay, we're going to get really good at email and and we're going to put out some ads for this specific thing that we want people to download.
Speaker 2:You know like you can take it slow and you can take it in chunks and think about how, for most people, we're thinking about sustainable growth. You know, if you are a company that's trying to get bought out, that's a little different. But or if you have investor, you know like that's the other investors. You have to balance some of that growth and so maybe sometimes marketing comes a little later and sales aggressive sales comes first. So it really depends on the makeup of your company and the goals and some of those outside forces. But if you're trying to build kind of like a long-term sustainable company, you can approach marketing the same way that you're building your company and you can pull in pieces. You can master one thing at a time, one piece at a time, and just know that it's never going to be perfect.
Speaker 1:You know, I mean if you had all the money in the world, then you could make it perfect, but yeah you know, even I would even say actually all the money and time, even even all the money, you still need time sometimes to like make things perfect and well, if you have the money, you can hire.
Speaker 1:I guess you can hire unlimited resources, but still, uh, you know, I think at the same time, it's it's recognizing what you where you should be focusing your time and energy and your resources on that you think will make the biggest impact and then give it that chance to grow. Like, as you were saying earlier, like I totally got a vision of a garden right. You plant the seed and it's not like you're going to have a tree that's giving you like, plant an apple tree seed. It's going to be a hot minute before that tree actually is even tall enough to be a tree, much less than producing the fruit for you, and you need to give it that time. I can't tell you how many times I see CEOs and founders and other executives of all different industries and experience and they, they, they want to do something. They plant the seed and then it doesn't work tomorrow, so let's rip it off and try something else. Like, ah, it probably was actually going to work, but we need more time to give it growth and opportunity to come to light.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's it's tough. It's so tough and when you know when you're especially if you're you know you don't you have a small team or no team, you're just starting out it can be so hard and nerve wracking to to wait for that, um, but you know you've just got to stick with it. Look at your numbers, understand what's going on and just give it some time to flourish, give it some time to build momentum. It's like you know, there's like that analogy about trying to push a train. You know it's hard to get it moving, but then once it can, it can get its own speed, going on its own speed. You know it's like that.
Speaker 2:But but I think you got to give yourself some grace and you got to come up with a strategy and work the strategy. Just stick to stick with the strategy. I mean, sometimes you'll have to shift, but but give it some time. It's a balance of knowing it's. You know it takes time to know when, when you need to shift, when you don't. That's you know. That's my job, that's I put in the time. There you go, there you go.
Speaker 1:I know what that looks like, and so I would love to just hear from you what one big trend you're seeing in the market marketing function, especially for your clients and the small companies and startups trend you're seeing in the market marketing function, especially for your clients and the small companies and startups that you're working with yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're in a really interesting time for marketing right now where things are really shifting. So third-party data like the cookies and things starting to go away, there's more of a swing towards first-party data, which that just means like, where are you getting the information? So third party means you know that's what the cookies are that you get on your. They kind of like follow you as you move through the internet. So people who can see like your patterns and then they create they can say, oh, the sale happened because she downloaded this thing and then she watched this video and then she and then she did this and then we got the sale right and then, all of a sudden, alexa's telling you that you should be interested in buying this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whatever, and you're like wait, how did you know that?
Speaker 2:right, yeah so that is going away? Um, they are just new policies. I mean, if you have your Apple phone, you can choose not to A lot of the websites that a lot of like laws that are being passed, like in Europe, things like that happening and um, and what we're really seeing is kind of this pendulum swing back to real authenticity, like if you are putting your work out there, you're being very real, you're you're being personalized, you're really targeting your customers based on what they want. Um, you're going to get that. There's a lot more like people want to feel connected and trusted. So really working on your brand, like making sure that you have a good, not just like the visual aspects of it, but the brand identity, who you are that kind of is a good blueprint to help you make business decisions too, to make sure that you're staying in scope and you're really you know're really focused and really targeted on on what your real purpose is. So people are like brand awareness we're getting. We're seeing that pendulum swing back into building that brand identity.
Speaker 2:Another interesting little factoid is about like 95 percent of your market's not looking right now and only 5% is like okay, I'm going to start looking down that pipeline and people are coming to search more with a brand name in mind instead of a problem. So how are you going to reach those people? Well, how are people going to bump into your brand when they're not really looking yet? You know, how do you start to get into that idea so that when they go to search, they're searching your brand, so your name, so brand is really. We're seeing this pendulum swing back to developing brand.
Speaker 2:If you're starting out, um, you know, there's no one right way to do marketing and I think that's really important. It's. It's not, um, you know, you're just try your best, stay focused on what your business needs. Um, so, trends can apply to you or they might not apply to you, but, uh, I think it's a good idea to kind of just make sure that that once in a while, you're like pulling up, you're looking down at the big picture where's our goal? What are our customers doing? What can I do to push that forward?
Speaker 1:So just try not to get stuck in doing like the tasks yeah, looking forward on the path, while you're still looking back and the things are getting done and just recognizing that, especially when you're building a business, you got to be agile. Things to happen, market shifts, you get an opportunity, you got to go with it and you got to make sure that you're keeping your company alive. And if that means, like unfortunately, if that means that you just planned the seed yesterday but you know that, no matter what happens with that seed, that's not going to be right, right for tomorrow, then go ahead and pull it out and do something different. But if it's still gonna fit, let it grow. And then you know, continue on with your path and your plan yeah, you, it's.
Speaker 2:I think that's really. It's like that constantly like looking forward, looking back, really getting a big picture idea and then being able to come down, um, to see what the tasks are. It's it's easier said than done, but I think it's helpful for your business to kind of keep that focused on marketing. But really, you know, we're seeing all kinds of weird things. It was a real shake up happening, which I think is good. The other thing that I think people should really focus on is that being authentic to yourself and being real with your customers is the most important thing. So there is a lot of pressure to kind of fit into a box, to sound the same. You know, like this is what a so-and-so brand sounds like for me. Like this is what a marketing consultant looks like and sounds like For me this is what a marketing consultant looks like and sounds like, but you are your differentiator.
Speaker 2:So it's really important that you figure out who you are, who your company is, and talk like that, show up like that in the spaces, because you're going to differentiate yourself and people are going to know. I'm aligned with this. It's really hard. It's really difficult to stay that course. A brand identity can be helpful for that, but just know that authenticity is so important right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah for sure. And at the end of the day, why are you building your business? Because you want to do something different. You see that there's a problem you're trying to solve that current brands and companies out there are not solving. So why would you want to copy and paste that when it's obviously not working, and why you're building your own brand and your own company. So, katie, this was so great. I enjoyed the conversation and I hope the listeners got a couple of tidbits out of it as well. And just wrapping up here and thank you so much for your time and audience, thanks for your time and we'll see you on the next scaling with people podcast. Have a great one. Yeah, thank you so much.
