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3 Tips for a Sustainable Marketing Strategy

3 Tips to a Sustainable Marketing Strategy for the long term. See more at tracylynncoching@gmail.com.

A sustainable marketing strategy is the most efficient way to transform your side hustle into a profitable and automated business.  Except for the few who love the hustle and grind, the majority of us started our own businesses so we could give up our 9-5.  We wanted to create a life that allows us to do the things we love. These things include spending time with our family, traveling, and creating memories with the ones we love.

When we start our business though, we don’t really know what a sustainable marketing strategy is. Instead, we typically create a social media presence, whether that’s on Facebook or Instagram, and we consider ourselves legit.

Then we start posting regularly, saying things like:

  • Hey, I’m open for booking!’
  • Book today!
  • On sale now!

And all we hear are crickets. No one books no matter how hard we try.  Have you experienced this?

There are two types of marketing focuses: short term and long term.  The above example is focused on the short term.

3 Problems with a Short Term Marketing Focus

There are three major problems with this short term marketing focus.

1. Desperation vibe

When we constantly ask for sales and openly show we have availability, an audience automatically thinks, “Why is he/she not busy?”  It’s important to remember that a client or customer wants to purchase from a business who is in demand.  Even if we aren’t in demand, it’s important to not give off that desperate for business vibe.

2. Running constant sales

Although this falls under #1, I think it’s important to make it it’s own category. There’s a time and place for sales and it’s not all the time. Sales should be a strategic way to fill our schedule during slow times of the year. Sales should never be used just because we look at our calendar and panic because it’s not as full as we want it to be.

Running constant sales causes sale pricing to become our new pricing. That’s not the way to create a profitable business.

3. Forgetting to nurture our ideal client

This will come into play in the next blog post, but if we are focusing on marketing with a short term focus, then we aren’t nurturing our ideal client into becoming a paying customer.

Instead, we are focused on finding anyone who will pay us in the moment.

And let’s say we do work with this person who is not our ideal client. This likely leads to an experience that neither us nor the client enjoys, leading to poor reviews, and a poor reputation.

3 Tips to Build a Sustainable Marketing Strategy for the Long Term

If you own a business, I know you’re wanting to create a sustainable marketing strategy that leads to consistent clients and cash flow. There is a secret that’s actually pretty easy to find on the internet. It’s overlooked often because not many people want to put in the work up front.  A long term and sustainable marketing strategy can be can be automated so you can spend less time marketing and more time doing what you love.

Here are 3 tips to build this long term and sustainable marketing strategy.

1. Consistency

The key to a a sustainable business is a consistent long term marketing strategy targeted towards our ideal client.  One thing I hear often is that business owners hate the content grind, but you can make this super automated and far less time consuming.

I want to call the elephant out in the room right now.  I see a lot of course creators say that you can build a marketing system that doesn’t revolve around content.

I’ve been in these programs because I thought I wanted this so called marketing system and I want you to know that this idea is FALSE.  Even though they say you can “get off the content creation grind” the programs DO require you to create content.

BUT with that being said, I want you to know there’s an easy way to go about this content creation process that allows you to stay consistent without requiring hours upon hours of your time every week.

It all starts with consistently showing up the right way with content that speaks directly to the client you want to book.

2. Nurture your audience into becoming a client.

You may have heard this phrase, “nurture your audience,” before, but do you know what it means?

There are several different definitions, but what I mean is that we want to prepare the audience for your product or service by giving them the information they need in order to take action.

For example, in my boudoir photography business, my content revolves around what they need to do in order to prepare for a session. I do this because, most of the time when they land on my socials or website, clients are just considering a session. Once they see the resources I’ve created to help prepare them for the session, they begin trusting me, which leads to booking a session.

Here’s an example for social media managers or virtual assistants.  Create content around how your ideal client can save time and create cash flow with your services. Things like how important engagement is, but you also realize it’s not something they have time to do. If a VA or SMM took this over for the business owner instead, how much increase could they see with revenue and time in their day?

3. Create sustainable marketing for the longterm.

That’s a pretty broad statement, isn’t it? Let me explain.

It’s important to create a great product or service and an amazing experience with your business.

I bet you’re thinking, “that’s not exactly marketing.”

It is though.  With great customer experience, and a great product or service, you will create happy clients. Happy clients refer their friends AND leave great reviews. Happy clients are key to creating a sustainable business. I mean how many businesses do you know who have been open for several years that have a miserable client base? I don’t know of any.

To create a sustainable business for the long term, it’s crucial to create an amazing experience for your clients or customers.

Remember to think long term.

What I really want you to get out of this is that it’s extremely important to think long term in everything in business. You especially want to think this way in order to build a sustainable marketing strategy that creates consistent clients and cash flow.

I want you to be as successful as possible, as fast as possible. Because of that, I have two very important resources I want to offer.

  1. The first is a FREE Action Planning Session.  In this session we create a personalized to your business profitable & automated business plan so you know the exact steps you need to transform your side hustle into a full time business and get more time in your day and money in your pocket.
  2. Upcoming Masterclass: Transform Your Side Hustle into a Profitable and Automated Business.
    • We will go over:
      • 5 steps to an automated and profitable business
      • The exact formula to plan the foundation of your business
      • The numbers you really need to know inside your business
      • What the heck to do with those numbers

3 Tips to a Sustainable Marketing Strategy for the long term. See more at tracylynncoching@gmail.com.

tracy

Tracy Lynn is a boudoir photogapher for brides-to-be in the St. Louis area, and a mentor + coach for photographers looking to level up their businesses with better systems and processes.

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