Make Marketing Suck Less

Michelle Mazur [00:00:00]: What if I told you that 95% of marketing advice out there wasn't for people like you? If you're following this advice or beating yourself up for not following it, you're wasting time, energy, and resources doing more marketing that doesn't lead to results. You're unintentionally making your marketing suck more, not less. So how do you know if you're following the right guidance? Buckle up, because this episode will shift how you think about marketing. So let's dive in.

Michelle Mazur [00:00:51]: Welcome to Make Marketing Suck Less. The podcast that knows marketing is freaking hard, especially when you're a solo business owner trying to juggle it all. I'm your host, Dr. Michelle Mazur, author of the 3 Word Rebellion and founder of the Expert Up Club. Forget the latest marketing fads and tactics promising social media stardom. I'm here with research-backed strategies to help you clarify your message and get twice as effective with your marketing. And while I can't promise you'll ever love marketing, I'm here. to make you hate it a tiny bit less.

Michelle Mazur [00:01:31]: Welcome back to our series about all the ways we are unintentionally making marketing suck more instead of less. In the last episode, we talked about our need to always be doing more marketing, that somehow, if we're adding more to our marketing to do lists, we will get better results. Instead, I talk about creating a marketing to don't list so that you are subtracting and focusing on what gets results. So check out that episode if you haven't listened to it yet. And in this episode, I am going to ask you a very simple question. Which one are you? Your answer will help you make marketing suck less. But before we do that, I wanna tell you a little story.

Michelle Mazur [00:02:34]: I often find myself in situations where I do not fit in, humming one of these things is not like the other. And I was on a panel with 2 big name creators, Jay Clouse and Jay Acunzo. And from here on out, I will refer them as the J's. So to be clear, I have great respect for both of the J's. I think they are wonderful creators. I benefit from the work that they put out into the world. But on this panel, we were discussing messaging and positioning. And as I listened to the J's, I realized I disagreed with almost everything they said.

Michelle Mazur [00:03:22]: Not because they were wrong or totally off base, because what they said doesn't work for me and my business and for my clients and their businesses. And then it hit me. I realized that the J's identified as creators first, and I'm a business owner first. Now don't get me wrong. The J’s and I, we all create content. You create content when you have a business. But our approach to our content and how we're marketing that content differs based on whether we identify primarily as creators or business owners. And there's 3 big distinct differences between the two that will give you clarity and help you figure out how to market your business so that it does suck less for you.

Michelle Mazur [00:04:28]: And as we talk about these three distinctions, please keep in mind the GEO framework. So for those of you who are not familiar, GEO is the messaging and marketing framework that helps you do less but better marketing and describes the jobs that marketing does for your business. So as a quick reminder, G stands for Grow. It grows your audience or builds your brand awareness. E is for Engage. It nurtures and gets people ready for the sale. And O is for Offer. It's inviting people into your sales process.

Michelle Mazur [00:05:06]: So the first big distinction between creators and business owners really focuses around O and what your offer is and where is this marketing you're doing actually leading people to. So for creators, they monetize their audience while business owners sell offers. So for creators, the content they produced will be monetized by selling sponsorships, by selling access to their audience and also digital products, which they create once and promote always. So these are highly leveraged. They both need a huge audience, and we'll talk about that in a moment. Whereas business owners, what we sell are specific offers, services, coaching, consulting, group programs, where our involvement is integral to the delivery of that program. So for me, I have 2 basic offers. I have My Done For You Marketing Message Service, so you can get your marketing done and dusted in 2 weeks.

Michelle Mazur [00:06:18]: That's delivered 1x1, very high touch. And then I also have the Expert Up Club. And although the Expert Up Club, yes, it has on demand trainings in it, but I am intimately involved in my community and giving feedback to the individuals. So that means that I'm a business owner. So ask yourself, are you monetizing your audience, or are you selling offers that you are involved with? Because that will help you decide if you are a business owner or a creator. So let's talk about the second distinction. And this one, the focus is on the G of the GEO framework and answers the question, how big of an audience do you need? Creators reach the masses. Business owners want to reach a small number of future buyers.

Michelle Mazur [00:07:17]: So creators need a large following to create a sustainable business and a sustainable living. So audience building is their priority. Because if you're selling access to your audience, you need a large enough audience to make that worth a sponsor's while. Whereas if you're a business owner, you need to reach a smaller number of right fit clients interested in hiring you. So nurturing the relationship and creating those relationships are going to be essential. And so for creators, you will find them creating a ton of content for social media. They probably have a podcast and a blog and a newsletter and a YouTube channel. Whereas business owners, we don't need to be on social media.

Michelle Mazur [00:08:10]: We don't need to be everywhere. We don't need to amass thousands and thousands and thousands of subscribers because we just need a few people to make our business work. And especially if you are listening to this and you are a B2B consultant, you probably need 4 or 5 contracts a year. So you have to be focused on those relationships. And if you're curious, like, okay. well, how big does my audience need to be? We have an episode on audience growth that you should listen to, so make sure you do that. It's in our show notes. .

Michelle Mazur [00:08:46]: The final distinction. This falls in the E phase of GEO, which is Engage. And it really talks about what type of content are we creating. Creators are informing people with content buckets, whereas business owners are persuading people by making an argument for their work. So content creators aim for mass appeal, focusing on how to posts or building in public, anything that has mass appeal that creates value. So you follow them or sign up for their list because they need subscribers. So they are gonna give a lot of stuff away for free because they're monetizing you as an audience member. Whereas business owners, our job with our content is to engage and nurture folks, and we should be building a strong case for our work.

Michelle Mazur [00:09:50]: So each piece of marketing moves the right fit client closer to entering your sales process. So for business owners, messaging is so very important. Like, understanding what to say in your marketing so that you're moving people into your offers. You wanna create content that helps generate leads. Alright. So what you identify with matters because it changes your approach to messaging and marketing. So ask yourself, are you monetizing your audience or are you selling offers? If you're selling offers, you might be a business owner. Do you need to reach the masses or do you need to reach a small number of future buyers? If you just need a small number, you might be a business owner.

Michelle Mazur [00:10:52]: And, finally, is your content for mass appeal or are you leading people to your offers? Are you persuading them? If you're persuading because you have an offer to sell, you are definitely a business owner. And if you're nodding along thinking, Yep. That's me. I'm a business owner. Thank you for the clarity. I can now block out all of the creators talking about how to create content in a 1000000 different platforms. But you're also wondering, okay. So how do I market like a business owner? What does that actually look like? Well, I've got something for you.

Michelle Mazur [00:11:35]: So head over to doctor michellemazur.com/mle. That's the letters M L E for my Market Like An Expert 7 Day Crash Course. It's specifically designed to help business owners like you create a do less but better marketing It's free. Go get it. It's also linked up in your podcast player's notes. So just click the button for Market Like An Expert and join us over there.

And remember, knowing who you are, creator or business owner, will dramatically impact how you approach your marketing. And if you're a business owner, embracing that identity means you can tune out all the noise from the creators telling you that you need to be everywhere and how to market on social media and all of that jazz and actually create a strategy that lets you do less marketing while getting better results. Until next time, my friend. Here's to you making marketing suck less.

Michelle Mazur [00:12:43]: If the Make Marketing Suck Less pod is making your marketing more effective so that your clients can find and hire you, please share the show with a friend. The easiest way to do that is through pod link. You can find the show at pod.link/rebel, and that page will allow anyone you share the show with to subscribe and start listening in their favorite podcast player.

That's pod.link/rebel.

The Make Marketing Suck Less podcast is a production of Communication Rebel. Our production coordinator is Jessica Gulley-Ward. The podcast is edited by Steven Mills, our executive producer is me, Dr. Michelle Mazur.

The make marketing suck less podcast is recorded on the unseated traditional lands of the coast salish peoples, specifically the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish people, original stewards of the land, past, and present.