Pop To The Shop Marketing

Pop to the Shop Marketing: Why Your “Random Acts” Aren’t Growing Your Business.

Ever popped into a shop for one thing and come out with a bag full of snacks but nothing for dinner? That’s exactly how many small business owners approach their marketing.

In this episode, Victoria shares how these “random acts” of marketing waste time and money – and what to do instead.

You’ll learn how to swap scattergun tactics for a clear plan that targets the right people, builds momentum, and actually grows your business.

You'll learn a whole bunch on planning, targeting, campaigns, and the true effort that is required to get results.

Come away with a list of actions to move your business forward.

Grab free templates, checklists and guides at allstarmarketingclub.com/resources - everything you need to market smarter, not harder.

About Victoria: Marketing Coach & Trainer Victoria Vickery serves up marketing advice with fewer buzzwords, more belly laughs, and stories you’ll never un-hear... because memorable marketing starts with memorable lessons.

For More Tales, Tips & Tangents: @victoriav1ckery

Transcript

I popped to the shop instead of the supermarket because, quite frankly, I couldn't be asked. And when I got home again and I unpacked the bags, there was literally nothing there. Not a meal in sight, nothing fulfilling, nothing that could feed the kids, nothing that could feed the husband. And that's what happens in your marketing. When you just do the odd thing and pop onto social media channels, chuck something out there, it ends up very unfulfilling, especially to your bank account. Welcome to what's that Got To Do With Marketing? Where we start with a story you did not see coming. It might be fun, could be funny, or even a little bit frantic, but in the end, it will all make sense, leaving you with a takeaway, a to do or a transformational way forward. And I'm your host, Victoria, and you, my friend, are here for unlikely lessons and unforgettable marketing advice. Just for small B2B expert led business owners. Let's get into it. This episode is called Pop to the Shop Marketing. Now, I am a pop to the shop kind of girl. That's just how I roll. Now, if you've listened to a previous episode, you will know that Mr. V is the one that's responsible for the shopping in our house. However, on this occasion, I told Mr. V, I'll handle it, I'll make sure we've got some stuff in for dinner tonight. So off I went to the local shop in my car, bit naughty. And I got into the shop and I was going through the list in my head. Salmon, salad, potatoes, yogurt. Salmon, salad, potatoes, yogurt. You know when you're just trying to recall it and then you get in the shop and you're like, what was that list I was supposed to get? Didn't write it down. So off you go, get the little basket on your arm, round the shop you go, trying to remember what you're supposed to be getting so that you can actually feed your family. And of course, that's what I did. I went round, got bits and pieces, and it just ends up a little bit random, doesn't it? Because you're walking around, you think, oh, that looks good, I'll get that. Oh, that looks good. Oh, I fancy that packet of crisps. Or I fancy that chocolate bar. You go into the offers section and there's some shiny nice offers in there. All that bread there is only 20 pence now because it's its last day. You'll have a slice of that later with some. With some butter and some cheese. Lovely stuff. Love a bit of Tiger bread. So all of this thought is going through your head. And this happens all the time with me. So I got home and there was not a meal that I could actually string together because the list of the salmon and the potatoes and the salad and the yogurt or whatever it was that I was supposed to get is flown out of the mind and replaced by the bits and pieces that floated around the shop. And worst of all, I'm unpacking it from a carrier bag because I've gone and left the bag for life in the car. Another classic Victoria move. So I'm looking at all of this stuff and I'm thinking how unsatisfying this is that I've got random stuff. I can't piece it together necessarily into a meal. Or if I do, it's going to be very, very bloating and unfulfilling for all concerned. I've wasted time, I've wasted money, and basically I probably should have just gone to the supermarket and we would have had much better results. So on balance, on balance, should I have just gone to the supermarket? Have I done myself a favor by going to the shop, the local shop? Probably not. So here's my thought for you ladies and gents. And that is, when it comes to your marketing, are you piecing it together quite randomly like my trip to the local shop, or are you being much more planned, much more strategic, writing it down, going to a supermarket and really using your time, your money and your resources in the right way? So that's exactly what this episode has got to do with marketing. It's all about planning. It's all about making sure that you have got what it takes to put purposeful, results driven marketing together. Because at the end of the day, marketing isn't about doing everything. And I see this a lot. I see lots of business owners trying to just get everything possible done. A little something over on that marketing channel. A little something over on that marketing channel. I'm gonna perhaps go and market to that type of person there. Oh, and don't forget those people over there. So you feel like you're doing all the things and you're not getting the results that you really want from it. So let's just have a little look at some examples of that. It's this, for me, this illusion that you're making progress, but in fact, as the saying goes, you're a bit of a busy fool. You're posting on social media, you're keeping yourself out there, but it's not necessarily grounded in the goals that you've got. And that absolutely creates issues because it's more like you're putting little snacks out there instead of creating that entire meal. And that just doesn't work. It doesn't work in marketing. So it's thinking about, okay, instead of just playing around on social media, how can I link that back to my strategy, my goals and what I want to achieve so that it's all nicely planned out, it's all coherent and you know that everything you're putting out there is tracking back to the thing that you actually sell. So that's an example again, it's just coming back to that whole thing of if you don't have a, a list in shopping, then you're going to go out and buy loads of stuff that's kind of not very fulfilling. So think about creating that list of things that you need to do, creating that list of jobs that you need to get completed, tasks that need looking at, channels that you want to use, people that you want to get in touch with, ideal clients that are right for your business. That's what it all comes comes down to. And then there's this other thing that I've just spoken about in my shopping example. Turning up at the shop and seeing, you know, those, those new sections that's got the latest and greatest chocolate bars in it or it's the, the sales section and you go and buy loads of stuff from there that you didn't even need. So then you're just spending money unne. Well, this is a little bit like the new kind of fads that are going on. You might hear that, yeah, you should be doing this, that and the other. But in reality you probably don't need to. And we have to be really selective over the kinds of marketing channels that we pick, the type of content we put out there. Because let's say, for example, you think, oh, tick tock seems to be a really big deal at the moment. I'm going to get over there. Oh, I'm going to do a bunch of reels. I'm going to use this new fandangled AI tool that somebody's told me about. Yeah, fantastic, go ahead and use them. They all work in their own way for sure. However, if it's not grounded in your plans, in your goals, in, in what you're trying to build and do as a business, then that's going to be really problematic for you. You'll be using it without any vision, without any structure, and ultimately it just means that it ends up not working and you are left unfulfilled, your bank accounts left unfulfilled, your team are left unfulfilled. So planning is absolutely where it needs to be at. And when we think about it, if you, if you're thinking about a good plan, I'm going to give you four things or so that I think you need to be thinking of to move forward with this planning stuff. And number one is, and I've mentioned it before, and I'm not afraid to mention it again because it's so important, you have to really get behind that one thing that you want to sell, whether it's this month or whether it's for the quarter. So you can think about just going for that one thing. And rather than trying to get a little bit of everything out there, we stay true to what we want to sell because that's what gets results. Imagine that you are. I tell you what, we're in the UK here and occasionally it snows, but not very often. And when you think about the snow sometimes here in the uk, what we'll have is this really slight smattering of snow. You kind of remember it happening, but it never lays. And it's pretty, it's. It's pretty, kind of pretty much forgotten straight away as soon as it's happened. But then you get that snow that lays once every couple of years. It's nice and thick. You can go and build a snowman, you can chuck snowballs at your loved ones and have a jolly nice time in it. Now, that's what we need to think about when we're doing our marketing, is that if you are just doing a slight bit of marketing across all of the different marketing channels, you're not going very deep, you're not putting loads of content out there. It's very quickly forgotten because you didn't make enough of an impact. Whereas if you think about nice, deep snow that you can do something with that's nice and memorable, and that's what you want your marketing to be like, almost like building it up over time, doing a small amount of marketing, then putting some more content on, then more content, and then before you know it, you have got that nice visibility and you become someone or a business that is remembered by the audience that you want to get in front of. So that's a really important thing to remember. Not the smattering of snow, the nice deep effort. We want to go deep on our marketing, not just, you know, thin where you're forgotten. So let's just recap on that before we move on to the Next one. So, first of all, we want to make sure we've got a really, really good idea on what we're going to sell. So we are going all out with that one thing nice and deep, getting out there in all of the marketing channels that we choose. Secondly, we want to know who we're selling it to. Now, it could be that you have got lots and lots of different types of customer, and that's fine. Most of us have. But when it comes to this offer, what's going to make the biggest impact for your business right now? Because if you're selling to everyone, you're pretty much selling to none of them. Now think back to your ideal customer, profiling those people that are absolutely right for your business, your star customers. So they're very specific. So we want to make sure that we're really honing in on a specific niche and they're targeted. So once we've got our star customer, they can be targeted because we know all about them. We can visualize them like they're literally standing in the room with us. Okay? So we know what the worries are, what their concerns are, what they want to get, their objections, what keeps them awake at night, who influences them, the marketing channels they show up in, that we literally know all of that about them. And then they become acquirable. We know where to go, what to say so that we can get in front of them and get a yes from them. And then they become results focused. Okay? So they're not quibbling over what you're charging them. They can see your worth, and they want to spend that money with you. So that's the next step. So once we know what we're actually selling, we now need to think about who we're selling it to. And if you do have multiple customers, I want you to think about the one that would be most meaningful to you right now. So who needs what you sell the most at the minute? Who is the most profitable to you? So think about what your business needs. Is it an injection of cash? Is it building relationships for the future? Is it all about just getting some momentum and some case studies? So whatever your reasoning is, you can choose your customer around that. Because, for example, if it's all about getting cash in the bank, then you've got to be targeting the people that are going to spend money with you now. And you need to find the pain points of those people that make them want to do that with some urgency, because that's what drives people to spend money. If it's about case studies you might think about an alternative route, an alternative product, an alternative pricing model, just to get the case studies in the door. So really think about who that ideal customer is and stick with them. Now this doesn't mean that you have to close your entire business off to just that one niche customer. I'm talking about a campaign here that is wholly different to completely changing the way you do your business and only ever targeting one customer. This is just for the campaign, so rest easy because I know there's lots of people out there that say to you, you've got to have a niche and you've got to stick with that niche. Yeah, I agree with that. But not the whole business, just your campaign. So rest easy that later on you can go back to the other customers that you feel like you've just now missed out on and you can market to them as well. So all is not lost. But we're going to do better because it's a much more concentrated effort on that one type of customer. So that's the second thing I want you to think of. The third thing I want you to have a little think about is where they're showing up and go and be there with amazing content. Content that helps them to take that step forward, that next logical step. And on that note, let's look wider at that because I'm always mentioning the fact that it takes seven to 15 interactions with a brand before someone's willing to consider buying from you. So when you're thinking about how you contact those people through your marketing, what we've got to remember is, is it's a process. So I want you to first of all think about if you got in front of someone right now with your product or your service, what is it they would be willing to do? Now I know that we want them to part with their cash and buy something from us, don't we? That's, that's what we want. We want them to buy our whole shebang, our high ticket item. Of course we do. But the reality is, are they actually going to do that? And the answer is probably not. So when we think about our first layer of marketing, we want that to be things that they're willing to take and do right now. So for example, that might be they would be willing to watch some videos of you talking about something very specific that will help them. They might be willing to download a document that's got a very specific outcome to it. For example, it could be a template that helps them to get a certain level of information down. So let's say, for example, in my world of marketing, it could be a template that helps them to identify their ideal customer. It could be a template that helps them to identify where their customers are showing up so their marketing channels. What could that template look like for you in an accountancy practice? It could be, for example, a document that helps them to identify how they can get more money in their business bank account for an HR person. It could be some kind of document that helps them to plan out how to deal with interview situations. Or it could be some templated interview questions. Yeah. So think about what your customers need right now and maybe that's your again, your first layer of marketing is to give them a free document or a free video series or a way to engage with you blog content. Even so, we can't ask too much of them on that first stage. We've got to think about the next logical step for them. Now once they've done that, I want you to move on to layer number two. And layer number two now they've got to know you a little bit. They're probably willing to go one step further. They're probably now willing to think about, for example, spending some time with you. Now I don't know about you, but for me time is very, very precious. So if I give my time to someone or something, then the likelihood is is that I'm very interested in it because I don't have a lot of time. So if I spend a bit of time, that time is definitely going to be on something that I'm interested in. So if you can get your ideal customer to part with a little bit of time, that is a really good sign that they are interested in what you've got. It doesn't have to be time. It could absolutely be that they're parting with some cash. So layer number two is designing out something that you can either say, right, come and spend some time with me or spend a low amount of money with me. Something that just gets them in the door because if they do that, they're five times more likely to go on and buy your next thing. And then that comes on to layer three. So once we've kind of built it up, we're now on to layer three and that's actually making the sale of your, your higher ticket thing that you want to get out there, that brings the money in the door for you. And of course layer number four is then going to be repeat purchase referrals and all that jazz. So there's lots and lots you can do. But let's just remember we can't go from here to here and sell our higher ticket unless we've actually gone through the process of warming that relationship. So what have we talked about here? Number one having something amazing to sell. Number two really honing in on who your customer is and number three, making sure that you've layered your marketing so that your customers are able to take the next logical step for them, not the step that you want them to take. So that is planning. That's what you need to do. Get your pen and paper out, get your spreadsheets out, whatever works best for you. But don't skip this. Walk through the process that you would take your customer through. Really think about it from their point of view. Step into their shoes. What will they be willing to do at each layer of the marketing? Just plan it out so you can make sure that everything you do out in your marketing has got real purpose and it's not basically a snack fueled panic dash to the shops to get whatever you can. So that's what I want you to have a little think about. So go ahead and do that now. If you want to grab a really helpful resource that will help you do your planning, then head over to all StarMarketingClub.com forward/resources. Go and grab that planning template that will help you to work through everything we've spoken about out here and get something coherent in place that will be really fulfilling to you, to the business, to the bank account. And you can feel really proud of the marketing that you do and get better results than ever. I'll see you next episode.