What to Consider BEFORE Investing in Marketing

Welcome to episode 433 of Hit The Mic With The Stacey Harris. I am your host, The Stacey Harris, social media strategist and trainer here at The Stacey Harris, and of course the CEO and lead strategist over at Uncommonly More. That’s so many words, but we’re rolling right through. This time of year, there is often a lot of conversations around investing in yourself and making those decisions. I wanted to sort of narrow the scope of that quite frankly massive conversation and talk a little bit about investing in your marketing.

Last week, we had Tara Newman on, and she and I talked a lot about working with where you’re at. Today, I want to make that a bit more tactical, because that’s kind of a mojo, and talk about some of the things you need to know to decide around what the resources you need right now and instead of just sort of what you think you, I’m doing air quotes here, “should do,” because there are lots of things you should invest in, I guess.

What are your goals?

What I want you to instead invest in is what is going to serve your goals, and where you’re at, your budget and your stage in the journey as it were. Okay? So investing in your marketing, the number one thing I want you to know is that goal, is that end result, and not just a long-term goal. Oftentimes, we think about our goals, especially for marketing, we’re like, “Okay, so I have this program, and I want to have thousands of students go through it.” Cool.

That’s fantastic. I’m totally on board, but what about like for the next 30 days, or the next 90 days? What are your goals for that program this year? Maybe it’s a membership site, and this is something that I love that the guys over at The Membership, Guys talk about this a lot. Great, what are your retention goals for that membership site? How long are they going to stay a member, because that’s going to factor into how much are we willing to invest in getting somebody in the door.

If we’re talking about a one-on-one practice, and we’re filling coaching spots, great. What are we actually … How many one-on-one people can we actually work with at a time? Over the course of 12 months, how many clients can we have on the books? Figuring those pieces out has got to be your first step, so look at what your goals are for the next 12 months.

Now, I will say, investing in your marketing is a long-term play. It is not a sort of quick win kind of space, and so I don’t so much want you to look at your 30-day goals, and even really your 60-day goals. I want you to be looking at your 90-day, your 6-month and your 12-month goals because that’s where you’re going to start to see the needle shift, and those quarterly goals, the difference you want to see in 90 days might be a lot more about having established some of the pieces or the steps versus massive results because that’s got to be your first endeavor.

So maybe your goals are to actually have a marketing funnel, meaning an email sequence that clients go through to get to a program or to get to a membership. Maybe it’s you have a certain amount of calls on your calendar for sales calls, if you’re more in the one-on-one space. Maybe it’s a consistent messaging around how you serve. Whatever it is, know your goals. Again, those short-term goals might be more process than profit.

By the time we’re looking at 12-month goals, then I want to be looking at I’m getting X amount of clients as a result of said sales calls. I am getting X amount of people through this launch. Whatever those numbers are, that’s what I want you to be looking at when we start looking at those longer term 12-month goals, but those goals have to be step one because until we figure those out, we don’t know what we need.

A great example of this is if it is that one-on-one side, and it’s really about converting more of our community into clients than the support you might be … The support you need might be less about marketing and getting more people in your funnel or in your circle, and it might be more about learning how to convert more on the sales side of things. It might be more about having a conversation around your sales process and your sale cycle, and what kind of nurturing they need once they’re in that process with you.

All of that will stem from knowing what those goals are, okay?

So number two, know your current numbers.

How many sales calls are you getting right now? How many people do you have going through the program right now? How many people do you have on your email list right now? How many social followers do you have right now? If you don’t currently know those numbers, you are in no position to be hiring someone because you have to have a baseline.

Realistically, when people are talking to you about how you can invest with them, they should be understanding where you’re at, meaning they should be asking what your needs are right now. They should be asking about your goals. They will very likely be asking about your numbers. In my experience and the way I handle this on sales calls and depending on again where we are, if we’re talking about stuff over at Uncommonly More, I have already stalked you online before we got online for a call.

If we’re talking more about our Backstage Amplifier Mastermind and things like that, there’s not really a sales process. I kind of know where my ideal clients are, ballpark, when they come in. So again, it’s … But if you’re having these conversations, if you’re legit hiring someone, they probably have stalked you online already but they may very well be asking these questions, so knowing these numbers is going to be an important piece of information for you to be able to give up.

Number three, know your budget.

This is kind of like knowing your numbers. This is going to be more of a financial number but how much are you willing to invest in reaching those goals. For some of you, that may be “I am willing to invest $50 a month in accessing a training,” or “I’m willing to spend 2000 a year to take a course,” or “I’m willing to spend 500 a month to work one-on-one with a coach.” “I’m willing to spend 3000, 5000, 10,000 to get a strategy or to get an implementation plan, or to get a VIP day, or to get some kinds of services.”

Whatever those things are, figure out kind of where your budget sits. If you’re hearing numbers like 3000 a month for management and that freaks you out, and you’re like, “I have no idea where I’m going to come up with that,” then maybe you’re not yet ready for management. Then, look at having a strategy built with someone. Look at having an intensive day with someone. There’s a ton of marketers who do these intensive days. We do them.

We have the VIP days, and part of the reason those exist is to sort of help bridge the gap for clients who are not yet ready to have Uncommonly More and our team at Uncommonly More come in and run everything, but they are further along than totally DIY’ing. They need somebody to come in and say, “Here are your next steps,” and so they can have their existing team, get them to a place where they are ready to invest with Uncommonly More, or whatever agency that they decide to hire, but knowing those numbers and knowing what that budget looks like for you is going to be really important.

The other part of investing and the other part of the budget that you have to be aware of is any additional ad spend. You might be looking at a budget of 3000 a month. Great. How does that budget divvy up? Does that pay your staff? Does that pay your ads cost? Does that pay any specialized people you have working with you? Figure out what that budget looks like and what it breaks down to, and the breakdown, some of that is going to come from working with someone. They may be able to give you access to the information of how that can better break down, but figure out what your max spend is per month.

Again, knowing that comes from knowing your numbers. How much is a client worth right now? If I can get you a one-on-one client that pays you 3000 a month, it’s probably not worth 10,000 a month for me to get you one of those a month. Look at what your acquisition costs. Those are crazy numbers, and if it costs anyone, literally anyone, $10,000.00 a month to get you a client, then take a big step back from that person, okay?

So, figure out what those costs are.

Pay for Access to Experts

The final thing I want to touch on is I want you to look at all of that information and get really, really clear on what you need right now and then remember that it pays to pay for access. This is one of the reasons that BAM exists inside of Backstage because sometimes it is just not going to get you over the hump, of course alone. So look at where you can add in getting access to someone who has the knowledge you need.

Like I said, that’s why BAM exists and so you get everything Backstage, plus some one-on-one time with me in a private forum area. It’s why Backstage Live exists, because then you get to spend the day with me and build your strategy with me in a way that is a lot more accessible price-wise. It’s why we have VIP days on Uncommonly More and not just our sort of done-for-you services because sometimes what you really want is access and not necessarily done for you. So, we’ve built in, in both brands, touch points to get access to me or get access to the team without having to hand everything over to me and/or the team.

A lot of people who do what I do, a lot of people in this space have that. Maybe for you, it’s not the “how do I do this” marketing but it’s “I need the copy.” A lot of copywriters, a lot of really great copywriters have intensive days. A lot of business coaches have this, a lot of life coaches have this, a lot of health coaches have this. Whatever that thing is that you need, look at where you can spend, yes, a little more, to get access to get your questions answered, or to get the services you need, or to get the feedback that you’re looking for.

That access is valuable, and so as you’re looking at your budget, if it’s on the lower side, look at where you can occasionally add some of those access points in. Maybe it’s through a mentorship program. Maybe it’s through an occasional one-on-one call, whatever it is, but that access, that person-to-person connection will go a long way to speeding up your learning process when you’re still deep into the DIY days of anything, of marketing, of having to do your own website, whatever the thing is.

When you’re in that DIY mode, if you can find a little space in your budget to get the occasional access point to an expert, it will pay major dividends. Factor that in as you’re looking at your budget, factor that in as you’re looking at for where you’re at, and remember you’re not running a race against anyone else. I absolutely know people who never ever, ever, ever have hired out their marketing. They run largely one-to-one businesses. They run a super high touch one-to-one model, and they don’t need massive funnels and crazy amounts of social.

They needed some great copy and so they hired a copywriter. They needed a great process for handling their clients and their client’s needs, and so they have somebody in an operations role, or they had somebody build out what that onboarding process looked like and now they run it themselves. There is no right way or wrong way to do this. There is no one way to market and grow your business, and anybody who tells you there is, is full of it. Don’t pay them money, okay?

All right, that’s it. Quick and dirty show today, following up our longer show we did last week. If you have questions, best place to ask them is Backstage. Second best place is to send me a DM over on Instagram. I’d love to hear from you. If you want to learn more about getting support through Backstage, head to Backstage. Head to hitthemicbackstage.com rather. That is where you will get all the information on Backstage. If you want to learn more about Bam, there’s a link to that in the show notes.

If you don’t yet have your seat reserved, now is like a super good time to book it for Backstage Live. We have two dates coming up at the first part of this year. We’ve got February 6th in New York City and March 6th in Los Angeles, California. I’m really stoked to be able to take this idea, this live event, coast to coast. It’s going to be a ton of fun. Everybody who attends will be walking away with their strategy ready to go. This is not about content for content’s sake. This is not about fluff. This is not about me upselling you. It is something else.

This is about coming together, building relationships with the people in the room, supporting each other, and really taking a day stepping out of your business a little, and working on your business and how you get clients, instead of just working on the work that you need to do for your clients. It’s a little shift there for you, all right? I will see you in either New York or L.A., but I will definitely see you backstage. Have a great rest of your week. Bye.