Why Hefty Brand Marketing Makes ZERO Sense For Local Businesses

2 Jun

There is an untapped opportunity lying dormant at the hands of any local Twickenham business today.

And ok honestly… it doesn’t matter whether you live in Richmond or the wider London area... In fact this is a worldwide opportunity.

Meaning:

This. Opportunity. Is. Available. To. You. 🫵

Your top competitors are already using it. And from what I’ve seen, that tends to be anywhere from 1-10% of the market. This is why they win market share. They are quick.

BUT they use this opportunity poorly. They make all sorts of mistakes. They put in minimum effort. They can afford this because the rest of the market is TOTALLY asleep.

So in this article, I’ll explain exactly why most business owners are NOT taking advantage of this huuuuge opportunity and make it accessible to you.

When you’re done you will be have no excuses NOT to become THAT business in town.

First though, do you know why this problem exists in the first place? To understand why, we have to talk about the concept of broad marketing.

And I’ll start with an example…

Today I had a call with a marvelous local Richmond business owner who pays for Google ads with an agency. But she was getting calls from people as far away as Glasgow and Essex! Glasgow is on the complete other side of the country, and Essex is NOT a real place… everybody knows this. 😏

So she’s spending a small fortune on leads that are useless. It’s almost funny because not only should her ad manager know WAAAAAAYYY better, but I see this kind of BS from agencies all the time.

Why? Because he’s still doing something that’s lightyears ahead of what most businesses invest in.

The fact is a lot of these agencies got in at an opportune time through luck or cunning, and not by building deep expertise. But when you spend enough money with them you get results. This is why I talk about business owners getting “saddled with an intern” on our landing page…

But do you know what makes this worse?

We were all taught that mass marketing—general, broad advertising, or in other words, brand awareness—was the be-all and end-all of marketing. And even though that’s a total lie… it’s still the prevailing belief among most business owners.

Now, this is catalysed even further by another common problem where business owners think there is no bias in marketing. This is the mistaken belief that EVERYONE is their customer. Maybe they could sell to everyone, and it’ll all be fine.

The thing is… it’s NOT fine at all.

That’s because broad marketing is extremely expensive and difficult to measure.

If you want to make the most of your marketing budget, you have to recognize there's always bias.

The Flawed Logic of Mass Marketing

Take laundry detergent or brands like Coca-Cola that are directed at everyone. These companies have hundreds of millions of dollars in their marketing budget.

We don't. Well… I don’t. (If you do, hit me up! 😀)

That means we don’t have a gargantuan ad budget to blanket the whole market in the hopes that someone decides:

“Oh yeah, let me pick this up because I saw it in that ad.”

We were raised with the idea of mass marketing—getting people to know your brand and then hoping they choose your product because they recognize it.

And look, brand marketing has its place, but if you’ve ever heard of the Pareto Principle, this is the 80% that doesn’t matter to 80% of your results.

Why Targeted Marketing Is A Vast Modern Breakthrough

So, what should you do instead? Let’s go back to my local Richmond business owner example.

One of the main questions I ask all my clients before we work together is:

What kind of marketing have you done in the past, and what worked?

This client explained how she got a lot of clients for her dog training business after she went to all the local vets and handed out a pamphlet on common dog training questions with her details attached.

In other words, she went straight to the most likely places where:

People have dogs,
They have problems with their dogs,
They probably need help,
They love their dogs.

And she got a lot of new customers from this little initiative. That’s one super easy, cheap way to build trust, get a reputation, and most importantly, get local clients fast.

How They Used to Target Audiences Back in the 60s

I was talking to my mentor the other day, the multi-millionaire who makes a point of getting the most expensive room in any hotel he stays in as a point of pride. (The guy is offended if the hotel staff DON’T try to upsell him). Anyway, he shared this brilliant example that really drives this point home…

This motivational speaker in the 60s shared a marketing example with him. And to give context: back in the 60s, they had no internet. You didn't even have a fax machine… some of you won’t even know what a fax machine is. But anyway, it was a very different time.

This speaker had very little in terms of targeting power and was doing seminars in city after city. He started to notice something. Most of the people who showed up to his seminars were men with crew cuts. You know, the buzzhead thing that they get in the army. There was always a bias in the audience. So, when he went to Denver, he hit up ALL the barber shops and basically said:

“Hey, I’ll pay you for a list of your clients with crew cuts.”

And he would send direct mail to them with a promotional offer for the seminar. This boosted their response enormously because there’s always a bias. If you talk to the right people, you will get a much higher response rate than from a mass market.

Know Your Audience

You must understand your audience. Do the minimum viable research:

What language they use,
What they value,
Where they live,
Whether they have kids or pets,
Their hobbies,
Etc.

Reviews and feedback from current clients can be an excellent resource. This gives you a clear picture of your audience, how they communicate, and what they need.

Why Marketing Is Simple But NOT Easy

These examples of the motivational speaker and the local dog trainer reminded me of just how simple effective marketing can be.

But there’s more to it than just choosing the right audience. You also need to:

Write an ad that connects with the audience,
Choose the right response mechanism,
Craft a great headline,
Build a winning offer,
Build a funnel,
Set up the Meta pixel,
Set up a follow-up campaign,
Run retargeting campaigns.

Oh and we continue, did we mention business owners need to STOP USING FACEBOOK BOOSTS?!

Boosts are NOT the same as targeted meta campaigns… but a lot of business owners I talk to do not understand this. Boosts are an inferior product. It blasts out ads to a wide audience for nothing but vanity metrics and does nothing for your business.

Meta ads manager is very different. It allows you to go in-depth on metrics, choose specific response mechanisms, interests, and choose exactly where your ads appear so you can maximise the return on investment in your ad budget. It’s the modern way to reach men with crewcuts in Denver, or in our case Twickenham.

The process of building an ad that works requires expertise. So if you have tried this and gotten poor results… honestly it’s no surprise.

The gap we fill is right there - it takes a lot of time and concentrated effort to get good at marketing.

That’s why we spend all day writing ads, improving ads, researching markets and all the other stuff that go into making a successful ad… and that’s when we’re not writing SEO articles, email campaigns, building CRM systems or consulting on marketing improvements for our prospective and existing clients.

If you’re a busy business owner, we can help you move much faster because all we do is marketing.

Schedule a call, and we’ll take a look at your current marketing for free.

Schedule Your Call

Grow your business with a bespoke marketing campaign. Schedule your free consult today, and let’s make sure your marketing efforts reach the right audience.

Do It For Me!