The Simple 3-Step Plan to Get Consistent Customers

In this episode, I talk about what to do when your marketing feels busy but not consistent. If you’re juggling posts, emails, and updates without steady sales, I share a simpler three-part path to turn scattered tactics into a system you can actually sustain. This is about clarity, visibility, and conversion working together instead of competing for your time.

We walk through how to get clear on who you serve and what you offer, how to become findable in the right places, and how to create conversion moments that feel natural instead of forced. I also share why consistency beats volume and how each piece of content should guide someone to their next step. If you’re ready to replace random marketing with momentum that compounds, this conversation will help you see the path.

Modern Marketing Mastery
Free Marketing Strategy Playbook

Chapters

• 2:25 Introducing Trail To The Sale
• 2:52 Part One: Clear Direction
• 4:28 Part Two: Visibility That Matters
• 7:32 Part Three: Conversion Made Simple
• 10:03 Build A System, Not Random Tactics

Transcript

Janice Hostager: 0:04

I'm Janice Hostager. After three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur, I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business, and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing. When I started my business, I survived on word of mouth. I'd work hard to market myself and then find someone who needed my help, then I'd do the work for them, and then I do the same process over and over again. So it was just I was either focused on finding people that I could work with, or it was doing the work itself. And it was exhausting since I was going back and forth between working to get more business and then doing the client work. And it wasn't sustainable. And I knew that I needed a system in place. And if you've heard my story before, you know I came from a marketing career. And yet I still struggled to manage everything being a solopreneur. And the traditional marketing funnel, which is what I had been taught in my jobs and in my education, it wasn't working for me. So I'm going to guess that you may be running into the same type of issues. You're doing a lot of marketing. You're posting and you're sending emails and you're tweaking your website or you're maybe downloading freebies. Trying to stay consistent, trying to do client work, trying to do all the things. And yet it feels really scattered, like there's no system in place. Well, you're not doing it wrong, but likely no one has ever showed you the big picture of marketing. Most marketing advice hands you little pieces of it. Few people hand you a roadmap. But today I want to do exactly that. Not a bunch of tactics to overwhelm you, just a big picture path that makes everything else finally make sense. Okay, so here's what I see over and over with smart, capable business owners that I work with, either students or clients. You got a ton of ideas. You don't need any more ideas to put down. You throw everything into the same big marketing basket. But you don't probably have a process that becomes a marketing machine. So I want to walk you through a three-part marketing path that creates momentum. And I'll show you how every single thing you're doing fits into it. Think of this as like zooming way out so you can finally zoom back in and have some confidence in it. This is a big overview of my Trail to the Sale framework. It's my eight-part marketing strategy that I teach to my private clients and in my marketing mastery course. So let's dig in. Okay, part one, you need clear direction. Everything starts here. And unfortunately, this is where marketing can also very quietly fall apart. Clear direction means three things. Number one, who you're for, this is your ideal customer, the person you want to attract, often called Ideal Customer Avatar or ICA. Not anyone who needs this is your customer. One clear person you deeply understand who needs what you offer and who you want to work with. And if you've ever had a problem client, you understand that last part. Number two, what you help them with. This is your value proposition, your messaging that should connect with your customer in plain language. Not clever, not complicated, just really clear, understandable language. And number three, what you're actually selling. This is your offer. Your offer should solve a real problem and feel easy for your ICA to say yes to. If you don't have clear directions or if it's fuzzy, everything else will feel hard. If you can't tell people why your offer will change their life or their business or their world, it's going to be an uphill battle. Content won't land you with your ICA. Sales will feel pushy or awkward or just uncomfortable. Then you'll second guess everything and your confidence starts to flail. And we don't want that. You can't sell something that you're not wholeheartedly enthusiastic about. So all of this comes together and it's really important. You just need to have that direction. People can sense that, and if you're confident in it, people will sense that as well. Part two, visibility or just being seen. Once you have a clear direction mapped out, visibility stops feeling like a big burden. Like I know what you're thinking. Like visibility, that's posting four times a day on Instagram, and you know, also I should be on YouTube and you know, I should be sending out emails every week. That's all that burden that we feel. But visibility doesn't need to be that part of it. This part is just getting your message out. In my Trail to the Sale framework, it's about two areas, awareness and consideration. Awareness is the place where your ICA first hears about you, and consideration is where they take a second look, a deeper dive, so to learn more about you. So awareness can happen anywhere. Often we think of social media, and that can certainly happen there, but especially when your business is small and money it's tight and your time is limited, it's important to think outside the box. That's when we can kind of get scrappy. Think about how your customer spends their days. Where are they likely to encounter you? Maybe it's a flyer posted on the bulletin board at a local copy shop, or maybe it's just one of those magnets that you have on your car, or word of mouth and networking events, speaking events, podcast appearances. It could be guest blogging, whatever it is you want to saturate your audience with your message. It's a loud world out there, and it might feel like you're everywhere and you're putting too much out there because you know most of us don't want to be pushy, but that's not what's happening. It takes a lot of touches before people remember you. They used to say seven touches, but now I know that number has gone way up. I don't even know what the experts are saying now in terms of how often your message needs to touch your audience. This is also where content and SEO fit in. SEO or search engine automation and AEO, which is new, that's Answer Engine Optimization, that will help your name come up in Google searches and in AI searches. So focus on the places that actually make sense for your business. Don't spend money reaching the masses when most of those people won't buy. Don't run an expensive ad that won't really hit most of your audience. Focus just on your ICA, your ideal customer avatar. Awareness also looks like showing up consistently, speaking about what you focus on, not a million different things that you do. You want to be known for one thing. Don't hop around. So you might be a nutritionist who also does SEO on the side. To that I say pick one. I know I've been like this too. We all have great ideas of things we want to do and say, but you need to be really be known for one thing. And consideration is where people find out more about you. That would be your website, might be your Instagram bio, your lead magnets and emails, which I'll talk more about in a bit. This comes part of the system that compounds over time. You're not trying to go viral. You're just trying to be findable and memorable and speak a message that resonates with your future customers. Okay, part three, conversion. Conversion is the part we all hope will just happen, right? But hope is not a strategy. Conversion means a clear lead magnet, something to gauge their interest in a topic related to your offer at a price of an email address or first name. In the past, this hasn't been much, maybe a checklist or a quiz. However, now with AI at everyone's fingertips, I've noticed that lead magnets need to be a little more robust to capture attention and to capture leads. Someone once said that lead magnets used to have to be worth $200, but now they need to be $500 or more. So keep that in mind. The second part of conversion would be an intentional conversion event. That could be a webinar or a sales call or some easy way to get in front of your ICA to answer questions. I wanted to skip this part for a long time because I really just hated the idea of doing a webinar or even making sales calls. But they are truly a necessity for most businesses if you want people to learn more about your offer. And then one simple nurture sequence. So when I say nurture sequence, what I mean is an email sequence that's automated. These are emails that go out after someone downloads your lead magnet and they introduce them to you and how you can help them. It's getting harder to get through the email systems without ending up in the spam or promotions folder, so making sure your emails offer real value is important. Then people will look for them and move them into their main inbox. And then finally, asking for the sale. I don't know about you, but I've never been a fan of a sales pitch. But if you believe in your offer and believe it will help your ICA, it's really about doing them a service. It doesn't need to be awkward or feel yuck. It's just your offer. The conversion setup is nothing fancy or aggressive. It's just offering a clear next step that helps people move from awareness and consider to yes, this is what I want. This is for me. Okay, so here's the magic. When you see the marketing this way, clear direction first, visibility second, conversion third, then it feels doable. It doesn't feel so overwhelming. Everything you do, write, or post has one job to lead people to the next step. This assures that your content isn't random, that your offers are specific and helpful, and that your efforts start stacking and gain momentum. This is the difference between doing marketing and building a marketing system. I can guarantee you if you're not getting the sales you're looking for, the problem is in one of these areas. It feels complex, but it's really not if you take it step by step. This is exactly what I teach in my Modern Marketing Mastery course. At the time of the recording, I'm just about ready to open the doors for it. You can find out more about this and get on the wait list by going to JaniceHostager.com forward slash MMM. This course will help you understand the big picture of marketing, the steps you need to lead people through from awareness to where they buy, buy again, and then refer to others. This is a process that will help you get your business off the hamster wheel and working to find clients. So it's a short episode today. I want to thank you for being with me. If you found this helpful, please leave a review. That's what allows me to help more business owners have success and to grow. A rising tide lifts all boats, right? To find out more about anything we talked about today, visit myweeklymarketing.com forward slash one forty six. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.