As a business owner, educating yourself about branding, marketing, advertising, design and everything related has become a lot easier.
Nowadays, with the new trend in manufacturing as much content as possible to attract the reader ( the target customer that is ) most of the branding agencies are starting to blog. And it works. Most of the time.
There is nothing wrong with sharing information that can help customers (sorry, readers) but one trend that I had enough from (i say tren but it is actually a taught marketing technique) is the following:
It always boils down to getting one thing “right”.
Usually, the creatives that handle one aspect of the process start to emphasize that everything else will fail if that “one thing” (what they sell/are good at) is not “right”. I have to admit, it’s a good technique to use. It puts the subject in the spotlight thus giving it more importance and as a consequence is raising the value of it.
Example:
Business strategy consultants: You can have the best product but if you don’t have a solid business plan, you will never make a profit.
Marketers: You can have the best product, website, design, copy. If you don’t have a step by step plan/blueprint/strategy to get in front of the right people, you will fail.
Copywriters: you can have everything right but if your copy sucks, your beautiful design will not get you results.
Designers: you can have everything right: your product, your copy, but if they are not arranged in an eye-catching way, people will not spend a minute on your site and read what you wrote.
Social media ads people: you can have the best product, the best design, the best website but if you don’t advertise it “the right way” nobody will see it.
Designers (again): If you pay for ads and they are not attractive you are wasting money.
And the circle goes on and on.
As a business owner who wants to do something to move forward, I would get pissed. Seriously. What is the most important thing is should do?
A long time ago I started walking the digital path. I thought it to be clear enough because, with an education in design, I thought that design is the most important and will solve all the problems a business would have.
I’m a people person. I like to help my customers succeed. Sounds corny, I know and sayings like “I put my customers first”, are so overrated but I can prove it. You can ask my customers and my passengers (been a flight attendant for 4 years in commercial airlines before entering the digital realm). Why am I bragging about it? Because it has a very steep downside.
The more you want to help your customers, the more you need to learn. The more you do, the more you realize that it is not enough to build a great logo for them, you have to create a strategy. The more you do of that, the more you realize that the website they have needed improvement, you start building that too (because you want to help and know that the budget does not permit such improvements from other professionals). After the site is done, you realize you need to bring in some traffic and that social media is not even close to the competition you researched. Then you understand that social media alone will not work if you don’t allocate some ads budget to it. And then comes the automation – squeeze pages, autoresponders, magnets, e-mail campaigns, and funnels. Let’s not get into SEO stuff too.
Everywhere you go to extend your knowledge to help your customer all you find is that THIS is the most important thing, and if you “get this right”, the heavens will open and profits will flow into your customers’ business.
I did come to believe all of that.
I realized how this belief has negatively affected me when I went to one of my customer’s conference. I was there to film the event. My customer presented me to one of her colleagues and when she wanted to say what I do for her she got stuck. Here is Ioana, my …. What did I expect her to say? I didn’t know myself what I was to her? I was doing design, website, marketing, strategy, photography, video, social media ads, store.
Finally, she said: Ioana handles all my communication.
And that was it. I did that, all of that and her business was doing great. But it took years for me to get that knowledge and months to implement it.
But what about someone who is just starting out? How would they prioritize what to focus on doing “right” first? Making that decision is close to impossible and I am not surprised when customers come to me all confused about what they need to do.
Bottom line: everything is important but not everything needs to be “right”. I know I’m not doing everything “right” myself. But DONE is better than right. The more you do for your business the better chances you have in succeeding.
I have seen businesses with bad logos, websites, ads, copy, etc. They are doing alright. They move forward and that is a success to me. The opposite is going bankrupt.
So, in the end, I will leave you with this thought: just go out and do it. If you can find one person to do the whole process for you from start to end even better. I don’t assume that there are many professionals out there to walk the whole digital path with you but at least find a project manager who understands you and knows your business. Let that person guide your every step. Do that logo the best your budget can afford, do that website at the best of your possibilities. Do it and do not stop improving them.
You will eventually get EVERYTHING right.
Keep walking the digital path
Ioana
Photo by Charles 🇵🇭 on Unsplash
