Marketing Overwhelm - How to Maintain Your Sanity Without Sacrificing Results

Today I'll be discussing marketing platform overwhelm. Too many platforms? Too many content types? Too many tools & systems? How can we get things back under control? Here my insights and suggestions live!

Hello, everybody, welcome Hi. And Happy Monday to welcome to a new week a new opportunity to get your business growing and get out there and do stuff and make an entrepreneurial difference. And yeah, today I want to talk to you about something that I get asked about quite often.

And, you know, people it even before all of these crazy times, the idea here is, you know, all of this marketing overwhelm, and the How do you deal with so much stuff? I mean, how do I deal with so many platforms? How do I deal with so many content types? How do I deal with some of the tools and systems and stuff that take that I need all these pieces that fit into this puzzle called Modern Marketing? And so that’s what I’m going to talk to you guys about today.

I think it’s gonna be a relatively short livestream today, but let’s see jump right in. First of all, the number one thing that I get that people talk about, what about all these social media platforms? I mean, think about it, you’ve got Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, tick tock, and the list goes on and on and on and on. And every, every two days, there’s a new platform out there. And, you know, if you listen to a lot of people say, Oh, you got to be everywhere, you’ve got to be, you know, you got to be on all of them.

And you got to keep up and you’ve got to, and, you know, that’s just silly. Okay. You know, we’ll talk about some strategies as we get in, we’re going to give you some general guidelines, and they give you specific suggestions based on your you know, the type of business you have. But you know, that it’s just not, you know, it’s just not reasonable to expect most businesses to be to execute Well, a strategy for every platform that’s out there.

And the alternative is one or two or execute are late or don’t execute. And given that choice, I definitely would suggest that you don’t execute that you choose that you’re that you think this through strategically and you you do a good job on the platforms where you can, you know, that are most strategic for your business. Think about messaging, we’ve got Facebook Messenger, we’ve got WhatsApp, we’ve got telegram, discord, Slack, Skype, you know, and there’s a gazillion more. Okay, another big problem, where should you be listening? Where should you be engaging your audience? Okay.

Yeah. Should you have a profile all of them? You know, what, what’s the strategy here? We’re going to talk about that. Content Types. Should you do blog posts? Should you do videos, she do interviews, should you do press releases, should you do podcast interviews, you know, how do you should you have your own podcast you know, all of these things are all these things. content types are out there. And you know, it can be overwhelming. And then let’s not even talk about tools.

I mean, you know, I’ve been doing what this word like almost on two months now and the soliloquies I’ve been talking about a different tool every, every week, at least once a week, and I’ve only scratched the surface surface. I mean, there’s autoresponders there’s contest platforms, there’s, you know, messaging platforms, there’s, you know, so many different you know, SEO tools, tracking links, analytics pixels, you know, just all this plumbing that you have to understand and know what to do.

And again, all of this together on one big platter is like a huge bowl of spaghetti with meatballs and, you know, tomato sauce, and, you know, everything just dumped in there and mixed up and it just can be intimidating. And I get it and then It is intimidating. So let me just kind of give you some general guidelines, first of all, so, first of all, just don’t bite off more than you can chew. And with that comes a an act of self reflection.

How much can you chew? And you’ve got to be honest, because if you think you can eat the whole apple in one bite, odds are you’re going to end up getting, you know, COVID-19 because you had to go to a hospital because you’re choking on the apple, okay? And most of us would be smart enough not to shove a whole apple in our mouth. So why do you think that you just because you’re a business owner, you’ve got to have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, you know, Snapchat, tik tok.

And for more platforms, plus, you’ve got to have a Skype profile, a messenger profile, a WhatsApp account, a telegram profile. You’ve got to have a slack for your internal message and you’ve got six Austin, it’s just kind of exhausting. So you have to reflect and you have to say, Okay, how, what are my resources? How much time and how many man hours and who and my team? Am I going to dedicate to doing this well, and then make an honest decision, say, How much can you bite off? How much can you really chew? And that’s your first guiding principle.

Okay? And then you make the hard decisions and you say, Okay, this is the reality of my business. And I think I can do this much well, and now I’ve got to decide where do I Where do I put the resources I have, and make sure that the ones that I do and the platforms I support, I can do a good job with and that is going to lead to a massive amount of sanity, okay? Because now you have an opportunity to actually use The certain number, even if it’s just one platform, but use it really well, okay, it’s much better. It’s a much better strategy.

Okay? Beware the shiny Penny syndrome. Okay, and this is so true with tools and systems but it’s also true with platforms. It’s also true with messaging, you know, systems don’t go and I’m guilty of this. I mean, my team gets up in arms with me frequently about you know, always doing new stuff. I do it so you don’t have to, okay. But the truth is, don’t just go shooting off after every, you know, new thing that comes out there. And it’s really easy to get.

I mean, every you know, the people that are selling the systems and the tools that they’re smart, they know what they’re doing, and they’re gonna sell it to you as a good thing. And it probably is it probably Israel value there. But if you haven’t assimilated the tools and systems and platforms that you’ve already committed to doing that don’t go come anymore new ones just don’t go there. Okay? It’s not worth your time yet. So avoid the shiny Penny syndrome then just because it’s shiny and new doesn’t mean it’s better than what you’re already trying to do.

Okay? There isn’t a one size fits all solution, okay? There is nobody can come to you right now and say you should be doing this, this, this this and this can be business. Okay, and not unless they understand your business and the peculiarities Emma’s idiosyncrasies of your specific business, okay? where you’re located, who your audience is, who, what your offers are, you know, how long you’ve been in business, how big of a client base Do you have, there’s so many variables that come into account that it’s impossible for anybody to just give you a a one size fits all solution.

Okay. That being said, I’m going to give you some some suggestions and some ideas as we As we go through this webcast, a guiding principle number one is go where your customers are in VR. Okay, so, you know, and I haven’t even mentioned Pinterest here, but if you’re, if you know that your your audience is, you know, really on Pinterest, then go there and forget about all the rest to start with. Okay, that could be an awesome choice.

Okay. Now, if you are running a business that is, you know, a high tech b2b, you know, business well, you probably don’t have any need to be on Pinterest, right? So go where your customers are, okay? Because you’re not going to attract. If you’re running a FinTech company, you’re not going to attract people to your Pinterest boards, okay? That’s just, it’s just trying to teach. It’s not trying to teach an old dog new tricks. It’s just trying to teach a dog some tricks that he doesn’t want to do.

So you know, Better Off do something else, right? Next thing, definitely get somebody with experience to help you. Okay? And, you know, leave me some comments, I’ll go on a call with you and give you some advice about your business. No, no, no, no strings attached, no nothing to sell just just to give you some help. You know, don’t think that you have to know everything ahead. If you’re unless you’re a specialist in marketing, you don’t necessarily know all the tricks of the trade and you may not make the best choices. So get some good advice.

I mean, you know, this is this isn’t rocket science. It makes sense, right? And it doesn’t mean that you have to hire, you know, Madison Avenue, you know, top three marketing agency in the world to get you over this. The, you don’t have to have somebody full time to give you this advice. Just find somebody that you can rely on that you trust to give you Some, well thought out advice, okay? Obviously, if you’re bigger and you have more things going on, you’re going to need more help.

And you’re going to need, you’re going to probably want implementation help as well. That’s good. It’s good, do it, it’s a good way to to outsource part of this overwhelm to other people that know what they’re doing. And claim to be careful, be careful with with D platform, okay? And what I mean by that is, you if you put all your baggage, all your eggs in a Facebook basket, and you you know, everything you do is oriented towards your Facebook page and getting followers and getting engagement and that’s your single strategy for your marketing.

Understand that you’re at risk that Facebook could take your page away, okay, and it happens, it happens and it happens a lot more than you might think. And it doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, or that you could just do something wrong. You could basically could have a strategy that could change strategically, you know, we have the kinds of blockchain or crypto industry and one day they were thrilled to take your money for advertising and the next day it was gone and they wouldn’t take you know, it didn’t matter how much you wanted to spend, they wouldn’t do it.

And you know, in from almost overnight, a whole bunch of clients of mine had to look for new strategies. So it’s called Deep platforming when you can get you know booted off because it belongs to somebody else. Then understand that risk and don’t put all your eggs in that basket. Okay. Which basically the last thing on your own website, okay on your own little piece of internet real estate that to website, it’s not going anywhere. You can say whatever you want, you can make it look however you want and nobody can take it away.

Can your hosting company take it down? Yeah, well keep a backup have backups so that you can immediately put it back up on a Different hosting platform, okay? Or you can buy your own server and run it there. Okay, so you know, don’t think that just because, you know, don’t don’t think that it’s just because it’s easier to get your content out on one of these other platforms that that should be your only place. It’s not a good idea. Okay. Um, you know, same thing goes with, with medium blogs. medium is a great place to blog. But I do understand that it’s their property.

And I personally had clients with problems with medium because they’ve, you know, they’ve gotten d platformed. And your content is, is critical to your business. And that’s why I think your website and your blog should be your own. Okay? Even if that means that it’s going to cost you a little bit more to get it all set up, right. And even if it means it’s going to cost you Little more to get it indexed and get it ranking and stuff like that. It’s it’s a it’s a, it’s a valuable expense that you should not okay? Because that is your flag in the in the online world.

So, you know, don’t put all your eggs in that basket. Okay. Um, let’s go into some specific suggestions here. b2b businesses, Okay, I’m gonna start there, b2b businesses. Start with email, okay. Do LinkedIn and do podcasts and stop. Okay, stop it until you’re solid with those three. So you’ve got a really good email strategy going until you’re really working LinkedIn correctly. And until you feel like you’re getting lots of traffic, lots of traction on podcasts. That’s enough. Just don’t worry about everything else. Don’t even don’t put the icons on your website. Just don’t do anything else.

Get your grow your email list, engage on LinkedIn to outreach on LinkedIn and do content on LinkedIn. And, you know, do conversations on LinkedIn messaging platform. And stop. Once you get there, once you’re really solid, it’s bringing in leads, it’s getting traffic, it’s being you know, seen then to Twitter, then do Facebook Messenger and then there’s a whole, you know, we can do a whole lot of more sophisticated strategies and you can start building them up and automating and cross pollinating and doing all sorts of really cool stuff.

But, you know, hey, if you’re a b2b business, that’s where you start. Okay, in my opinion, b2c business, okay? It’s gonna sound like I’m repeating here, but first of all, email, always always email. Second, ah, Instagram, okay. b2c company, Instagram, third, Facebook, okay, and stop there. Okay, just stop. Do that. And you know, you and I put Instagram and Facebook there because for e commerce or b2c platforms, you’ll get engagement there you will get, it’s good for it.

Those are the that’s where probably a lot of your audiences. Now there may be businesses where you you know, like I said earlier, maybe Facebook is better, you’d be better off swapping it for Pinterest, or you know, maybe you’ve got a b2c business but it’s not, you know, it’s kind of on the edge of techie or something and then maybe you would be better off, you know, taking out Instagram and doing Twitter. Okay, that’s why I said there’s no cookie cutter, there’s no one size fits all. But that’s a pretty decent suggestion.

And then when you get there, when those are solid, then do Facebook Messenger, then start thinking about podcasts and start looking at other other places to get traffic and to get seen. Okay, that’s the deceit Local businesses, Okay, first of all, email always number one always, then Facebook Messenger. Okay, because it’s like we said last week, Facebook Messenger is emails with a brother. And for a local business that you really just want people to come in the door is an awesome way to get your offers out there your coupons, your you know, your daily special, whatever it is that you’re doing.

Messenger is really powerful. Then do either Instagram or Facebook choose, okay, just one, just pick pick them if you’ve got a younger demographic go Instagram without a doubt. It’s an older demographic than maybe Facebook is a better place to be. Okay. And stop, stop until you get those done until they’re solid. Okay, and you see the strategy here is start small, do them right, and then do more stuff.

Once that’s solid into the other one that you left out, do if you did Instagram, then do Facebook and if you did Facebook then to Instagram, maybe you know maybe then your your local business maybe maybe you do want to do Twitter you want to do you know, one of the more local platforms if you’re specific like restaurants or something, then you probably you know, you should also be thinking about Google Places and, and Yelp and you know, some of the review sites and stuff like that. There are obviously industry specific platforms that you need to consider if you’re in specific industries.

So that’s another reason why, you know, there’s no one size fits all solution. But this general these general guidelines and these general suggestions will get you over the overwhelm hump. Okay, you will, at least that way, you will be able to feel like you’re in the driver’s seat of your marketing. And make sure that either you hire somebody to drive your marketing or you have them come along with you for the ride and they’re there beside you to keep you on the road. That will do so much good for you.

And like I said, that was a genuine human offer. If you need to bounce some ideas off somebody and you want some advice and some, you know, feel free to reach out, leave me some comments and I will we’ll set up a call and we’ll have a conversation. Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s livestream. Thank you very much for listening in. Take care and talk to you tomorrow.