You've got a website. You're posting on social media. You've probably tried a few Google Ads, sent the occasional email campaign and maybe even boosted a Facebook post or two.
You're doing marketing.
But is it actually working?
It's a question plenty of business owners struggle to answer. Not because they're doing nothing, but because they're doing a little bit of everything without necessarily knowing what's making a difference.
And that's where things start to go wrong.
The good news? You probably don't need to rip everything up and start again.
You might just need a better plan.
Being busy with marketing isn't the same as being effective
One of the biggest misconceptions about marketing is that more activity automatically means better results.
More social media posts. More adverts. More emails. More content.
But marketing isn't a competition to see who can produce the most stuff.
A business publishing five social media posts every week without a clear purpose could achieve less than another publishing two genuinely useful pieces of content that speak directly to its customers.
The difference isn't necessarily the amount of work.
It's the thinking behind it.
Before creating anything, ask yourself three questions:
- Who are we trying to reach?
- What do we want them to do?
- Why should they choose us?
If you can't answer those questions, there's a good chance your marketing needs some direction.
1. You're trying to speak to everyone
When you try to appeal to everybody, you often end up connecting with nobody.
It sounds counterintuitive. Surely reaching more people is a good thing?
Not necessarily.
Imagine you're a construction company specialising in commercial projects. Your customers might be facilities managers, property developers or procurement teams.
Their priorities are likely to include reliability, compliance, experience and confidence that a job will be completed properly.
A generic social media post saying "We provide high-quality services at competitive prices" doesn't really tell them anything.
Now imagine a piece of content explaining how your team completed a challenging project safely, within a tight timeframe and with minimal disruption.
That's much more compelling.
It demonstrates that you understand the customer's problems and know how to solve them.
What to do instead: Identify your most valuable customer groups, understand their challenges and create marketing that speaks directly to them.
2. Your marketing channels aren't working together
Your website says one thing. Your social media focuses on something else. Your Google Ads send visitors to a generic homepage and your email campaigns don't really have a purpose.
Sound familiar?
This is surprisingly common, particularly in smaller businesses where marketing responsibilities are shared between several people.
The problem isn't necessarily the individual channels.
It's that they're disconnected.
Good marketing should feel joined up.
For example, imagine you're launching a new service.
You could create a dedicated website page explaining the benefits, publish a blog answering common customer questions, run targeted advertising to reach relevant audiences and support the campaign with social media content.
Each activity has a different role, but they're all working towards the same outcome.
That's a campaign.
And it's usually much more effective than a collection of unrelated posts and adverts.
3. You're measuring the wrong things
Let's talk about followers, likes and impressions.
They're not meaningless. They can help you understand how your content is performing.
But they don't tell the whole story.
A post reaching 20,000 people might look fantastic on a monthly report.
But what happened next?
Did anyone visit your website? Did they enquire? Did they buy something? Did they remember your business when they needed your services?
For many businesses, those are the questions that matter.
Depending on your objectives, useful measurements might include:
- Qualified website enquiries
- Cost per lead
- Online purchases or bookings
- Conversion rates
- Revenue generated from marketing campaigns
- Returning customers
- Customer acquisition costs
The right metrics depend on what you're trying to achieve.
A brand awareness campaign will naturally have different success measures from a campaign designed to generate immediate sales.
What to do instead: Set clear objectives before launching marketing activity and make sure you've got reliable tracking in place.
4. Your website isn't doing its job
You can have the best advertising campaign in the world, but if the website people land on is confusing, slow or difficult to use, you're making life unnecessarily hard.
Think about the last time you visited a website and couldn't immediately find what you needed.
Did you spend ten minutes searching?
Probably not.
Your customers are no different.
A good business website should quickly communicate what you do, who you help and why someone should choose you.
It should also make the next step obvious.
That might be requesting a quote, booking a consultation, making a purchase or simply getting in touch.
If your website isn't converting visitors into enquiries, sending more traffic to it might just mean spending more money without solving the underlying problem.
5. You're expecting results too quickly
Some marketing channels can generate results relatively quickly.
Others take time.
Google Ads, for example, can put your business in front of people actively searching for your services. But campaigns still need careful setup, monitoring and optimisation.
Search engine optimisation, on the other hand, is generally a longer-term investment.
Building useful content, improving your website and developing search visibility takes consistent work.
Social media also has different roles depending on your business. It might generate direct enquiries, support recruitment, build familiarity or help maintain relationships with existing customers.
The important thing is understanding what each channel is supposed to achieve.
Expecting every marketing activity to produce immediate sales is a recipe for frustration.
6. Nobody really owns the strategy
This is a big one.
In many small and medium-sized businesses, marketing is something that happens between everything else.
The business owner writes a Facebook post when they remember. Someone in the office updates the website. A salesperson occasionally sends an email campaign.
Everybody is doing their best.
But nobody is necessarily looking at the bigger picture.
Who's reviewing performance?
Who's deciding what to prioritise?
Who's making sure the website, advertising, content and wider business objectives all support one another?
Without somebody taking responsibility for the overall direction, marketing can become reactive rather than proactive.
That doesn't mean every business needs a full-time marketing director.
Sometimes it simply means having an experienced marketing partner who can bring everything together.
So, how do you fix it?
Start with an honest assessment of where you are.
Look at what's working, what's underperforming and what you're actually trying to achieve.
You don't necessarily need to increase your budget.
You might need to redirect it.
You might discover that your website needs improving before you invest in advertising. Perhaps your Google Ads are generating enquiries but they're the wrong type of customer. Or maybe you've got a fantastic business with plenty of experience but you're not communicating it effectively.
Whatever the situation, the answer should come from understanding your business rather than following the latest marketing trend.
Marketing should help your business move forward
At 7 Degrees Media, we work with businesses that want marketing to achieve something meaningful.
That might mean improving an existing website, developing a clearer strategy, managing advertising campaigns or creating photography and content that shows what makes a business different.
We believe good marketing starts with understanding the business behind it.
Not just ticking boxes.
Feel like your marketing could be doing more?
Let's have a conversation about where you are, where you want to go and how we can help you get there.