e176 Marketing Mythbusting, The Things We Wish Were True About Marketing (But Aren't)
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[00:00:00] Welcome to Rewild Your Business. I'm so happy you're here. I'm your host, Gill Moakes, and this week I'm doing some myth busting. interesting story. I did a blog, ages, and ages and ages ago about myth busting, high ticket offers, and that still comes up on like the first or second page of Google. Do you believe that?
I thought that was amazing. Like for the keyword, think maybe high ticket offers the keyword. Ah, I'm so proud of that because honestly, my SEO has been lackluster at best. Anyway, this is a myth busting episode, but this is myth busting marketing. I wanna dive in on this episode to all of the things that we wish were true about marketing but aren't.
Okay, let's go. Welcome to rewild Your [00:01:00] Business, the podcast for women doing the work, their soul intended. I'm Gill Moakes. I'm an international business coach and I'm a guide for women doing the work that matters. Rewilding your business means cutting away what doesn't belong to allow, what does to thrive.
Finding simplicity in your work. And it's about bringing the whole of who you are to the table. Whether you are building something new or finding your way back to what really matters to you. I'm so glad you're here. There are some myths around marketing that I see keeping so many bloody awesome women just stuck or burnt out actually in the businesses.
And this is. All of those lovely shiny promises that we wish were true, we kind of wanna jump on those bandwagons because we want these things to be true, but the [00:02:00] trouble is they're not. And so I wanna, with this episode of the podcast, really bring you a bit of a reality.
Crap that we're fed about certain marketing truths. I'm doing the podcast air quotes. Again, completely useless unless you have a video accompanying your podcast, which I don't, but there we go. Let's go with it. I want you to be able to focus on what actually works when it comes to marketing, and honestly, there are a few really sustainable.
Forever true principles about marketing that probably will always be true. For example, the key to marketing is relationships. I'll probably have that on my gravestone after I've gone here. Lies Gill Moakes. The key to marketing [00:03:00] lies in relationships,
making myself laugh. So what are the myths that I wanna bust in this episode? The first one is about posting more. So, in other words, okay, if I've gotta beat some kind of algorithm, then if I'm marketing using social media, I just need to post a lot. I need to be posting every day because reach is down.
Therefore, if I post every day, I'm gonna have more chance of getting in front of people. There is a big problem with that. The algorithm is not your business strategy, okay? The algorithm is not something that you have any control over. It changes like the wind, and if you go down this path of trying to appease the algorithm by posting more.[00:04:00]
Thinking that more content will equal more clients. You are going to burn yourself out. Your business is gonna get taken over by content creation. And the thing is, quantity is not what creates clients. Now, if your. Go deeper into resonance, into the things that are relevant to your ideal clients, and if you pair it with actually building relationships on these social media platforms.
Then we're starting to talk about using the platforms in the way they should be used. But if you just think that actually, if I post umpteen times a day, I see some people opposed to more than once a day on platforms. And honestly, it is a myth that is not where your clients are gonna come from. No one wants that noise.
Think about your own reaction to when you see the [00:05:00] same person churning out post after post, after post. And let's face it, if you're churning out that much content, in all likelihood, it is not gonna be your best work. It is not gonna be thoughtful, really intentionally written content. Brings to life your own thought leadership about a particular topic.
It's not gonna be that. It's gonna be quantity over quality and that doesn't land. So that's the first myth. If I just post more, the clients will come. No. Okay. The second myth is, good branding sells for you. Now, I hope that all of the beautiful, wonderful brand professionals in my world are not gonna come at me for this one.
If they do, I don't really mind because everyone's entitled to their own opinion. [00:06:00] However, first of all, let's make a distinction. Brand is not branding, okay? Your brand absolutely has a part to play in selling what you do. Personal brand, your business brand in its entirety, but branding. Thinking about a beautiful website, a slick logo, a really coordinated nine square grid on Insta.
Those things don't convert on their own, in their own right. Okay, great. Branding is great. We all want beautiful resonant branding. Really showcases who we are and showcases what our brand represents. But branding alone doesn't sell for you. Your branding, the look and feel that supports credibility, right?
But it's not your [00:07:00] credibility that actually does the selling for you. That's connection and clarity. Actually, it's those two things. Connection and clarity are the two things that have to be present as you are. Building relationships to be able to sell what you do. Your branding absolutely has a part to play, but honestly, I see too many people, way too many people hiding behind having the perfect branding.
And that actually delays them doing business. I have seen people waiting and waiting and waiting until they land on branding. That feels just right before they'll put anything out into the world before they'll start even the process of building relationships with potential clients. And that is just such a shame because honestly.
The connection, the clarity, the [00:08:00] conversations, those matter so much more. And those are absolutely part of your brand. But your branding, the look, the feel, it's not as important as you think It's, and it's certainly not important enough to hide behind so that you can just delay putting yourself out there.
So I want you to really think about that one and see if that could be something that's holding you back. The third one when it comes to marketing chasing virality. So there's this myth that one viral post will just change everything for you. And so it's like we're hunting this holy grail, this what piece of content could I create that will just go viral and then all my dreams are gonna come true?
Everything's gonna be answered for me. The problem with that is, and I get it, you know. Going viral is quite seductive because we do see other people's accounts blow up with this one viral post. The problem is that if we have that as a goal, it's really [00:09:00] running the risk of garnering wasted attention because just having a lot of visibility without a strategy behind it is actually wasted attention.
Right. And I think if you can focus much more on consistent, meaningful visibility over time, visibility that really showcases your brand, what you stand for, what you believe in your values, all of those things are what will be sustainable matter in the one viral post. Doesn't make. A long term sustainable marketing strategy.
So I think it's a fool's gold, if you know what I mean, to chase that virality. I think there's a lot of training things I see come up on Instagram particularly, I think is bad for this. I don't see it so much on LinkedIn. Actually, TikTok [00:10:00] Instagram kind of love these things about, you know, how to go viral and I just don't believe that is a great goal to have if you wanna build a sustainable marketing ecosystem.
Creates visibility with a view to nurturing relationships with a view to converting those relationships into clients. Okay. Obviously, you know, most of my listeners are service business coaches, consultants, creatives. I'm not necessarily talking about product businesses because I know that, you know, going viral with a product can really be a bit of a game changer.
So, you know, just caveat to that, that I'm talking about people whose marketing is predominantly relationship based. Okay. The fourth myth is. People will know what I do if I'm clear enough. Just once. This is something that I see a lot, like one pinned post [00:11:00] at the top of a feed that really gives a, a very clear, good, perfect showcase of exactly who you are, what you believe in, what you value, and what you do.
Right? And people will think, okay, now I've done that. I've ticked that box of creating content that. Shows exactly what I do. I've, I've been clear, so now I don't need to do that again. It's a similar thing actually. When I hear people say, you know, I don't wanna keep saying the same thing, I don't wanna keep rehashing the same thing.
What I would say to you is that, first of all, clarity is not a onetime job. It's has to be woven into everything you do. Your entire marketing ecosystem system needs to hinge on you being clear about what you do, who you serve, who you are, how you serve them. Why you are different. Clarity around all of those things around your positioning needs to be woven [00:12:00] into the whole of that ecosystem and your messaging.
Yes, it needs to be absolutely resonant with your ideal clients, but it also needs repetition. You need to be repeating your messaging often enough for you to be associated with that message. You need to be reinforcing the things you believe in all the time. There's a reason that I talk about rewilding your business a lot.
There's a reason I talk about bringing all of who you're to your business. There's a reason I talk about radical authenticity a lot. I repeat those messages because I know that people need to hear that from me multiple times before it really lands, number one. Number two, we always assume everyone that.
Follows us. You're seeing everything we put out there. Absolutely not. They're not. Reach is, doesn't work like that. The algorithm doesn't work like that. So if you [00:13:00] think you can create something just once and that's kind of job done, no. You need to be repetitive. You do need to be repetitive, and I know sometimes that can feel quite uncomfortable.
It can feel like you're droning on about the same thing. This is another reason for not posting every single bloody day, right? Because we don't want that same message being pounded at people. We want it to be reinforced. We want it to be able to land.
Experiment experi, until you get this balance right, until you get clear on what are the things, what are the content pillars that I wanna keep repeating in my marketing message so that I become known for those things, and how can I find different ways to talk about those things so that I'm [00:14:00] not overly repetitive with the exact same phrases, but I'm reinforcing.
Message so that the people who need to hear it hear it and know that I'm the person that can them. Right. Fifth one myth busting is should feel easy and natural all the time. Now you know that I'm an absolute advocate for keeping things simple. I talk about rewilding, for goodness sake. Of course I want things to be simple, but does that mean it should always feel easy and natural?
Probably not really. Great marketing is probably gonna stretch you a little. It's probably gonna demand that you act with some courage. It's probably gonna ask you to step outta that comfort zone a little bit when it comes to creating bold [00:15:00] messaging. Really represents your thought leadership, the way you view the world.
And so there's a big difference between aligned marketing and effortless marketing. Marketing is not effortless. It's never gonna be effortless. If you are a business owner who finds marketing so unpleasant and so hard, then honestly I would question. Number one, I would find a way if you feel that entrepreneurship is for you.
I would absolutely find a way for you to be able to outsource your marketing to someone who is gonna immerse themselves in it for you. There is a difference between aligned marketing and effortless marketing. Marketing is never effortless. If you are an entrepreneur, if you wanna grow your business, you'll need to put effort into your marketing.[00:16:00]
Now, that doesn't mean that you should ever do marketing in a way that feels misaligned with your values, with the way you like to do business, with the way that you business. Land ecosystem,
implement sustainability. Something, feeling a little bit uncomfortable, something feeling like it's stretching you a little, that doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. I hear this all the time and it really pisses me off when we're almost bullied into thinking that unless everything feels in perfect flow all the time, we must be doing it wrong.
That isn't true. There are some things that are always gonna take effort. The key, the secret to creating your own marketing ecosystem is to [00:17:00] work out via experimentation. Which marketing strategies feel right to you? Which marketing strategies are the ones that you wanna put your effort into? So it's not gonna be effortless, but you can find strategies that feel good, that feel right, that feel effective, that you are willing to do for the long run.
And then you can double down and go all in on those strategies. This is so important to remember that you don't need to be doing everything that everyone else is doing just because someone else might have, say a podcast and a LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok and Substack and all of the things. That doesn't mean that you have to have those things.
What it means is that you have to find out. By experimenting what feels right for you and what lands with your [00:18:00] ideal clients. And if you ask any scientist, if you keep doing too many experiments all at the same time, you're gonna struggle to interpret your results. If you change too many things about your experiment, you'll struggle to pull from it, the right results.
You'll struggle to analyze the results. So one thing I would say to you is pick. One strategy that feels good that you want to experiment with, go all in with that strategy. Give it space, give it time. If it feels hard, if it feels like it's stretching, you allow that to be okay for a while, not forever. If it feels too hard, you stop.
But if it's stretching, if it feels a little uncomfortable, that does not mean it's the wrong strategy for you. So give it space, give it time, experiment, and find the strategies that work for you that come together [00:19:00] into an ecosystem that is effective for growing your visibility, your lead generation, your nurturing and converting your leads into clients.
Okay. Okay. The final myth, and I've, I guess I've, I, I have just touched on this really. And that is that there is one strategy that's right. And that works for everyone. You know, my God, the industry we're in, it just loves selling that magic blueprint, right? Oh, the magic bullet. Is, I promise you, no Magic Blueprint won't necessarily talk.
Okay. We all have to pull up the big girl pants and start making decisions for ourselves in alignment with what is true for us. [00:20:00] Using our own intuition, trusting ourselves to make smart decisions. If you are an entrepreneur, you have to get better at doing this. The truth is that sustainable marketing is hugely personal.
It's completely contextual and it's always, always, always iterative based on experimentation, based on data, based on getting feedback, making changes, trying again. So that is true and that is true for everyone. Okay? But the actual strategies that work. The everyone. So you've got to get good at being willing to experiment, being willing to fail, being willing to ask for feedback, being willing to take feedback and analyze results, and make changes in alignment with that feedback so that you can build an ecosystem of marketing strategy that [00:21:00] works for you.
Marketing isn't a magic trick, right? Marketing's always a long game. I mean, particularly content marketing, and this is something I talk about a lot in the academy, like honestly, content marketing is a long game. What you do today, you might reap the rewards of in six to nine months from now. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't have success tomorrow, but the chances are that instant success is gonna come from building relationships.
That's gonna come from absolutely owning your voice, and it's gonna come from being willing to show up imperfectly while you are in experimentation mode. You've got to stop hoping for shortcuts when it comes to marketing. I think that's my biggest reframe I would love you to take from this [00:22:00] episode is that there are no shortcuts.
There are no shortcuts to building relationships however much we want it to be true. Diving into someone's dms, as soon as you've connected with them on LinkedIn, for example, and giving them a great big, long post about what you do and how you think you could be perfect for helping them, that is never gonna work.
Please. Don't do it. It's never gonna work. It's a long game. Building relationships takes time. Building a content marketing strategy takes time. Growing a marketing ecosystem that works takes time. Now, if you need quick results in your business. Don't even bother focusing on content marketing. That is not your quick win route.
Your quick win route is relationship marketing network more, expand your network. Have more conversations, [00:23:00] make more offers. That is literally the quickest way to grow your business. If you are in a place where you need, you know, if you are starting out and you are searching for your first handful of clients.
Don't energy into content marketing because content marketing is your long game. It's what will fill your pipeline for the long term. It's what will keep your business growing. But if you are looking for those first handful of clients, speak to more people. Join groups. Join networking groups, pitch to podcasters and ask if you can be featured on their podcast.
Do those things, build those relationships. Instead of focusing on what the content you are putting out there, spend the exact same amount of time that you've been sinking into creating of content. On people's content, [00:24:00] on people who are potential collaborators, potential introducers of business potential clients.
Make it about the relationships because that will be your first port of call when you are starting out. It isn't that content marketing doesn't matter. It absolutely does. If you are an academy alumni, you'll know that we talk about. Lighthouse marketing, Searchlight marketing, lighthouse marketing. Our content strategy absolutely works for that long-term pipeline building, but searchlight strategy, taking that searchlight and shining it into the corners of your network and finding the opportunities for yourself, doing the legwork, that is what works in the beginning.
Okay, so lemme give you our three journal prompts for this week. The first one that I would love you to journal around is where am I? Secretly hoping marketing will be easier than it's have a journal around that, see what comes up. Where [00:25:00] am I? Secretly hoping marketing will be easier than it's the second one.
Thinking about the myths that I've just run through, which of those have you been buying into? So, which of these myths have I been buying into and what has it cost me? Okay. And the third one, what's one bold, uncomfortable marketing move? I'm willing to try this week to actually connect with my people.
What's one bold, uncomfortable marketing move? I'm willing to try this week to actually connect with my people. Okay. If something comes up as you are journaling and you would love to share it with me, I absolutely love it. When you do, just email me [email protected]. Before I go, I just want to remind you that you can sign up for my workshop on the 30th [00:26:00] of September.
The workshop is called All of You, the Unapologetic Art of Showing Up Unedited. So if getting a little bit uncomfortable with your marketing is something that you're willing to try and experiment with, this could be a really great workshop for you because I'm gonna be talking and going through and teaching in this workshop how to identify where you are editing yourself.
In the way you show up in your business, in the way you show up online, in the way you show up with your clients, we're gonna really go into where you are self editing, how to overcome that, how to stop doing that, and how to really show up. As the whole of who you're in your business, and we're gonna really go deep into why that matters and what it can do for the results you [00:27:00] see in your business straight away.
This is a workshop which come to this workshop and I'll guarantee that after the workshop things will shift very quickly for you. 'cause this is a relationship thing. This is a way of connecting with people so you know that this is going something that's gonna work quickly. This isn't long-term thing, so if you want something that you can implement in your business straight away and start seeing better results, this workshop is for you.
It's at five o'clock UK time, which is 12:00 PM Eastern or 9:00 AM Pacific Time on 30th of September. Which is a Tuesday. It is part of my monthly workshop series. So if you go to jill mos com slash workshops, you'll find where you can sign up for this workshop. You'll also find where you can sign up for a monthly workshop subscription as well, which really reduces the price of each workshop.
And also just to [00:28:00] remind you that with each monthly workshop, I open up a popup WhatsApp community. So as soon as the workshop finishes, we open up a popup WhatsApp community where we can keep the conversation going, where we can nurture relationships that are formed in the 90 minutes that we've been on the workshop together, and you can continue to ask me questions.
I will show up in that WhatsApp group every day for seven days after the workshop. So I'll be answering questions, I'll be clarifying things and helping you to implement what you've learned. So I was toying with calling them more than just a workshops. Yeah. Now I've said it out loud. Doesn't actually work that well.
So quite glad I didn't. If this calls to you, do sign up for all of you now. Places are gonna be limited because like.
Sign up sooner rather than later, and I would love to see you [00:29:00] on the 30th of September. Okay, have a fantastic week. Bye for now.
