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Growth Marketing Strategy For Each Phase of Business
There are so many different types of growth marketing strategies out there – how in the world are you supposed to know which you should be focused on? Should you be writing guest posts? Pitching yourself to be on podcasts? Trying to find speaking engagements? Hosting Workshops? Which are right for you and when should you focus on them?
I am here to make this simple for you, friend. Today we’re going to cover exactly which types of strategies you should be focused on based on where you are in your business journey. If you haven’t listened to episode 169 where I cover the 3 phases of a business journey, you’ll want to go listen to that first. Or, you could head to amandawarfield.com/quiz/ to discover which phase of business you’re in so you know which of these strategies are right for where you are now.
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- If you want your business to grow, effective marketing is crucial. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a ton of time on your marketing – even if you’re a solopreneur. Do you dream of business growth, but aren’t gaining traction? Does the thought of tackling your marketing feel daunting? Or, do you understand the importance of effective marketing, but simply don’t have the time to get it done? There’s good news! Marketing doesn’t have to be so overwhelming, confusing, and complicated. Say goodbye to the confusion and complexity that has held you back, and say hello to a clear, actionable roadmap for business growth. In my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, I’ll take you on a journey to demystify marketing with simplicity as your guiding principle. You’ll walk away with a clear, concise, and personalized marketing strategy designed specifically for your entrepreneurial journey. You don’t need a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) or a background in business to tackle your marketing head-on thanks to the strategies and techniques in this book that deliver real results. No longer will marketing feel like an insurmountable mountain; instead, it will become an easily manageable and integral part of your business. Take your content from non-existent or inconsistent, to a true tool to grow your business by Chasing Simple Marketing. You can grab your own copy by heading to Amazon and searching for Chasing Simple Marketing, or you can hop over to amandawarfield.com/book/ to learn more about buying it for yourself.
- Episode 169 – 3 Phases of a Business Journey
- This week’s action step: Not sure still, or just want more resources – go take the quiz
- This week’s book recommendation: Meant to Be by Emily Giffin
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!
Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
There are so many different types of growth marketing strategies out there. How in the world are you supposed to know which you should be focused on? Should you be writing guest posts, pitching yourself to be on podcasts, trying to find speaking engagements, hosting workshops, which are right for you, and when should you focus on them?
I am here to make this simple for you, friend. Today we’re going to cover exactly which types of strategies you should be focused on based on where you are in your business journey. If you haven’t listened to episode 1 69 where I cover the three phases of a business journey, you’ll wanna go listen to that first, or you could head to amanda warfield.com/quiz to discover which phase of business you’re in, so that you know which of these strategies are right for you.
Where you are now. You’re listening to episode 171 of The Chasing Simple Podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by my book, Chasing Simple Marketing, and you can grab your own copy@amandawarfield.com / book.
How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically?
Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome friend. This is Chasing Simple Where Practical Marketing Strategy Meets Simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist, speaker educator, and author of Chasing Simple Marketing.
I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.
When I’m working, you can find me working with one-on-one clients, such as the contract shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or however my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell reading in our hammock watching Gamecock Sports traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me.
If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really wanna be doing is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love.
Each week, I’ll offer you transparent conversations, actionable steps, and judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choice is, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating your marketing and business.
Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Really quickly, before we dive into this episode, I just have to share something that I’m really excited about with you. My book, chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion, but without that Master’s of Business Administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing overwhelming and frustrating. Throughout these pages, I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing, and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business.
To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amanda warfield.com/book. I’ll see you there.
Back in episode 169, we discussed the three phases of a business journey, which are content creator, foundation builder, and established entrepreneur. And in that episode, I go over what it looks like to be in each of those different phases, what your typical, overarching business goal is at that time.
What your growth strategy focus should be on and what your nurture strategy focus should be on today. I wanna take that a step deeper. So if you haven’t listened to that episode, I highly recommend that you go back and start there so that all of what I’m saying today makes sense and that it’s all in line in your brain.
But today, I wanna take it a step deeper, specifically talking about growth marketing strategies because a lot of times, What ends up happening is we, we try to do all the things in order to see growth, and we end up overwhelming ourselves and overloading ourselves and not giving these different growth tactics the time and the commitment that it needs to get into it and tweak it and improve it.
And so when I wrote Chasing Simple Marketing, I really wanted to include these different. Phases and what you should be focusing on within each phase so that there’s less overwhelmed, so that you can say, this is the phase I’m in. These are the tactics that work best for this current phase, and this is where I should be focusing my time and energy, instead of really spreading that time and energy all over the place and trying to hit all the things and then not seeing growth because you’re not giving any of them the the time that they need.
So let’s just get right into it. The course creator phase. If you’re in this phase, what I would recommend as the best thing to focus on for growth, the best growth strategies for you is honestly to just really focus on engaging and building relationships with people. So, It sounds simple and it’s really easy to write off, but it’s really, really important because this is going to set the foundation for all of your future growth marketing strategies.
So I really encourage you to do this both virtually and in person. And with two different types of other business owners. So you want to make sure you’re connecting with business owners and building relationships with those that have the same target audience as you, even if they do something completely different.
So for example, if your target audience is. Busy moms, you want to find other people that also target busy moms. And maybe that means that, you know, you’re, you do time management for busy moms and they do capsule wardrobes for busy moms. And so what you talk about is so drastically different, but your audience is the same.
So you wanna build relationships with people that have the same audience as you. And then you also want to build relationships with people that. Do the same thing as you, whether or not their audience is the same. So why? Why is this Because. I know that a lot of times it can be like, well, why would I wanna build relationships with my competitor?
But here’s the thing, there’s enough space for all of us, and truly, your competitors can be great referrals when they’re full and they don’t have the space to take on one-on-one clients, but they know you and they think of you, and they go, oh, well I know and trust this person. I can’t take you on right now.
But they might be able to. Also, we all do things a little bit differently, and so it wouldn’t be that outrageous for someone to maybe, let’s say someone comes to you and they need help with a certain aspect of what you do and it’s not your area of expertise, and you know that a competitor actually would be a better fit.
And you can refer them out, and that’ll happen. Vice versa. When you are giving to others in that way, they’re going to give back to you. And so you wanna build those connections with people in that same area of expertise because it’s all about community over competition, right? We’re here to lift each other up.
And that leads me into the in-person meetups. If you can find a Rising Tide Society chapter near you, I highly recommend going to find that chapter and going and meeting up with them. I’m part of the Rising Tide Society chapter. In my local area, I’m one of the leaders, and it is so nice to be just surrounded by community and of other business owners in your local area, particularly business owners that are really, really passionate about community over competition.
And I, for a long time, did not go find in-person meetups because my target market isn’t really my local area, but I regret that so deeply now. I wish I had been doing this. Years and years before I did. So highly recommend finding some sort sort of in-person meetup if there’s not a rising Tide Society chapter.
I’m sure there’s some other type of meetup happening around you with other business owners. And I would recommend similar to what we were just talking about with the kind of people you wanna build relationships with. You want to find meetups for. Other business owners, but also can you find meetups where your ideal audience would be hanging out.
Now, don’t do this in a creepy way. Obviously, if you’re not a mom and your target audience is moms, which I don’t know why it would be, because let’s be real, you don’t have the, the life experience that they do, so it’d be hard for you to, to really. Tweak your messaging to speak to them. But let’s say for the sake of this example, if you’re not a mom, but your target audience is moms don’t go to like a mom meetup at a church where they’re bringing their kids to hang out.
Like that’s creepy, right? But where can you go that your audience is also hanging out in person and just. Be there and be around. So do that in person. Find those two types. Find other business owners, people you can connect with that do what you do, and then also find where your audience is hanging out, but also do this virtually.
And this. Is where we can really get lost. We, we can set these goals for ourselves to connect with a certain amount of people each day, and I really, really do not want you to do that. Do not make a to-do list task that says connect with five new people today. Because what ends up happening is you’re not really building relationships because you’re just focused on hitting that number.
Instead, I want you to think about who is in your industry, who is in an aligned industry. That you want to connect with and then connect with their content, engage with their content, focus on building a relationship with that person and not so much trying to hit specific numbers. And again, there’s a fine line here.
You don’t wanna spam them, you don’t want to, uh, try to force anything, but pay attention to their content. If they share a story about. Maybe a place they’re traveling and you also really love that place. You could respond to it. It doesn’t have to be forced, and it doesn’t have to be numbered and very specific.
It’s just pay attention. Who are the people that you wanna build relationships with and pay attention to what they’re posting. And when it makes sense to respond, respond it with any relationship, you can’t force it. And it’s going to take slow growth over time. If it’s been a while since you have made new friends, because I know a lot of times we, we just continue on with the friendships that we’ve had for years and years, right?
If you haven’t had to experience moving to a new place or whatever, Scenario would make it so that you would need to find new friends if you haven’t experienced that recently, it might be difficult to think back and remember, but when you were first starting to make connections with, let’s say you moved to a new place and there’s a neighbor across the street that you wanna build a relationship with, you’re not starting out by immediately going over there and telling them your deepest, darkest secrets and.
Going over there every day or anything like that, that takes time. It’s a okay. This week we waved across the street at each other and said hi. Next week, we maybe stopped and talked for a minute. A couple weeks later, we stopped and talked for a few minutes, and then maybe we finally made plans to go take a walk together or go have coffee.
And it’s a very, very slow progression. So, Realize that that is going to be the same here virtually and in person as well. So if you’re a course grader, you’re focusing on just building relationships. And again, I know that seems so simple and so foundational and really easy to write off, but those relationships will be the foundation for all of the future growth.
Well, most of the future growth tactics and growth strategies that you’re gonna implement, So next you’ve got the foundation builder phase, and what you’re going to focus on here is leveraging those relationships that you’ve been building in order to show up on someone else’s content. So a guest blog post, a guest podcast interview, or showing up as a YouTube guest doing a joint live for social media.
This is the easiest stepping stone into. Uh, going above and beyond and spending extra time on these growth marketing strategies. So when you’re in the course creator phase, you’re focusing on creating your own content and building relationships. But then when you get to the foundation builder phase, you’ve got all these other things going on, and you’re also going to add in this addition of whatever it may be, guest blogging, podcast, YouTube, joint lives, so on and so forth.
You have been spending all this time getting to know. Your target audience and your own messaging, and if you are trying to do these, Podcast guest deans and guest blogs and things like that before you really understand that you’re gonna have a hard time communicating how exactly it is that you can help this other creator.
Back in episode 1 64, how to write a Successful Pitch for podcasts. I covered all the things you need to do to write a successful pitch, and the basis of a successful podcast pitch is, Talking about how exactly you can help someone else’s audience. And so if you haven’t figured it out, you’re gonna have a really hard time putting out those pitches and getting yeses.
And so if you do this before you’re ready, well, I. You’re going to waste a lot of time because your pitches are probably not gonna be accepted, and you’re spending all of that time on them. So we don’t wanna see that. Now, be aware that, as I’m saying, maybe wait, because of this reason, I’m not talking to you perfectionists that are trying to wait for the perfect moment.
There is no perfect moment. You’re never gonna be fully ready. Your messaging is, Always going to be changing, but that’s the reason that I say maybe wait until the foundation builder phase so that you do have some idea of your messaging and you’re able to really articulate, Hey, I would love to come be a guest in this capacity within your content.
I know that your people are X, Y, Z, and they struggle with X, Y, Z, and here’s how I can help that. What do you think? And you’ve gotta be able to put words to that and articulate that really well in order to see yeses from those pitches. So that’s why I would suggest waiting until the foundation builder phase for these, and then also on top of that, They do take time.
It does take time to write the guest blog post or show up and do the podcast interview or show up for the lives. You know, it takes time and it does take prep work, and so you wanna make sure that you are able to not only have the time for it, but also have the mental capacity to prepare, and then afterwards also look at it and say, how could I improve this?
What was my goal? And how can I make this better? So for example, maybe you listen back to the podcast episode that you guested on and just went live, and you go, you know, I really wish that I had said at the end that they could find me on my podcast instead of sharing my Instagram. I really want to make sure that I’m driving people to my podcast and I, uh, I just wish done that differently.
Or maybe there’s a freebie that you’re offering at the end of an episode and you’re not seeing the conversions and you have to go to. Plan B and go, okay, well maybe that one isn’t right for this topic or this audience. Maybe I need to rethink this. There’s all kinds of different things that you can rethink, and if you’re just blindly trying to get as many of these as you can and you’re not really ready for it, it’s gonna be really difficult to have that mental capacity and to continue to leverage them to the best of your ability.
So then we’ve got the established entrepreneur phase. For this phase, you’re gonna really, really be able to step up your game because you have your offers, you have all of your core offers created. You know what the flow looks like through that value ladder that you have, and. You are able, most likely to spend more time doing these growth strategies because you have so many of these foundation pieces in place.
So growth marketing tactics would look like speaking engagements, whether in person or virtually joint venture webinars, bundle contributions, or even going into paid marketing like sponsorships and ads and all of these. Have so many different components to it. There’s so many different ways that you could go about it.
You know, with speaking engagements, you’ve got speaking on stage, speaking in people’s membership communities, speaking on summit, all kinds of things like that. Joint venture webinars are, if you haven’t heard of them, they’re where you, you create a workshop and you collaborate with another person, another entrepreneur who has an audience that.
Is similar and that would benefit from said workshop. And then at the end you upsell one of your offers and the person that is doing it with you gets a cut, a large cut typically of the revenue made from each of those sales because you’re leveraging their audience bundle contributions. We’ve all seen bundles, right?
You. Give an offer, a product that you have, and you have to make sure that you have time to market it and to really sell it to your people so that you make money from it. And then you’ve got paid marketing. You can sponsor different things, you can run different ads, you can do influencer marketing.
There’s all these different ways that you can really pour into these different growth marketing strategies. But with each of these, they are even more time consuming and you have to be even more intentional and strategic. So when you. Do that speaking engagement, you have to be able to sit down and say, okay, what could I do differently to make this better?
What did my conversions look like? What was my goal? Oh, this JV webinar, man, there’s so many moving pieces and I wish the conversion rate had been higher for this, and I wish I had been higher for this, and I wish it, there’s more moving pieces, so there’s more that you have to consider and really think about how you can improve the next time.
And so it’s not something that you can just say, okay, I’m gonna do a JV webinar. Let me create it real quick. It’s. Gonna take, honestly, when you’re first getting started months to really figure out exactly how you wanna do it before you can systematize it. So all of these things really should wait. If you’re feeling ready beforehand, go for it.
Some of them like bundle contributions. You could probably start in the foundation builder phase. Once you have some different offers and maybe even ads, running ads to different products or freebies that you have. You could start earlier, but free. Realistically, the established entrepreneur phase is a really great time for that.
And so if you look at all of these. Speaking engagements, JV webinars, bundle contributions. Um, guest blogging, guest podcasting, joint lives. All of those are built on relationships. And even if you’re looking at paid marketing, if you do influencer marketing or you’re running sponsorships, those all leverage relationships as well.
Facebook ads, Instagram ads, you can just put up, they don’t, you don’t need relationships for that. But when you take the time to build relationships with people, you will then be able to leverage those relationships later on for all of these different growth tactics. Now, again, we’re not. Building relationships just for the sake of how can you help my business?
It’s a give and take. It’s a how can I help you and how can you help me? And we wanna keep that in mind, but. The focus of today was just what are the different growth tactics and when should you be focusing on them? So just a quick recap. If you’re in the course creator phase, you wanna focus on building relationships.
If you’re in the foundation builder phase, you wanna focus on guessing in people’s content. And if you’re in the established entrepreneur phase, that’s when you’re gonna really take things to the next level with the bigger and more visible types of growth strategies. Now, if you’re not sure which phase you’re in, or if you just want more resources, go take the quiz.
Head over to amanda warfield.com/quiz and it will tell you which phase you’re in, and also give you further resources, different podcast episodes and freebies that I have and different things that you can go check out to. Take all of this a step further. So again, that’s your action step for this week.
Go take the quiz, amanda warfield.com/quiz, and this week’s book recommendation is meant to be by Emily Giffin. And I’m gonna be really honest with you, I don’t remember what happened in this book, but I gave it four stars. I ran it last August, so a year ago basically. And I. Don’t remember at all. So sounds like it’s time for me to reread, but I’m just gonna read you a quick synopsis and that’ll give you an idea of what it’s about.
So the Kingsley family is American royalty beloved for their military, heroics, political service, and unmatched elegance. In 1967, after Joseph s Kingley Jr. Is killed in a tragic accident. His charismatic son inherit the weight of that legacy, but Joe III is a free spirit and a little bit reckless.
Despite his best intentions, he has trouble meeting the expectations of a nation as well as those of his exacting mother Dotty. Meanwhile, no one ever expected anything of Kate Cooper. She too grew up fatherless and after her mother marries an abusive man, she’s forced to fend for herself. After being discovered by a model scout at age 16, Kate decides that her looks may be her only ticket out of the cycle of disappointment that her mother has always inhabited.
Before too long, Kate’s faces in magazines and on billboards, yet she feels like a fraud. Faking it in a world to which she’s never truly belonged. When Joe and Kate unexpectedly crossed paths one afternoon, their connection is instant and intense, but can their relationship survive? The glare of the spotlight and the so-called Kingsley Curse?
So that is the synopsis that’s given online. Uh, I will link to this on the show notes again. I really don’t remember what happens in this book, but I gave it four stars, so it must have been pretty darn good. And with that, my friend, I hope that she’ll go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all the resources you need to simplify your marketing over@amandawarfield.com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never missed an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.
Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now, go out and uncomplicated your marketing and business.
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