Welcome to Episode 1 of the Video Marketing Secrets podcast!
Today, we’re tackling ONE scary question that marketers and business owners everywhere are grappling with…
Has marketing actually become HARDER right now? Are entrepreneurs today facing more difficulties than before in promoting their products and services, generating leads, and converting prospects into customers?
Sadly, the answer… is yes. And in this week’s episode, I’ll be breaking down not only ALL the ways in which online marketing today is more challenging — and even downright HOSTILE — to small business owners…
…BUT ALSO, I will show you what exactly you can do about it, so you can grow your business exponentially in 2022 and beyond.
Click Play to listen to the episode, or read the transcript below, and let’s get started!
You’re not imagining it.
Marketing your business IS harder right now, in 2022, than it’s ever been.
…But not for the reasons you might think.
I have personally met dozens and dozens of business owners who are struggling to attract, convert, and retain their ideal customers. Or heck — ANY customers, period!
Not because they don’t know their target market…
Not because their product or service is mediocre — far from it…
And certainly NOT because they’re slacking off on getting their message out!
So why is it happening, then?
Why are those entrepreneurs having such a hard time growing their businesses?
Because they assume that online marketing is the same as it was 10 years ago. They think:
“Hey, all I gotta do is create great content, promote it on socials to grow my audience, find influencers to amplify my messages, and drive conversions with ads. And then my business is bound to grow!”
…Not exactly.
Today, in 2022, this assumption comes with devastating consequences. And I’m going to tell you why in this episode.
You will see how exactly online marketing has changed compared to a decade ago, or even as recently as 2016. You will discover how the modern internet ecosystem is precision-engineered to ROB YOU of traffic, engagement, and conversions…
…and most importantly, you will learn exactly how to fight back — and generate tremendous ROI from your marketing campaigns, even with the odds stacked massively against you.
Sound good? Then let’s begin.
For a long time, effective marketing boiled down to one simple formula:
- Create compelling content your audience will love
- Promote that content on social media, linking back to your website
- PLUS, optimize it for search engines to drive more traffic
- Supplement with paid marketing as necessary
- Aaand… PROFIT!
Well, it doesn’t work anymore. For two reasons.
Reason #1 is the most obvious and inescapable, because it’s the natural consequence of the internet getting as big as it is right now…
“Good” content is no longer enough. There’s just SO MUCH content coming at your customers from all directions, all the time, that standing out on the basis of quality alone becomes impossible.
EVERYONE’s content is top quality these days! EVERYBODY invests a ton of thought and resources in everything they post! The baseline for “good” content has become sky high!
So: what does it mean for your business and your marketing? A couple of things…
First and foremost, you want to create a scalable system to promote and amplify the content you create. The most important part of content marketing isn’t creation — it’s promotion. And in 2022 it’s only become MORE essential for growth.
Rule #1: Invest 80% of your efforts in promoting your new and existing content, and the other 20% in creating new assets
That way, you will extract every drop of ROI from anything you produce before pivoting to something new.
Now, you might be wondering, “Summer, but if my content can’t stand out based on quality, how can I earn the attention of my audience? That’s not something you can solve with more promotion.”
That’s a great question… and it leads us smoothly to the second insight I wanted to share.
Rule #2: CONTENT FIT is more important than CONTENT QUALITY (or quantity!)
Or in other words: to attract and engage your ideal customers, you want to embrace specificity and niche appeal in your content.
Why? Because your audience will always choose a flawed piece of content that speaks directly to THEM over a piece of content that’s more polished… but also more generic.
Bespoke content that fully aligns with your prospects’ needs and goals will ALWAYS convert, and never go out of style. And that’s where you want to direct your time, energy, and money.
BUT here’s the bad news…
Even laser-targeted content and smart promotion plus amplification aren’t enough.
Because there’s another reason why marketers struggle so much right now — and it’s much harder to address.
The internet ecosystem in 2022 is MORE CENTRALIZED, and LESS FRIENDLY to entrepreneurs, than ever before.
And if it sounds like I’m exaggerating… trust me, I wish I was.
Today’s web is consolidated into a small handful of big platforms — and exactly ZERO of them want to share traffic and users with you or with me.
Case in point:
Business owners used to be able to drive consistent traffic from social media. But now, social algorithms are designed to suppress ANY posts that have outgoing links. Sometimes even the WORDS like “link in bio” can cause your post to get buried.
Oh, and even if you don’t link out, your followers have a much smaller chance to see your posts organically. That means, you’re often forced to pay to promote your social media posts TO YOUR OWN FOLLOWERS just to make sure they get noticed!
OK, no problem, there are always more ways to drive traffic, like SEO…
…except more than half of web searches begin and end with zero click-throughs.
There used to be a time when search engines wanted you to spend AS LITTLE TIME AS POSSIBLE on their own sites, and move on because you’ve found what you were looking for. But now that they can show ads non-stop and siphon off sensitive user data? Suddenly, it’s all about keeping people on the search results page!
But wait — what about ads? Surely, you can throw money at the problem and attract customers that way!
Well, unless you really know what you’re doing when it comes to paid traffic, your business is going to be sandwiched between growing advertising costs on one side… and a mistrusting, ad-block-using audience on the other side.
So unless you are advertising to already-primed prospects who know you and like you, paid traffic is going to cost you — and the ROI is going to be disappointing.
…Phew! If you’ve been feeling bummed out listening to this, I understand.
It wasn’t my intention to discourage you, though. But I believe it’s important that you know the truth. Those issues I’ve described plague pretty much every major online entity, from search engines, to social networks, to video platforms.
They have an overwhelming incentive to keep users on their sites, no matter what — and to extract as much ad spend from you as they can. All this is in direct conflict with YOUR goals and needs as a business owner.
So what can you DO about it?
If the channels you used to rely on for traffic and leads aren’t playing nice… which strategies are left available to you to grow your business?
There are quite a few, actually! Let me break them down for you here.
One of the key principles behind successful marketing in 2022 is…
Rule #3: Build an asset that only YOU own
Sooner or later, third-party platforms will let you down. They have lower engagement, worse conversions, and they are fundamentally out of your control. Algorithms may change and doom your content to obscurity; you might get banned for no good reason; the platform itself could become obsolete like MySpace — remember that one?
That’s why you must start growing YOUR website or blog and YOUR email list yesterday.
And sure, it’s so much harder now than it used to be… But consider this: it’s only going to get harder as time goes on!
But if you make your website and your list THE ultimate focus of all your marketing campaigns…
…then in a few years you’ll have a profitable asset that’s 100% independent from third-party platforms and totally free from their whims!
If you ask me, that’s a goal worth aspiring to.
And if we continue this line of reasoning, then it follows that you must…
Rule #4: Prioritize real growth over vanity metrics
In today’s online marketing landscape, getting 10 more email subscribers…
…or 100 more monthly visitors to your website…
…or even 1 extra sale per week…
…is worth more than ten thousand new followers on social media.
Listen, I like big numbers as much as the next gal — but if they don’t grow your bottom line, banish them from your mind, AND from your marketing strategy!
Next, you need to…
Rule #5: Leverage the social media algorithm for your benefit, and create high-engagement, platform-first content for your business
Produce social content that gets your followers buzzing and interacting with your brand… do it a few times to build as much engagement as you can…
…and then once in a while, post a link to your website or blog to channel all that attention into real visits and conversions!
Balancing engaging content with attracting clicks — THAT is the key to thriving in today’s social media landscape.
And finally…
Rule #6: Invest in VISUAL, EMOTIONAL content
There are a few reasons to do that.
First off — the biggest online platforms in existence are designed to favor video and other visual content. It’s what their algorithm is looking for, and pushes to users at every opportunity.
But beyond that, visual content — ESPECIALLY VIDEO — has a much greater capacity to attract and engage an audience.
Remember our earlier conversation about quality, and crafting laser-targeted content that speaks to your ideal customers? Video is a natural fit for this kind of strategic goal, because it can resonate with your audience on multiple levels.
Visually, it can pack a ton of information in just a few seconds of footage. This is a godsend for modern content marketing, because prospects today tend to be extremely distractible. It’s not that their attention span is too short — that’s a myth — it’s that they have literally thousands of messages competing for their attention!
And on the level of audio, video content can convey the message in the EXACT WORDS your customers would use to describe their problem, the ideal solution they crave, and the goals they want to achieve.
When your message is aligned with your audience’s thoughts like that, on the level of language itself — plus combined with captivating visuals — it becomes quite literally IRRESISTIBLE!
…
In future episodes, I will show you exactly how to create magnetic videos that convert on any platform. But for now, I’m going to leave you with these 6 principles that will help your marketing reach the right audience in 2022 — and beyond.
Just to recap, here they are:
- Invest 20 percent of your time and resources in content creation — and 80 percent in content promotion.
- Content alignment with your target audience matters more than content quality.
- Build independently owned marketing assets, as in your website and email list.
- Prioritize real growth — a.k.a. subscribers and website visits — over vanity metrics like number of followers.
- Leverage platform-first social content to boost engagement and followers… and then once in a while, direct those people to your owned assets — website and email list.
- Invest in visual content that connects with your audience emotionally, especially video.
Aaand that’s all I have for you today! Tune in next week to learn my #1 most profitable insight about video marketing, directly responsible for multiple seven figures in revenue and millions of views!
