Rethinking Marketing Strategy: An Authentic Approach to Ads

There’s a deep misunderstanding of what paying for Ads is about, for an authentic business.

It begins with the common idea that marketing is about trying to convert visitors as soon as possible into buyers. The more successful your marketing, the quicker a stranger becomes a buyer, right?

This is the core flaw I see with so many marketers.

They spend so much money on Ads, all aimed at either converting people into buyers, or getting opt-ins for their sales funnels.

A Different Approach to Ads

I think of Ads differently.

Ads should be an amplification of the value we’re already providing our audience:

1) Expand the reach of your best content to cool audiences that look like your existing clients, and…

2) Make sure your warm audience sees your current offer at least once or twice. (I assume that you continually switch your offers, e.g. every 1–2 months, have a different offer — a different framing of the same offer — that you announce to your audience.)

If you’ve created an offer that’s aligned with an audience that is warm enough, they only need to see it once or twice to buy. That’s been consistently my experience over the past 14 years.

There’s no need to wear them down (ad fatigue) with 13 or more impressions of your offer. Once or twice with ads. That’s enough for most people.

Then when you relaunch the offer again in the future, with fresh bonuses or other updates, run ads to show it the warm audience again, reaching each person, on average, once or twice only.

The Misplaced Fear: “They might not see it!”

There will always be the occasional person who tells you, “Oh, I wish I had seen that offer!”

Be careful not to let those comments make your marketing strategy pushy.

Instead, aim to be sought after. Allow people to choose to lean in, of their own free will.

“That’s ok,” you are essentially telling them, “next time I make the offer, you’ll pay closer attention ;-)”

7-Figure Marketer Goes Bankrupt

I heard of a 7-figure marketer who seemed on top of their game, and then within a year, went bankrupt.

She relied on social media Ads to bring her a stream of new customers. Yet as the ad costs increased, she couldn’t sustain the business.

Her expensive (and highly “expert”) ads agency couldn’t figure it out either.

She had a big email list too! And still, couldn’t make her business work.

She isn’t the only one who has this kind of story.

Here’s my diagnosis:

• She didn’t have a true fan base.
  
  
• She had too many cool leads, due to reliance on Ads, rather than having a consistency of resonant content, from a heart of service, that creates real trust and loyalty, and therefore a real warm audience.
  
  
• Her offers were hyped up and marketed aggressively, continually eroding trust. Of course, nobody told her because nobody who saw her ads cared enough about her business to offer honest feedback.
  
  
• As a result of all that energy going into her marketing, she didn’t have enough energy left to make her product truly awesome… products that her clients could really rave about.
  
  
• Therefore, few repeat customers, lack of genuine word of mouth, results in an unsustainable business.

The strategy of buying more Ads (even if it’s more targeted Ads) cannot be the savior of a business.

An Authentic Approach to Ads

If I were her business coach, this is what we would have worked on:

1. Demonstrating a consistency of serving the audience with resonant content, which is a practice of the 3 Stages of Content Creation. This builds a true warm audience.
   
   
2. Continually improving one’s product, which results in genuine loyalty and word of mouth from the customers.
   
   
3. Run ads to distribute her best content to keep growing her audience, as well as ads to occasionally promote her current offering.

Never borrow money to run Ads, thinking you’ll make enough back to make your business sustainable. It’s rare that debt can save an unprofitable business. It’s much more likely that Ads can amplify an already profitable one.

Ads help you leverage and the aspects of your marketing that’s already working.

At first, you can know that your content is “working” on a small scale by testing it with friends who are similar to your ideal audience. You also know that your offer is working by getting their feedback. Then after sufficient testing, you can extend your reach through Ads.

Note: I teach a course on Facebook/Instagram Ads for solopreneurs.

Slow and steady always wins the race. Of course, everyone’s “slow” is a different speed. Ads can amplify one’s speed but only if one is going in the right direction.