470: How Some Brands Grow Faster With LESS Marketing

Listen to this episode. If you have ever asked yourself, do I just need to market more to scale my sales and to grow my business? Maybe to get you out of a plateau of sorts? We're going to dive into this today. It's one of the most common questions I get asked is, hey, my sales are kind of slow. Does that mean I just need to market more? Do I mean more platforms, more ads, more content, more emails? What does it actually really mean for me? And is marketing the actual bottleneck? And the reality here is that most brands don't have a marketing volume problem. They have a focus problem where more marketing doesn't fix weak marketing, but more content that isn't converting is really just creating more work for you or your team. So the brands that really are growing the fastest right now are often not the brands creating the most content. They're the brands creating the most intentional content. They know exactly who they're talking to, what they're saying, and why it matters. We have to think about this in the AI world. Content is pretty dang easy to come by. You can AI create whatever the quantity of your content is no longer going to be the differentiator. For a long time, you could just make more content and get more views. But now, because the content world is so incredibly saturated, it doesn't necessarily mean that that is what you have to do. Now, of course, content is not the only type of marketing that you are doing. That's social media marketing, but it's oftentimes kind of where everybody's brain goes when we talk about more marketing. But this also can mean, okay, do we add a platform? Do we do all these other pieces? So we're going to dive into this. We're going to talk about what you should be focusing on instead. How some brands really actually market less and what you need to do. The strongest brands have one major message. We're going to dive into that. And we're going to really talk about some of the biggest problems, some of the brands that are winning the most today and what they're doing right in the marketing world. I know marketing is a big bottleneck for a lot of people because we're not born marketers. Our brains are not just like coming out of the womb knowing how to market things. And so today we're really going to dive into what are the brands doing that are really winning? And how are those brands actually able to market less to their audience or to their customers at the end of the day? Before we do that, I just want to take 10 quick seconds to say hello. My name is Madison Page. Just in case you're new here, I'm the host of the Business Growth Podcasts and I work with product-based business owners to help them become the next category leader in their industry. And today we're diving in to all things marketing, which is one of my favorite topics to talk about. More marketing isn't the same as better marketing. So the problem here is that founders often assume that if they double their amount of content, they'll double the results. Or if they add another platform, they're just going to double their results. But marketing actually doesn't work that way because if you're already posting consistently, posting more isn't necessarily the answer. Many successful brands are posting once a day, five days a week. That's not an outrageous amount of content. They're just making sure that content is strategic and it has structure and it sticks longer than just, okay, it's live, it's out there. If your current content isn't converting adding new followers to your audience or to actually build you a community, adding more of it isn't actually going to solve the problems. If you don't see the markers that your marketing is actually working, adding more of it is not actually going to work. Before asking how much content you're creating, ask whether it's actually working. So this is where people ask me all the time. First call, they're like, well, how much should I be posting a week? I say, well, how much is it working for you right now? And they're like, oh, it's not really working well. Okay, well, we have to figure out how do we actually make it work? Well, first, we need to figure out your strategy and your pillars because if you're posting content without having actual content pillars, it's actually just not really going to work well for you. If you don't know what's actually helping you grow nurture or sell, it's actually not going to work. I think a good question to ask yourself is, do you have control over the results that you're making on your marketing right now? Meaning, if you needed to add more followers this week, do you know what piece of content and what pillar of your content to create in order to get there? If you wanted to add more sales this week, do you know what content levers are you pulling in order to make more sales? If the answer to that is no, more content is not actually going to help you. You need to figure out the strategy behind your content first. Most brands actually need more structure and not more content. A lot of content feels very random. Re-marketing in general feels random. They're all kind of thinking of every channel as its own channel instead of actually thinking of it like an ecosystem. People are thinking like, well, their organic marketing strategy is here, their ad strategy is here, it's doing its thing, the organic is here, the influencer marketing is here. We're in reality, they're all working together. We need to understand what is actually doing what in the marketing funnel because it's not just post or market and make sales. We are moving people through a buying process and we have to have different marketing to do that. So every piece of marketing is disconnected from the next when you're thinking of it in all these pillars. They're all in their own parallel universe just leading to sales. That's not how that works. So when we're looking here, we want to figure out how can we actually make more structure behind everything that you're doing. Do you know your content pillars? Do you know the key conversions that you're trying to really own? Do you know what you're trying to get out of each of those pillars? Not every piece of content you're trying to get sales. Some you're trying to get follows, some you're trying to get profile visits, some you're trying to get saves, whatever that might be. The goal isn't just to market to check the box. I really want you to think as the founder of your business. Again, we're really trying to focus on what are some of these mindset shifts that founders need to make here on these last couple episodes. As the founder of your company, the marketing is one of the most important things that you can do. Full stop, right? Because it is the thing that is housing your community, housing your acquisition, and housing the conversions that you're actually making. So understanding that if you're putting marketing on the back burner and using it as a check box, your customers are not actually going to love it, right? They're not going to feel like you're actually prioritizing it and making it something that they should be magnetized to. And so when we're really looking at this, you know, the initial question is that truly how some brands grow with less marketing, it's because they're actually just doing it in a more intentional sense. They don't need all of these other channels. They really only need a few. And one of the major things that you have to think about here is the brands that are really winning. Think of their marketing differently. They're thinking of it as the home of their community. They're thinking of it as how can we connect with our customer, not just having to push our product. Something that I see with brands that are often struggling with marketing is that they're thinking of marketing in a very transactional sense. Let's get it out there and get people to buy. Put it out there and get people to buy. This is where that like millennial marketing versus Gen Z marketing is kind of like this trend right now where they're comparing what these two things are. Gen Z marketing is how can we actually connect with our audience a little bit more and relate to them and identify and joke around and like think of marketing as it's like really not that serious. That's actually how brands are working right now, no matter who your audience is whether they're millennial Gen Z boomers, whatever it doesn't really matter. What people are seeing and what people are craving is just connection within a company within a brand. And so you have to understand that if you have this community and every single post you create is getting saved, it's getting shared, it's being sent to people in the DMs, it's getting posted on people's stories. Every time they buy from you, they're posting on their stories. Community is how people are truly getting to market less because your growth happens much easier. It happens much quicker because your community is doing the marketing for you. So what you have to do within your marketing is understand that the best brands are actually focusing on something else when it comes to their marketing then sales because it leads to more sales in the long run. They're focusing on community, they're focusing on connection, they're focusing on values, identity and building a warmer touch around your business. That can be across any channel with your ads, your organic marketing, your emails, you know, all of these different channels that you're using, we're really focusing on building relationships now because what our goal is is to build a community that is marketing for you that comes back and buys over and over again and every time you post is actually propelling your post out there further. And so when we're really looking at this, the strongest brands have one major message. Many brands are trying to communicate too many things at once. They have multiple offers and promises and audiences and directions. They've picked one audience, they have one major message that they know they're going to resonate with and they go all in on connecting with them and really creating a warm connection around them. So what is the thing that people are associating with your brand right now and how can we make sure that we can double down on that? You need a key message that people are really thinking of. Hey, I've been getting some DMs that you may not know what I do outside of hosting this podcast. I actually work with product-based business owners every single day to help them grow and scale their brand. If you really want my eyes one-on-one inside of your business to look at your strategy, to look at your funnels, to look at your data, and to develop your next campaign or bring your business or your idea to life, that is exactly what I do every single day. I've worked with 500 plus businesses across 70 different industries to help them become the next household name in their industry. If you are craving a business brain strategic advisor, a data-centered, obsessed person to come into your business and help you bring your idea to life, I'm your gal. Come on over to my Instagram @thisisMadisonPage DM me support. Otherwise, you can click the link in the show notes to apply today. Okay, back to the episode. You really need to master one current sales channel before adding new ones. So I don't really want you to say, okay, my business is slow. Let's add more marketing. Let's try to join TikTok and try to join here. Try to join over there because odds are if you're one marketing channel, which is most likely Instagram to an email list and a website, like those three channels, if that is not working for you, there's something broken within your marketing and your messaging and in your branding. We want to go there before we just try to add all of these other platforms because it's probably not actually a platform problem. New channels can of course be valuable, but they're not going to be the missing puzzle piece that finally make something blow up. Now, of course, there's anomalies here that somebody posted on TikTok. You know, they added TikTok and then also in their TikTok blew up for sure. That can happen. But if we're talking the average person, you know, if something wasn't working on Instagram, it's probably not going to work over on TikTok either. So the brands that are winning know two major things. They know how to build community and create connection with people. And the second thing is that they know how to stand out. They know how to say marketing is a crowded place. Your industry is most likely a crowded place. How do we put ourselves over here? How do we put ourselves in a different category and become our own brand? Consumers are seeing thousands of brands a day. Think about how many brands we are exposed to in a day and what makes them really want to connect with you. That's what you really have to come up with. And so just being present isn't enough anymore. Being different matters. Being memorable. Being clear. Being connection driven. Having values. And thinking about something deeper than just the transaction is what matters. And I know it feels light and fluffy for people that have been marketing forever. Or for people that are like, "Oh, I don't want to have to do all of that. I don't want my face out there." Like, I'm not in this to like build a community or to create connection with people. But that's really the core to what we're trying to do. It's what the core of marketing is in 2026. Why do you think we see these brand trips? You see these customer trips. You see these major pop-up events. Because people want to be a part of the brand. They want to feel like they have a connection to the brand. They're kind of creating brands like they're creating musicians these days. Right? A musician you see in concert when you really love them and you feel like you almost know that person better. You have VIP meet and greets because people want to be connected with that musician. People are trying to do that with brands now too. The brands that are winning have a strong brand world, a clear perspective on what really makes them different, consistent messaging. Content people genuinely want to consume. And it doesn't just feel transactional. Like you're trying to just sell me product all the time. A reason for customers to care. And a true sense of community at the core of everything that they're doing. The goal isn't to make more noise. The goal is to create something worth paying attention to. So when we're looking at this with your brand is how you actually get to market less is that you're marketing more intentionally with more depth. This doesn't mean you need to post more. If your sales are slow, if you're in a plateau, it means that you need to dig deeper within your marketing. So how you market less is that you focus on separating yourself and really standing out. And you focus on building a community. Because when you build a community and you have a really solid community of people that love you, what happens is your referral rates go up, your engagement rates go up, your share rates go up, your average order value goes up, your return customer rates go up, and everything gets to be more profitable. Because one customer is telling 15 people about that product or one customer is sharing your product every single time they use it because they absolutely love it. Influencers are naturally talking about it because there's just so much buzz around the company. And so what happens is that other people are doing the marketing for you and how in your marketing you actually do this is that you stand out and think of things deeper than actually like this sales objective. So I want you to think about some of these questions here. What really does your business stand for? Because I talk about this a lot. I have people come to me and they're like, "Matti, I get it, I need pillars and I need a message, and I need this." But like, how do I actually do that? And I understand that it's deeper. It's different for every business. If I could tell you exactly how to do that, I would have episodes on it. But I would need to talk to you directly in order to really understand what are you building and what does that look like. So let's try to work this through. What really does make your brand different than others? Is there a clear answer to that question for you? If not, how can we make there be one? Who is your brand actually created for? If you don't have one, we got to find one. Deeper than busy women between 25 and 45 are moms. Those are not audiences. Not a demographic if it's literally a massive chunk of the entire population. What values does your business have that would actually make these people want to latch on? And how strong do you feel like your messaging is right now to actually get people to understand the core of your business? Because this happens all the time too, is I'm talking to people and there's so much heart behind what you're building. But it isn't actually out there at all. I never see that in your marketing. I never see the depth. You're like, well, it's like a personal mission. Like other people don't care. But they do. They absolutely do. Now more than ever. And so what you have to do, if you really want to market less, because I know marketing is like the bane of many people's existence, is you just actually have to market more intentionally. A lot of my clients tell me that marketing is their least favorite thing. You know, it's the thing they put on the back burner. And even if you don't think it's your least favorite thing, if you don't do it all the time, it's probably because you either don't feel confident with it or you don't really love doing it, right? You never will feel like it. You kind of put it on the back burner. So many people come to me saying, I kind of hate the marketing side. They oftentimes hate it because it's not working for them or it feels so time consuming. Usually what happens there is that you don't actually have a structure or a strategy behind it. If you knew this is the messaging you're touching on, here's your five content pillars that I want you to touch on. And then here's the cadence that I want you to put it out there. And what the visuals are that you're supposed to look like. Wouldn't that take a lot of weight off? That is what a marketing strategy is. That is really how marketing works. That is how you get to actually release the burden of marketing. That's all that you need to do. But if those five posts that you're posting a week, Monday through Friday, are intentional and value-driven and actually make people feel something, then all of a sudden, every time you post, you're making sales, you're getting followers, wouldn't that be fun? Wouldn't that actually make you want to post more? I actually have a lot of clients come to me saying, Maddie, I feel like I should be marketing more. I feel like marketing should be taking up more of my time. Once they have a strategy, because it really is, is once you know what to do, it's just executing. It's not as much of, oh, hemming and hawing and guessing, and then hating what you're creating and feeling like it takes forever. What you really have to do is we have to come up with, okay, put it in the buckets, put it in the strategy, put it into a structure, and then you just say, okay, every week I've got to talk about this, I've got to talk about this, and you get to just go and execute. And that's really what the goal is, and that's really what you're able to do. So, I wanted to put this out there today because I've had a lot of people talking to me about, should I market more, should I add more onto my plate, but I don't really have more time, you know, should I be adding all of these platforms? Really the answer is, before you add more, you just have to make sure that, is it good? Is it working? Is it effective in one area? Because if it's not effective here, most likely it's not going to be effective over here. We have to come up with the brand strategy and the messaging and the marketing strategy to actually make it effective. Because if it's not effective in one platform, one area, it's mostly likely not going to be in another. And so it doesn't necessarily mean you need to market more. It means you need to market better. That's really the end of the day what we're trying to say here. If you do want support on this, this is something that I work with, many business owners to do. We only have truly just a couple of spots left to work with us one on one through the end of the year. I know that's crazy because we're not even a halfway through the year, but it is the reality of our spots and our availability right now. So, if you are craving it, leading into the holidays, now is the time to optimize your business before we get to the holiday season. Before the holiday season is here, you want to optimize first. Make sure that you have that community going into the holidays. Those are things that we can help you build. We focus on all of these things, branding, marketing, messaging, sales and every growth endeavor kind of throughout that process. So you can always click the link in the show notes and apply. Otherwise, you can come on over to my Instagram and DM me support. I hope this episode was helpful for you. Regardless, I'm just here to provide you all of the context and information that I can. And of course, if you are looking for support with my brain in your business, it's actually more than information. It's having me into the integration into your company, into the feedback coming up with that messaging, coming up with those content ideas, learning the five different feed pillars that you need to be talking about, and how do we actually build this community? That's what's really important. So, I hope you're doing well. I hope this was helpful for you. I love you. I'm rooting for you in your corner always. I will see you in that next episode. [MUSIC] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Business Growth Podcast. We put up new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. So if you love this one, make sure that you're subscribed so you never miss a conversation. If you want more conversations with me and other business owners, make sure that you join our completely free podcast community, The Founders Cafe. The link is in the show notes. You can get bonus resources, access to free coaching calls, as well as connect with like-minded business owners like yourself. Make sure that you rate and review the podcast by stars. Share it with a friend to keep those conversations moving and come back every Tuesday and Friday. I'll see you there.