Breaking boundaries
Forgetting why I started, the power of gathering "insights" on your audience and Google's homemade search video.
Dear friends,
Remember back in the summer when I returned from my “August retreat”, freshly optimistic and ready to approach things more slowly, and with empathy, towards myself and others?
Turns out, that didn’t go so well.
You see, for all my good intentions I found myself slowly falling back into bad habits.
Taking on too many projects from a fear of scarcity.
Going above and beyond on projects, taking on way more than the initial scope and being afraid to say no.
Blocking my days out with calls and leaving no time for deep work.
Not stopping to recognise the wins, always focusing on what else needs doing, what more there is to give.
You see good intentions don’t always translate into changed habits. I had assumed that by changing my job, a fresh start on my own terms, that I would break the bad habits that led to so much burnout earlier in the year.
That by leaning out of the workplace, and into my own company again, that I would set the rules and boundaries.
It turns out, boundaries need a watch(wo)man. Someone who constantly patrols asking: does this feel secure? Is everyone adhering to the line? Are we seeing any gaps in the fence?
Now I’m freelance again there is no one else to watch my boundaries. To make sure that they are being kept to, that I’m productive and helping clients, while staying healthy and doing more of the things that bring joy.
Not letting myself become my work, the millennial vice that is always so temptingly close by 😬
So for the future, I need to be a better watcher of my own boundaries, able to remember what this was all for in the first place.
If you have any tips on staying present with your goals and vision and not getting lots in the trenches, I’d be so grateful to hear them 🙏
Yours, with empathy,
Beth
Marketing Disciplines: Explained 🦄
A question I received on Instagram this week was: how can you build up a clearer picture of who the audience is when working with clients?
Let me tell you about the marketing secret weapon I’ve been wielding for a while on this one: insights.
Often, we think that by drafting our customer personas or talking about our “ICPs” (ideal customer profiles) that we really understand our customers.
These exercises are certainly a good starting point as they get us thinking and asking questions. But too often I think they miss the purpose of what we’re really asking which is:
“Why might my audience care? What are they looking to get out of this? What pain will this solve?”
This is where customer insights come in. These are not the demographic of your audience, or their shopping habits. They’re the little things you only know when you really know your customers.
And in my experience, you cannot really know the audience or understand them without first speaking to customers. If you don’t have access to customers then you need to speak to the next best thing: the sales person, customer success team or Founder who is doing customer service.
Whenever I start a marketing project for a client I ask to be connected to their sales, success or marketing team. Basically anyone who has direct access to customers and I interview them on the phone. I ask questions like:
What language or keyword makes your customers “get” what your product or service is all about?
What is the “aha” moment for your ideal customers when they really see the value?
What are the objections of the people who don’t buy?
What questions do you keep getting asked?
What competitor tools or services were your customers buying before?
Those conversations are the ones that are going to give you the ideas on what blog content to write, what product to create or what copy to put on your landing page.
But you have to first do the work and be prepared to sift through and find what matters. Trust me - it’ll be worth it.
Reading/Listening List ❤️
If you work in marketing you may like this free YouTube movie by Google on “how search works” and what goes on behind the scenes
Stumped on where to start with SEO for your small business? I loved this set of realistic traffic goals from content agency Animalz based on the outcome of their Content Marketing report. (Note, I think 45,000+ page views is a bit high for companies outside of SaaS so adjust that one for your industry)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, new Gartner research suggests that “The amount of change that the average employee can absorb without becoming fatigued in 2020 has been cut in half” compared to 2019. They point out how difficult this is, when most companies are pressing reset and being forced to change frequently in adjustment to the current situation. Gartner suggests that encouraging employees to be part of the process towards change, building trust in the organisation’s leaders and creating team cohesion all help to minimise change fatigue.
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P.s. If ever a celebrity is using their platform for good, surely it is Will Young on Instagram ensuring that we do not purchase these low-quality socks from Amazon 😂
