Ep 57. Why your marketing foundations have an expiry date

Your marketing foundations have an expiry date. 

I know you’re not the same business owner that you were a year ago.

You’ve definitely got more experience now. You’ve worked with more clients, and you’ve probably got a much clearer idea of the kind of person you want to work with – the ones you get the best results for, and also the kind of people you don’t like working with as well.

But very often your marketing hasn’t caught up with any of that because you haven’t taken the time to step away and just think about your foundations. You’re still saying the same things that you were when you were newer, which means you’re probably speaking to a version of a client that you’ve already moved past.

So you either end up attracting people who aren’t the right fit anymore, or you’re sitting there not really knowing how to say what you want to say at all, even though you know so much more than you did when you started.

When I talk about looking at your marketing foundations, I’m not talking about your logo, brand colors, or any of that.

I mean the stuff underneath all of that – your why, your values, your purpose. I call them your Guiding Trio™️.

In this episode, I want you to think about whether they’re even showing up in the content that you’re putting out there.

If you’re new here, hello and a very warm welcome to Quiet Confidence with myself, Anita Popat. I’m a marketing strategist for introverts who want to get clients from content without changing who they are.

[00:01:11] A lot of people do this work once, right at the start when they start their business, and then they never touch it again (unless you’re one of my clients, of course). 

But these foundations aren’t set in stone.

You’re allowed to change your mind. You’re allowed to grow. I mean, owning your own business is a whole personal development journey, so you should be growing!

I say this to clients all the time inside Silent Storm when we get to the foundational work.

Most of the time they come in saying, “Oh, I’ve already done this work. I don’t need to do it.” And I always say, “Look, trust me. Let’s just do it again anyway.”

And without fail, something new comes up because of what I said.

You’re a different person, probably in a different season of life to what you were in when you started your business, so it’s always worth revisiting your Guiding Trio, especially when something feels off in your marketing or things start to feel hard.

And that’s not because it was “wrong” the first time. It’s because, like I said, you change, your business changes, and the version of you or your purpose or your why that felt true a few years ago might not be the one that’s driving you at this point in your life right now and that’s okay.

We can course-correct and make sure that it’s something that’s really going to push you to do the work in your business now.

And then the other big thing that we look at is whether the person you’re talking to has evolved. Because again, your sweet spot client at the start of your business is very rarely your sweet spot client now.

By now you’ve probably worked with enough people to know exactly the kind of person who lights you up and the kind of person that drains you, and that’s really useful information. But only if you take the time to step back and update who you’re picturing when you write your content.

Otherwise you’re just going to keep writing to a slightly earlier version of the person you want to reach, and that’s probably why your content can feel a bit flat even when you know what you want to say,

[00:02:46] Another really important thing that evolves as you go on is your point of view.

So it’s not just about what you teach, it’s about how and why you do things the way you do them. Obviously your perspective will get stronger or sharper the longer you’re in the game.

I’m guessing you’ve got opinions about things now that you didn’t have a year ago. So those little hot takes, the things you’ve noticed, the things you’d do differently if you started again, common patterns and behaviors that you see in clients, which means you can predict something happening because you’ve seen it so many times.

I tell clients to share these things all of the time because so often this stuff just stays in your head because it feels too obvious to say, or you assume that you’ve already said it because it’s your day-to-day life, right?

But that’s usually your best content just sitting there because you think your audience don’t wanna hear it.

Spoiler alert, they do. If they don’t, I want to hear it, because point of view content is always interesting, and it’s also the thing that’s going to make you different from the thousands of people doing the same thing in your industry.

So share what you think or don’t think about things in your industry and the way you do things.

[00:03:42] Because this is a podcast for introverts, I think there’s one more thing that matters more for us, and that’s the format in which you’re saying all of this.

Your marketing foundations can be completely up to date, but you can still burn out if you’re forcing yourself to share it in a way that drains you.

I see this a lot. Someone will get really clear on their message and get really excited and then feel like they should be everywhere. Like, they need to be posting seven days a week, doing talking head videos or yapping as they call it now, because that’s what everyone’s saying is working right now.

And if the thought of being on camera makes you want to hide, you’re going to force yourself to do it for a few weeks and then stop, and then you’ll feel bad about being inconsistent again.

So as you’re looking at your foundations, I really want you to think about what kind of content do you actually enjoy creating? Not what you think you should be doing, but what do you like creating and what feels sustainable and fun for you?

Do that. Create content in that format.

For me, that’s writing and doing this podcast.

Sitting here with my mic feels much more easier and more natural to me than talking to the camera. And if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see that I lean heavily on carousels and reels which are simple B-rolls with text over the top.

I do that because it feels easy for me, and it means I’ll stay consistent with it.

Even though I have peppered in some talking to camera videos because it’s easier to get a sense of my energy and how I talk and my mannerisms on video, I still lean more towards the written content.

Be OK with whatever format feels good to you, whether that’s writing, voiceovers, video. Whatever it is, that’s the one to build your updated foundations around because the most beautiful, feels really like you message in the world won’t matter if the way you’re sharing it is sucking the life out of you, and trust me, your audience can tell.

[00:05:18] So if your content’s been feeling a bit flat or you’re getting enquiries that aren’t quite the right fit, before you go and change your whole strategy, I’d actually go back to your foundations and ask yourself:

Does your why still feel true? Is it still something that makes you wake up in the morning, get out of bed and be like, “Yeah, I’m gonna work towards this”? If it’s not, let’s change it.

Is the person that you picture when you’re writing the content still the person that you want to attract now?

Are you sharing opinions and stories of the beliefs that you have today?

And the most important one, in my opinion, is are you showing up in a way that feels good to you?

Or are you just sticking with the same old message and doing the same old content formats even though they don’t feel quite right just because they feel familiar?

Be honest with yourself because this is literally the heart of your marketing.

Obviously if you’d like to work on this together, this is a big, big part of the work we do inside Silent Storm.

We spend a lot of time on the foundations before any content or lead gen work happens because none of this is going to stick if the foundations underneath it are out of date or just don’t feel true to you.

If you’d like to work together on this one-to-one, all the information you need is here. There’s results from clients, the journey you’ll go on, and I’d love to work with you if you think the time is right now.

Keep showing up with your quiet confidence so you can make that loud impact and I shall speak to you soon.