Building Your Own Marketing Machine

Having a website without doing much or any marketing is like having a house out in the middle of nowhere, disconnected from the highway.

It may be pretty and function perfectly, but if no one can find it or knows how to get there, who’s going to visit?

These days, a website is just the beginning. Unless you’re satisfied with doing business or outreach with the folks you know and you don’t want to expand, it’s not enough just to have a site.

You’ve overcome the first problem of not having a website, but now you have to make sure to avoid the next two problems that many, many business owners and nonprofits end up facing.

Avoid These At All Costs

You got a website, but it’s just sitting pretty and not doing much or anything for your business or organization.

If you don’t have a combination of funnels (marketing by cold email, social media, paid ads, SEO, etc.) driving folks to your site, then you’re not using the website to its full potential to maximize your revenue or outreach.

You got a website that’s no longer so pretty because time has passed and now it’s full of errors, lacking content, outdated, got poor SEO, and with little or no marketing happening.

You’re not even sure where to start, but you know you need professional help. You’re missing out on potential traffic, sales, donations and volunteers.

How can you make sure these problems don’t become yours?

3 principles

See marketing as an investment, not a cost

Understandably, if you’re not making much money or don’t have enough funding, it can be hard to afford regular expenses. So it’s fine if you don’t have much of a marketing budget to start off with and you rely on free advertising methods and your social and professional network.

But once you start to earn more or acquire funding, you should be earmarking a certain portion of your dollars for marketing purposes only if you want to scale.

Sometimes I meet business owners who see getting or improving a website as burden, even though they could afford the expense.

But in fact, what they should be seeing is lost opportunities since they’re not gaining traction online. If their other offline marketing methods stop being so effective or if they suddenly have bigger expenses, they don’t have other ways of getting enough clients.

Starting with a small monthly effort with a few bucks on paid ads, a more affordable SEO plan, or a cheaper email marketing platform with a couple of campaigns a week is better than not starting at all.

For example, at first, I wasn’t able to afford setting up my own cold outreach system. I started without any fancy automation or purchasing lead lists, sending manual emails and following up with cold calls as I studied different niches.

But now I can afford to send out about 6000 – 9000 emails a month, and the payoff is well worth the investment.

Patience and consistency

If you expect your marketing efforts to always pay off right away, you need to lower your expectations.

The reason there’s so much testing and optimization in the marketing world is because it’s not easy to know exactly what ads or email copy or social media posts will be the most effective one for a brand.

You have to be patient as you or your team go through the iterative process of figuring out what works for your company or charity.

It may seem like time lost, but if you pay close attention to what works with your audience, you can gain valuable lessons about what you should or shouldn’t be doing.

For instance, with web design and marketing, I learned the educational approach works much better than trying to sell people big-ticket services through paid ads.

If you give up too early on a marketing strategy or channel, then you may never learn whether or not it’s effective or the right fit.

Sometimes I meet business owners or nonprofit professionals who’ve had bad luck with web design and marketing agencies, and I can understand that they’re hesitant to trust again.

However, just because a strategy didn’t pan out or you unfortunately hired the wrong help doesn’t mean you stop or take a break from marketing.

Keep trying to expand your marketing efforts, but do it smartly based on data, best practices, or better criteria for choosing agencies and freelancers.

Don’t depend on one channel or Funnel

When one marketing channel is paying off, it can be easy to just focus on it and forget about the other ones.

But since the world and the economy can be unstable, this is equivalent to putting all your eggs in one basket.

What if you’re relying on Facebook and your page or group is shutdown? What if Google changes the rules for paid ads and that affects your campaigns? What if your referral partners start sending you fewer or no referrals?

It’s wisest to insulate yourself from these kinds of unexpected challenges by having multiple traffic sources.

And if you have dreams of growing your business or nonprofit, it’s going to be very difficult if you rely only one source.

Here are your options:

• SEO
• Paid Ads
• Social Media Platforms
• Cold Email and Cold Calling (for B2B)
• Networking & Partnerships: Referrals, Collaborations, White-labeling
• In-Person Location
• Direct Mail Campaigns

A lead who sees your offer in a cold email, your website, your Google ad, your post on X, your webinar on YouTube, and so on is more likely to convert than just a site visitor.

And once you get them into your funnel, how are you going to convince them to buy, donate or sign up?

• Free stuff, like a sample or giveaway
• Lead magnets, like a free checklist or ebook
• Discounts
• Low-ticket products, later upselling to primary, expensive offerings
• Events, like a webinar, workshop, talk to show off your expertise and the unique value of your offer
• Appointment setting, which means working through your lead list to book meetings
• Newsletter
• Community, like an in-person or online group

I do my best to be active regularly on as many fronts as possible. But, and this is very important, only do what you can do well.

There’s no point in starting and stopping SEO or putting in half-baked effort into your newsletter. You won’t see enough ROI and you might turn off some prospects.

Wait until you have enough funds and people-power for marketing every month before trying to promote your organization through more channels.

Here’s what all the possibilities look like:

To Conclude

I hope I’ve given you a lot to consider.

If you agree with the principles, but you are wondering how to get started with some of these marketing channels, check out my free guides or, if you’re ready to invest, book a meeting with me.