December 01, 2023 | Read Online

Marketing Strategy 101

It all starts here OR don't buy a window first, when you want to build a house.

Johanna Renoth

This is Bye, Social Media!, where you can learn everything you need to build a thriving solo business independent without social media.

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Hiya,

In today’s edition, you’ll learn about marketing strategy 101.

What you’ll get:

what a marketing strategy is
how to create it
what to avoid at all costs (i.e. buying a window first, when you want to build a house - more on that below).

Let’s get into it.

Sale reminder: 20% off everything with code 20OFF. Use it for the marketing plan guide & 1:1s. 1 more day.

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The Challenge: How Do You Market?

Most solopreneurs, creators, freelancers, coaches, designers, etc. have no idea how to market. And that’s okay. You never learnt how to do it.

Most of us start our marketing journey by imitating others. It’s the natural way to learn. Yet, after a while, the imitation game gets frustrating - either you get no results or you feel burnt out.

So, what do you do? What happened to me is that I started buying courses and working with coaches - without success.

Why? Until I set out to understand marketing for myself, I was stuck. And even though I got an MBA and took a ton of econ classes in undergrad, I struggled to break down “big business” knowledge to my IRL solo business.

I’m slightly embarrassed by it. But, it’s okay. One is not like the other.

Since we’ve never talked about this before on the newsletter, here is the 101 on marketing strategy.

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The House of Marketing

Think of marketing like a house. You need solid foundations, windows, doors, and a roof, like the house on the left below.

The house on the right is what you often get when people talk about marketing on the internet - cobbled-together how-tos and courses that never give you the full picture.

This is the type of stuff you learn in my marketing plan guide, btw.

Essentially, you want to build a house, but buy a window first and delude yourself into thinking that your palace is half-built. It’s just odd how it’s a little drafty around your butt (WITHOUT WALLS!), when you’re trying to hide from the wind behind your windowpane. ❄️🍑

A marketing strategy is like the foundation or blueprint for building a house.

Before you start digging up the ground or look up your SEO keywords, you want to know what you’re doing. Are you building a palace or a bungalow? Do you want a pool or a big lawn? Are you okay with hustling on socials or do you want to be more hands-off? Do you like writing or does the sight of a cursor on an empty page want you to test the indoor aerodynamics of a laptop? 💻🕊️

Those are all things to consider in advance!

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Sustainable Marketing - What You Need

For sustainable marketing you need - and in this order:

a strategy (what do you sell, to whom, where? see below)
marketing channels that align with you & where you’re customers are
regular action in alignment with your strategy
to collect and evaluate data on your performance
tweak what you do based on the data and feedback you get
rinse, wash, repeat

At first, this sounds super corporate and BORING. And it kind of is. This is a structured, systematic framework for your marketing. No spaghetti, no wall.

You start from the overview. First, you decide you’re building a house. You get a house-building book or watch a YouTube video or whatever. There, you learn that you need foundations, walls, windows, a roof, doors, etc., the materials you need, the types of people to work with and so on. Am I going too far with this metaphor???

Same for your marketing.

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A Basic Marketing Strategy - It’s Like PSL For Your Business

You need to be clear on these. Go through them in this order:

your goals (revenue - units sold, sessions booked, etc.)
the clients you’re selling to (no, really - “everyone” doesn’t count)
the channels and methods you use to bring them into your business
what you do to convert them from visitors to clients (when you pitch)
post-purchase care and retention

So far so good. Now, imagine, you start fixating on the marketing channel before you even know who you’re serving or how many units you need to sell.

Disaster!

Yet, that happens a lot. It’s when you buy the Pinterest course, sign up for the business community, or are hell-bent on slaying with SEO before you have any idea about what you’re doing. You can do all of these things. It’s smarter to think about your strategy first, THEN choose the channels. Channels are step 2.

[BTW, I did exactly that. Step 2 before step 1. Lots of detours.]

The five points above are the very basic idea of a marketing strategy.

It’ll take you a while to figure this out. It’s a process of trial and error - and dealing with IRL feedback. Only once put your assumptions in front of people, will you know whether you were right or wrong

But, just like with building a house, you can plan all you want. The day will come, when you start digging. That’s when you’ll know how well your ideas hold up. If you want to do yourself a favor, give your strategy the reality check ASAP.

Step-By-Step Instructions For Making a Strategy - Get the Marketing Plan Guide

The above, together with everything I linked to in this post will help you take the first steps to build a marketing strategy.

If you’re still not sure why, oh why, you need a marketing strategy, read this post here.

If you’re not into cobbling things together and just want the steps - and in detail, you’ll find my Marketing Plan Guide really helpful. It walks you through creating your own, custom marketing plan step by step. If you have a marketing strategy you want feedback on, book a 1:1 with me to discuss it.

And now go forth and be merry in your marketing. If you’ve noticed your promotional 🍑 is a little cold, it’s time to make some changes.

Happy Marketing,

Johanna 📣