Balancing reputation building and quick-win strategies in your marketing

Many coaches and consultants are busy with doing ‘stuff’ for their marketing.

In this blog, I will share the Marketing Spectrum, which explains:

• that marketing strategies are not created equal

• how to balance reputation building with quick-win strategies

My objective is to help you focus on fewer, bigger and better things that get you more returns for your time investment.

Here is what I call the Marketing Spectrum:

At one end are strategies meant for reputation building. If you produce great content, you’ll get likes and comments. And even if you have a clear sales funnel or a call to action, you can expect low conversion rates below 3% from actual views to paying clients.

Investing all your energies in these strategies will keep you busy with lots of ‘stuff’, but may not give you the financial returns quickly enough.

But reputation building is important. When people look you up, they see your social media profile or website. If it’s vague or empty, they’ll wonder if you’re serious. If it’s filled with cat videos, you can imagine how unimpressed your audience will be (unless you’re selling cute cat services). Later, I’ll share with you five keys to an effective reputation-building strategy.

At the other end of the Marketing Spectrum are strategies designed to get quicker wins. They have a higher conversion rate because you’re interacting directly with people who are already interested in what you do. So they know you, they like you, and they are ready to trust you.

You can imagine that if you spend more time doing quick-win strategies, you’ll get more returns in a shorter period of time. Later, I’ll share with you three common mistakes people make in their quick-win strategies and how to avoid them.

When you’re marketing yourself, a balance of reputation-building and quick-win strategies will get you noticed and booked. You’ll not only gain an audience, but you’ll also start attracting paying clients.

Reputation-building strategies

Let’s dig deeper then. What are the five keys for doing this effectively?

1. Don’t just re-post or share other people’s content

The purpose of reputation building is to build your reputation. You aren’t the marketing manager of other service providers.

It’s nice to give the impression that you agree with a famous guru and you want to repost their content, but you also need to have a good portion of your own content.

For people to like and trust you, they need to know what you stand for, your wisdom, and your tips.

2. Don’t overthink it

Remember: no matter how long you spend creating that one piece of content, it stays on the timeline for only a few seconds. So don’t overthink it; it doesn’t have to be perfect.

Especially when you’re starting out, perfectionism can leave you trapped in self-doubt and procrastination. Just get it out there and learn from it. Don’t aim for millions of likes for one post. It doesn’t happen overnight. Do it well, but don’t try to do it perfectly!

3. Post bite-size content frequently

In my experience, it’s better to post bite-size content instead of huge documentaries. People have very limited attention spans these days. Reading long articles or watching long videos can turn people off, especially when they don’t know you well enough.

It’s better to give them bite-size chunks and a call to action to contact you if they want to talk more. If you’re serious about getting yourself out there, post five times per week. If you feel this is overwhelming, try three times a week. Anything less will just prolong your results.

4. Show up the way you want people to perceive you

If you want to be seen as professional, show up in a professional outfit using professional language. If you want to be an outlier, you can be different, with the consequence that you’re limiting your audience to people who appreciate your disruptiveness.

This seems obvious, but it’s amazing how many times I’ve seen people trying to be perceived a certain way, yet use a completely different style in their content.

• Executive coaches showing up with a skinny tank-top and speaking like a teenager

• Sales coaches who look so arrogant, you can’t imagine even buying from them

• Professional digital marketers who look like they just got out of bed

As an additional note, show up in the way that’s most convenient for your audience. If they prefer video, do video. If they’re busy people, perhaps audio can be more convenient. If they’re not on social media, don’t use social media!

5. Always have a call to action

If you want to make your content convertible, always add a call to action. Many coaches and consultants hesitate to add a call to action because they feel they’re being salesy. But that’s the limiting belief that prevents them from helping more people.

To me, a call to action is your way to help your audience advance. Everyone knows you can’t really get results from just reading a blog or watching a video. Those are just tips. If you really care about your audience, guide them to the next step.

Get them to talk to you, attend your webinar, follow your group, or whatever ‘next step’ means in your business. Don’t assume people will take the action without an invitation from you. Your audience gets bombarded with offers from so many sources. Don’t assume they know how to get back to you.

• Make it clear. Have one call to action for each piece of content.

• Make it easy. Give them a link to quickly access it.

• Make it instant. Make sure your landing pages upload quickly and automate a confirmation email once they’ve completed the action.

Quick-win strategies

Now, let’s talk about these strategies and how to avoid the three common mistakes when executing them.

Mistake #1: Not having full control

Let’s use the example of ‘speaking’ to get leads. You can rely on other people to invite you to be a speaker in their events, but you need to also hold your own regular event that’s fully within your control.

Have you ever been booked as a speaker, and then got postponed because the inviting party experienced some changes in their calendar? Or perhaps the event was cancelled and the organisers told you they’ll “get back to you to book another time?”

The problem with strategic partners is that they aren’t only focused on promoting you. They run their own organisations and have their own goals. If speaking is your key strategy to get business, you need to have your own events or work with more strategic partners so that your speaking diary is always full.

Mistake #2: Not adding enough value

Just because it’s a quick-win strategy, it doesn’t mean all you do is sell. You have to always add value. Think of it as the 80/20 rule: 80% value, 20% sell.

Let’s use webinars as an example, as they’re a great quick-win strategy. But have you ever sat in a webinar and felt frustrated that the speaker is just talking fluff and showing you testimonials?

We all know the typical webinar script. They’ll promise you a bonus if you stay in the end. They’ll promise to tell you the seven keys to success if you listen to their story. But after you’ve invested an hour of your time listening to them, the content turns out to be less than impressive and cluttered with so many sales slides.

These people want to get quick conversions off a webinar, but they’re not doing it elegantly. They try to get people to buy before winning their trust. Don’t be like that! Wow people with content and provide a clear call to action that makes them want to talk further with you.

Mistake #3: Stopping what has worked before

Many people stop doing strategies which have worked! Why? Because they’re bored or distracted by the latest and the greatest.

If you’ve been doing this for a while, here’s my question to you: what strategies have worked for you? How do you keep doing more of them?

Forget what your friend says you should do. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to use the latest social media trend. What has worked before? How can you do it again and again?

Marketing yourself is about mastering yourself and knowing which strategies feature you at your best. It’s not about copying other people – it’s about being authentically you. So if something has worked before, keep doing it before taking a risk to try new things.

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