What The Instagram Influencers Aren't Telling You About Marketing Your Business - Episode 100

Oh my goodness - WELCOME to the 100th episode of The Consistency Corner Podcast! I can't believe we're here and I'm so thankful for each and every one of you - today though I want to talk to you about the 5 things that the instagram influencers are not telling you about marketing your business!

If you want to listen to the podcast episode in full, press play below: 

First, let's talk about the power of niching down when it comes to your business...

A lot of instagram influencers talk about picking your niche, but it can be scary AF to commit to a niche because it feels like then we're leaving people out. I can tell you this from experience, I have myself struggled in over a year of business to niche down and figure out who exactly am I talking to - and I can tell you the problem with not knowing who you're talking to or trying to talk to everyone is that nobody listens. But here's the thing that I wanna remind you of and help you feel better about when you do niche down and pick one person... when you talk to one person, other people eavesdrop. I'm gonna say that again - when you talk to everybody, no one listens because they don't think you're talking to them. When you talk to one specific person, other people eavesdrop. Think about when you're in a busy restaurant, you can't hear the conversation at every single table, but you might be able to hear the conversation at the table next to you, even if that person isn't talking to you. So you're going to get in on that conversation and hear what they have to say. If you're like some people, you might even butt in and interject yourself into the conversation, but quite honestly, that's what customers do.

Let's say you think that you serve busy moms... that's not a niche because that's every mom (every mom is busy, no matter her situation, she's busy!) So you talk to busy moms, nobody's listening. You're not getting any engagement, you're not getting more followers, nobody's signing up for your email list, you're not converting clients except for the people who know you really well because you're not niche down enough.  So now let's say we're talking to busy moms who homeschool, who have a child in preschool and high school. Now we're talking to a really specific person. And guess what? The busy mom who's homeschooling, who only has a preschooler, she's probably going to listen too because you're sharing things that will help her as well.

So even though you've niched down and you've talked to just one person or one type of person, other people are going to listen. And like I said, I know it can be challenging to niche down and it can be scary, BUT it's not something that you have to commit to forever. You can always shift your niche down the road, but you've gotta pick one and start working on it to really hone in on that messaging and how you help that customer. 

Next I want to remind you - social media isn't a strategy!

Likes and followers don't matter as much as you think. When you're following somebody or seeing somebody share tips on growing your Instagram, getting more followers, that doesn't necessarily mean more sales. So, if sales is your goal, which is kind of the point when you're in business, likes and followers are not the most important thing. Once you've got a full funnel strategy working behind the scenes, which we'll talk about here in a second, growing your instagram could be something that you wanna focus on. But when you're starting out, getting to 10k followers is not necessarily the goal, because a lot of times when people grow really fast in the beginning, the people that are following them are not their ideal customers and they're not gonna convert into sales. So it's like wasted time and wasted energy.

When we think about growing our social media, it's like saying: I really want some coffee and we go get a coffee cup. Well that's not getting us any coffee. Coffee is what's gonna give us energy. Sales are what is going to grow your business... and social media alone is just a container for your message, which is one of many ways that you can grow your business with sales. 

You need to build a full marketing funnel for your business!

I know so many people who waste hours and hours trying to consume content on social media, figuring out how to do this, figure out this reel, figure out this story formula, figure out how to do hashtags and all of those things... but they don't have a full funnel behind the scenes. What do I mean by full funnel? Let me explain. 

So... that means you've got strategy and marketing activations to attract new audiences and new eyeballs. You've got activations and content to nurture those audiences and you've got content designed to convert those audiences into customers. 
ATTRACT
NURTURE & 
CONVERT
This is the full funnel. If you're only focusing on one part of the funnel, you're probably not getting the sales and the results that you want. This is what we call a full funnel strategy because you're focusing on all three parts of the marketing funnel! 

Now, if you're like, okay, Ruthie, I have no idea how to create a full funnel strategy, I'm overwhelmed, and I don't think I can afford a social media manager, I don't think I can afford a strategist, what the heck do I do? That's where having a brainstorming buddy or a mentor can be super helpful... and that's exactly why I created our monthly content co-working sessions because I share tips around the marketing funnel and marketing strategy, not just how to grow your social media. I also do offer 30 minute content consults where we could chat through this, our quarterly content plans where we plan an entire quarter together so that you can implement with a recipe or my agency does done for you marketing strategy and content management. So we take it off of your plate and you can focus on what you do best and your zone of genius! Scroll to the bottom of this post to find out more!

Focus on "process over progress"

We have to keep going and give it time and focus on our process over our progress, but having an expert helping you with the process will actually help you get there faster. Let me give you an example. At the beginning of January, I broke my leg ice skating! I snapped my tibia - I had to have surgery and they put a rod in my leg. So after my surgery recovery time, it was time to start physical therapy. I'm going to a physical therapist twice a week who is giving me specific exercises to get these specific muscles and joints stronger and more mobile because she is an expert who went to school for years and years to study and understand this and continuously invest in furthering her education and learning new things. I could probably get my legs stronger on my own by just doing some leg lifts and stretching, but I'm gonna get there a heck of a lot faster by working with an expert who's telling me exactly what exercises to do and measuring the progress to see if the process is actually working because she knows what to measure.

The same thing happens when you work with a marketing mentor. We could look together at your entire business, your offers, your marketing, your launch calendar, and figure out how are we going to utilize the entire funnel for attract, for nurturing, and for converting. Having somebody look at it from a 10,000 foot view gives you that perspective that you're just not gonna be able to get on your own and helps you make sure that you're doing the right things so that you can take advantage of the compound effect!

If you're looking for a mentor like that, I would love to tell you how you can work with me in 2023. Firstly, I'd love you to book a discovery call. If you're like, okay, Ruthie, I need some help, but I don't know what I want to do. I don't know if I want a quarterly content plan. I don't know if I'm ready for done for you, or maybe you just want to pick my brain and do a quick 30 minute consultation, fill out the application linked below and I can get you on my calendar so we can talk about how I can support you. 

BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL HERE

I am already cheering you on. I cannot wait to see the content that you create when you finally get consistent with your marketing. I hope that these tips were helpful in debunking some of the things that you might be seeing as you scroll for inspiration. I hope this also inspires you to stop the scroll and get to work with a real strategy. 

Blocking time on your calendar to work on your marketing content is the first step to getting consistent. Join The Consistency Corner Community for a virtual co-working session and start creating content that sparkles.
Learn more and RSVP to save your seat! 

https://www.theconsistencycorner.com/community