Why doing #AllTheThings isn’t a Marketing Strategy

I’ve been in this world of online Marketing for a while now – ever since I decided to quit my “real” job in Corporate America and venture out with my own business almost 10 years ago.  That’s an eternity in online years!  (I must be ready for retirement by now…)  

Anyhow…during all this time I’ve “played” with every marketing tool out there, was on social media before it was a thing (MySpace anyone?) and tried #allthethings to grow my business. I feel like I’ve been on every list and hungrily consumed all the podcasts. Whenever anyone who I admired made a recommendation to try out a new thing, I was all over it!

I’m a sucker for new tools and technology, so this online world was just like a shiny, new playground for me.

Look at this awesome sandbox over here!

NO WAIT!

Those swings look awesome!

Anyone coming on the climbing wall?

Wait  – SQUIRREL! 

So yes – Really fun.

Really awesome. Except for one thing. I wasn’t “supposed” to be playing.  There was work to be done and I wasn’t doing it.

There came a point where the similarities between me my 6-year-old on Christmas morning were staggering. I’d move from one shiny new object to the next without ever spending long enough to discover the potential of each one.  I’d make myself dizzy from the number of tabs open across the top of my browser and my to-do list never got “todone” as I was so easily distracted by the next tip from that one guru who was making it rain.  

And I got absolutely nowhere. Fast.

My wake up call came when I was just starting a Facebook ads course – ‘cos you know, gotta know #allthethings, and in the first module, the course instructor laid out a sales funnel for us. She stressed the futility of running Facebook ads without having a funnel in place.

And I was blown away by the simplicity of what she was saying.  

If you don’t know what a funnel is, it’s basically the path that your prospective customers move along until they are in a place where they want to buy from you. You create the path and help your customers by providing useful, actionable information as they progress along.

It truly was like that “well-oiled machine” that everyone talks about.  

Of course, this was not a new concept to me. The customer journey is a foundational concept in my Marketing degree back in 1997! Business doesn’t change THAT much – just the tools. and my obsession with the tools was becoming my downfall.

I didn’t need to learn any more new things, I just needed to put into place what I already knew and the best funnel for me. One that suited me and my business, my life, my values and my goals.

I had to pick one marketing system and stick to it.  

Once I had that revelation, what was once so seemingly super complicated was so, so simple.

I let go of all the things and put my focus on the path someone needed to travel to move them closer to working with me. I figured how what they needed at each stage in the journey and met them where they were at.  Like delivering care packages to a hiker along a trail, I was there with the clean socks and fresh undies, just in the nick of time! Figuratively speaking of course – none of my clients really ever needed clean underwear, lol.

Deciding on that one strategy was hard for me.  I don’t like to limit my options but as any creative will tell you, out of restriction comes creativity and this, is always a good thing!

So if you find yourself trying Pinterest for a week, Instagram for a hot second and dipping your toe in and out of FB ads then I’m going to urge you to stop for a minute and take stock.  Plan out your customer journey and pick ONE best strategy for where you are right now in your business and your life to make it work for you.