How to Build a Marketing System That Works for Small Business Growth – In Just 7 Minutes with Daisy McCarty

Resources/Links:

• Want to know how you can prioritize your marketing at a budget? Click here: https://www.themarketingblender.com/marketing-lab-23web

Summary

Have you been spending most of your budget on marketing but nothing just seems to be working?

A great marketing system doesn’t start with splurging most of your money into it without getting consistent results. Marketing isn’t supposed to be complicated. Start first with allocating a budget, spending your time wisely, and prioritizing the important high-impact, less-cost aspects of your business.

Daisy McCarty is a fractional chief marketing officer and brand message strategist committed to helping businesses STOP wasting time and money on marketing that doesn’t work.

Listen to Daisy’s recommendable and promising tips on how you can build a marketing system that actually works for you and turns prospects into clients without needing to splurge!

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:44 – Daisy’s ideal client: For our small business program here at Blender, it’s a solopreneur startup or small business that’s under a million in revenue.
• 02:12 – The problem she helps solve: I really solve two problems. Number one is helping businesses get in front of more potential customers. And number two is helping them get more of those people to say “yes” to their offer.
• 02:32 – The symptoms of the problem: They’re always struggling to hit revenue goals. Usually, they’re trying tactics kind of piecemeal and hoping that something is going to work.
• 03:20 – Clients’ common mistakes before consulting Daisy: The most common mistakes are around the assumptions they’re making about how marketing works. So half of them think marketing is a mystery. And they just have to try things and hope something’s going to work.
• 04:26 – Daisy’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): I’d like to share a prioritization framework for this one. So number one, you have to be aiming at the right problem. So it’s visibility or getting enough traffic to the site or getting people to take the next step.
• 06:35 – Daisy’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want to know how you can prioritize your marketing at a budget? Click here: https://www.themarketingblender.com/marketing-lab-23web
• 07:32 – Q: How much should small businesses be spending on their marketing? A: This is a scary question to ask because most businesses that are starting up or they’re smaller are not spending anywhere close to what they should.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“Marketing is a solvable problem. It's not a mystery.” -Daisy McCarty Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a warm welcome to Marketing the Invisible. I’m Tom Poland beaming out to you from the sunny Sunshine Coast in Australia, joined today by Daisy McCarty. Daisy, good day from Down Under. Where are you hanging out?

Daisy McCarty 00:21
I’m in Dallas, Texas.

Tom Poland 00:23
And how’s the weather this time of year? We’ve got November 23 as we’re recording this. What’s happening weather-wise?

Daisy McCarty 00:29
Still nice and warm, but we’re starting to get the monsoon season so plenty of rain.

Tom Poland 00:34
Oh! Send some our way. It’s sunny and dry out here. Folks, in addition to living in Dallas, Daisy’s a fractional chief marketing officer. Tell us what that is, Daisy, in case folks aren’t aware.

Daisy McCarty 00:45
A fractional chief marketing officer is a marketing executive that you can hire as far as many hours a week or as many hours a month as you need to. So you don’t have to spend $200,000 to $300,000 a year to get the expert advice that you need.

Tom Poland 00:58
Right. And so you’re kind of like the hard gun for marketing?

Daisy McCarty 01:02
I am. Everybody wants a piece of me so that makes me cry.

Tom Poland 01:04
So Daisy works with brand messaging. She’s a strategist. She is committed, essentially, to helping businesses stop wasting time and money because that is absolutely ubiquitous. It’s universal! It’s everywhere. You hire someone, you get advice, and it doesn’t work. And she’s here to stop that which leads us nicely to the title, which is, “How to Build a Marketing System That Works for Small Business Growth”. So let’s put aside the smoke in the mirror, the opaqueness around the marketing, and let’s talk about real marketing. It gets you small business growth. Daisy, our seven minutes is going to start now. Question number one, tell us who your ideal client is.

Daisy McCarty 01:44
For our small business program here at Blender, it’s a solopreneur startup or small business that’s under a million in revenue. They’ve usually tried some marketing tactics without success, and they want to find something that actually works. Our best clients are not afraid to roll up their sleeves and learn. They just need the right guidance and the right system to build and grow.

Tom Poland 02:01
Right. They’re committed. They’re growth-orientated. They just need to get themselves going in the right direction. So question two is the problem you solve. You’ve probably already said that, but is there anything you want to add to that?

Daisy McCarty 02:12
I really solve two problems. Number one is helping businesses get in front of more potential customers. And number two is helping them get more of those people to say “yes” to their offer.

Tom Poland 02:21
Right. So it’s the lead generation and the conversion, the marketing and sales. So what would you say, question three is what would you say are the symptoms that the people that need what you’ve got?

Daisy McCarty 02:32
They’re always struggling to hit revenue goals. Usually, they’re trying tactics kind of piecemeal and hoping that something is going to work. They’re typically wasting money on marketing. They’re not getting traction, and often are overwhelmed with having too many options for tactics, but not for when making an informed decision about which ones are right for their particular business.

Tom Poland 02:49
So it sounds like a frustrating experience for a lot of people when you start working with them. So they’re doing a lot, but there’s a lot of overwhelm. And even though they’re doing a lot, which is admirable, nothing’s really working. We’re talking about solopreneurs and small business owners. They are clearly growth-oriented. They’re not passive individuals. They’re going to try stuff. What would you say, question four, five and a half minutes left, what would you say are some of the common mistakes that people have made prior to finding your solution?

Daisy McCarty 03:20
The most common mistakes are around the assumptions they’re making about how marketing works. So half of them think marketing is a mystery. And they just have to try things and hope something’s going to work. And the other half thinks that there’s one magic bullet that’s going to fix everything. And neither of those things is true. So first of all, marketing is a solvable problem. It’s not a mystery. There are best practices that consistently work. And on the other hand, it’s complicated. And there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. And another thing that I often see is they’re not budgeting appropriately. So they pick a tactic, and they do it until they run out of money. And then they just say, “I guess marketing doesn’t work for my business.”

Tom Poland 03:54
Right? Whereas the methodology they chose might have worked if they tweaked it a bit or pressed a system for it. Would that be right?

Daisy McCarty 04:03
Sure! And sometimes it’s not about a methodology. It’s because they haven’t figured out where their buyers go, or they’re just trying tactics for too short of a time.

Tom Poland 04:12
Right. Okay. Thank you for that! Question five is let’s give folks a top tip. You’ve probably described 90% of the folks listening to this podcast. So let’s help them move forward. Perhaps not a complete solution, but what would you say they could do that would take them a step in the right direction?

Daisy McCarty 04:26
I’d like to share a prioritization framework for this one. So number one, you have to be aiming at the right problem. So it’s visibility or getting enough traffic to the site or getting people to take the next step. Maybe it’s qualifying leads or closing them, but you have to figure out what problem you’re really trying to solve. And then you could prioritize marketing based on effort and impact. This determines where to spend what we call your “ATM” which is your attention, time, and money. So there are four quadrants and they’re based around impact and effort. So where you want to spend first is on low effort and high impact and I call those “quick wins”. Those are usually closer to the bottom of the funnel like increasing closing ratios that immediately improve revenue, during rapid lead generation. Pay-per-click is usually great if you have the right search intent and the right offer. And then the second quadrant is where you want to spend the most. And that’s high impact, high effort. And we call those “game changers”. Those are things like getting a marketing system in place to automatically generate leads, building a strong referral network, creating a legion ecosystem, or even things like getting on the speaking circuit. Quadrate number three is where you should spend consistently. And that’s low effort, low impact, or really cumulative impact. So it’s low and slow, but they’re incremental gains. And those are always things like social media, and organic SEO, where you have to do it over time, but it does have a payoff if you do it consistently. And then there’s the final area of where to stop spending. And that is high effort, low impact. And those are the money pits in marketing. And the number one thing that I see people spending money on is that they should not be building a brand-new website. I know that is shocking. But I would say probably 80% of the time, that’s not the actual problem that’s holding them back from revenue growth. So they need to make some tweaks to the website but don’t spend $20,000 on a brand new website if that’s not the issue that’s holding you back. And the other thing I see a lot of clients spending on is trade shows where they may spend tens of thousands of dollars and the lead generation from that is really not worth it!

Tom Poland 06:18
Wow! Well, that was an incredibly well-articulated, succinct summary of all things marketing, folks. There’s a lot of unpacking there. So we might be able to help you folks to unpack that with the answer to the next question, which is where can people go to find out more about this.

Daisy McCarty 06:35
I have a free webinar that gives business owners a look at how to identify and act on those quick wins and how to create a game-changing marketing system for their business. So it hits those first two quadrants really nicely. And that’s at themarketingblender.com/marketing-lab-23web. And if you have trouble finding that just by typing it in, just connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m Daisy McCarty. There aren’t that many of me out there, so feel free to reach out and I’ll send that link to you.

Tom Poland 07:02
Fantastic! And folks, it’s 23 minutes long so you can do this over a cup of coffee. It’s www.themarketingblender.com/marketing-lab-23web. So you can go there, it looks like it’s evergreen, so it’ll be there when you receive this when you start listening to that. So last question, Daisy. We’ve got a minute left. Plenty of time! What’s the one question I should have asked you, but didn’t, and the answer please?

Daisy McCarty 07:32
The number one question that people need to wrap their heads around is how much should small businesses be spending on their marketing. This is a scary question to ask because most businesses that are starting up or they’re smaller are not spending anywhere close to what they should. The benchmark is 7% to 8% of revenue, just to stay even just to stay where they are. And it’s 10% or more if they want to grow. Now, it varies based on, for example, if you’re selling software as a service product, you’d be looking at 13% to 14%. If it’s professional services, it’s much more on the lower end. But here’s the good news! You don’t have to start at 10% of your marketing. You want to begin with a strategy and add in a handful of tactics at a time based on priorities and the problems you’re trying to solve. And you want to ramp those up over time as things are working. It can be a scary number to think about 10% of revenue but it costs less than you think to get started and make significant progress.

Tom Poland 08:25
Perfect! You have five seconds left. Just enough time to thank you for your insights and your wisdom. It’s such a well-thought-out response. Thanks, Daisy!

Daisy McCarty 08:33
Thank you very much.

Tom Poland 08:35
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.