Cake, Content Marketing, and Recipes: Ain't No Guarantees Even IF You Follow Directions
Marketing, like baking, requires the right ingredients and a dash of experimentation. Thoughts inspired by a recent baking adventure that can help your SMB find the right marketing recipe.
I gar-on-tee!
Justin Wilson, The Cajun Chef
Are you holding back from marketing your business – or trying something new – because there are no guarantees?
That resistance . . . that friction is present when starting anything new.
There aren’t any guarantees.
That’s just life.
BUT.
But there are recipes and formulas, successful for others, that can be followed, tweaked, and adapted to your own small business marketing needs.
I gar-on-tee you'll never find the ones that taste good unless you start cooking.
The Gateau Basque
I baked a Gateau Basque last week. It was half disaster, but still a huge success.
I’m a mighty fine cook, but rarely bake – it’s too precise and sciencey for me. I like the “sprinkle in some seasoning until the spirits of your ancestors tell you to stop” approach I take when making gumbo (and most everything else for that matter).
In my weekly cooking adventure with my daughters (cooking a dish from each state every week after a year of Taco Tuesdays), I learned that there’s a Basque population in Nevada. Once I spotted that cake recipe, I had to give it a shot (along with a simple, yet excellent pinto bean recipe). The other options for a Nevada state dish – shrimp cocktail, invented in 1954 in Vegas, or a “buffet.”
Once the girls – and one boyfriend – left, I started thinking about recipes and marketing.
Marketing Recipes
There are quite a few “recipes” for marketing. From strategy to tactics, you can download playbooks/guidance from a company like HubSpot for anything inbound related or follow the SEO advice of Moz. Read the ebooks, blogs, and other content assets from HubSpot and Moz and you'll be on your way to a solid content marketing strategy.
There are also thousands of folks happy to sell you books and courses for specific how-tos within your strategy: storytelling tips, how to use LinkedIn, how to write a headline, and so much more.
Dozens of those are even good!
Marketing keeps companies in business. As Henry Ford once said, “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.” Replace “advertising” with “marketing” and it remains true.
I’ve had a hard time finding actual statistics, but:
Most businesses fail within 5 years.
Some percentage of those failures are because of zero or bad marketing.
So there’s a pretty damn good chance, if not a guarantee, that not doing any marketing – content marketing, digital marketing, inbound marketing, email marketing, etc. – will kill your business.
On the other hand, any smaller business has recipes for success at their fingertips.
You just have to get into the marketing kitchen.
Mistakes Will Be Made
As I mentioned, I seldom bake. I followed the recipe exactly, but it still didn’t turn out perfectly.
The top – gorgeous (I was/am very proud of that!).
The taste – delicious.
The bottom – well, you see the pic. Before I flipped it over to the pretty side, I used the pieces stuck in the pan to spackle over the bigger gaps on the bottom.
My baking takeaway – make sure to spray the sides of the pan, use a cake pan with higher sides, and cook directly on the oven rack (I had set it on top of the pizza stone that lives in my oven, thinking the heat would be the same, apparently not so much).
As I tell my girls all the time, “this is how we learn.”
The next time I make Gateau Basque; it’ll be closer to perfect.
Marketing recipes will work for businesses of any size. They might not work exactly – little more salt, little less butter, or even a different recipe might be needed. Your customers might
enjoy video over blogs
prefer longer content over shorter content, or
you might think they're on LinkedIn when they’re on Facebook.
Whatever your successful recipe is, you won’t find it without baking that first cake.
Content: The Common Ingredient for All Marketing
I will explore “content” in future posts. It’s a loaded, confusing term in marketing.
Whatever form your marketing takes, it boils down to effectively using words to move a person to take an action.
That’s content.
The container for your content could be an email, social media post, blog post, ebook or whitepaper, video, infographic, photo, etc.
The content could share a story, be a joke, how to advice, opinion, or an elite guide to restaurants (The Michelin Guide began as a way to get people to drive more to sell more tires).
Content is the core of every marketing effort.
Why Should an SMB Even Care About Marketing?
Because you want to stay in business.
Even if your business is doing well, it could be better. It can always be better, right?
You’ve probably done one of two things:
Tried to do the marketing yourself but didn’t have time to do it well.
Ignored it entirely.
I know content marketing works. I’ve seen it work for SMBs. I still refuse to channel my inner Justin Wilson and gar-on-tee success – there are too many variations (especially how well your sales team closes) – if you follow any recipes you find.
Marketing is in a state of upheaval at the moment from multiple directions. A short list would include at least:
The impact of generative AI.
Social media platforms frequently change their policies and algorithms. These changes throw marketing plans into confusion.
The usual assortment of hucksters and get rich quick folks promising outlandish results.
Even the experts don’t know everything about all aspects of marketing.
I do know that connecting with your customers will keep you in business. Content (blogs, ebooks, videos, and all the rest, especially newsletters) is a foundation for that connection.
I WILL gar-on-tee that there IS a content marketing recipe that will work for you business.
I WILL gar-on-tee that if you use content to answer your customers’ questions, you will begin to make connections.
I WILL gar-on-tee that some of the decisions on content won’t work.
I WILL gar-on-tee that some will.
I WILL gar-on-tee that if you don’t market your business, your competition is marketing theirs.
Start Mixing Your Content Marketing Strategy
Tweaking your marketing plan isn’t a sign that it isn’t working, it’s a sign that it’s not working yet. Don't let the fear of the unknown hold you back – embrace the process, adapt, and watch your business thrive.
Struggling in your marketing kitchen? Let’s find the recipe that’ll have your customers hovering around the mixing bowl — and fighting to lick the spoon.
Email me at duhonius@gmail.com or call/text me at 301-275-7496. Ask me about my “Newsletter-in-a-Box” offer.