If you've been showing up online and not seeing the results you were hoping for, there's a good chance one of these five mistakes is part of the reason why.

In this episode, I'm walking through the most common things I see businesses do when they first get into marketing — patterns that come up with my clients, at networking events, and in conversations I have on a regular basis. None of these are about working harder. Most of the time it's about shifting the approach.

What You'll Learn:

• Why trying to be on every platform at once tends to slow your growth down rather than speed it up
• The difference between a content creator and a marketer — and why it matters when you're deciding who to hire
• Why entertaining content and purely educational content can both work against you if that's all you're creating
• Why creating content week to week keeps you reactive instead of strategic — and what to do instead

Work With KLC The Studio: If you recognized yourself anywhere in this episode, that's exactly what our first call is for. Head to klcthestudio.com to book a call and let's talk through it.

Hey, guys.

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Welcome back to the podcast.

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I'm Kiera, owner of KLC The Studio.

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If you are new here, hi,

so glad you found us.

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Welcome to what I'm calling

the Marketing Playbook Series.

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Essentially, this is a series where I am

answering the most asked questions that I

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get as a marketer questions that come up

with my clients, questions that come up in

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networking events, and things like that.

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And I just wanted to create a playbook

that kinda sifts through all of the

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noise and all of your guys' most

pressing questions, and give you sort

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of a kickstarter into how to pursue

marketing if you're new to doing

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marketing online, if you are someone

who's been doing it for a while but you

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haven't seen the results that you want.

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This was created for you.

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And so as you can tell by

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Speaker 6: today's topic, we are gonna be

talking about the mistake most businesses

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make when they first start marketing.

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So let's go ahead and dive in.

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Mistake number one is trying

to be everywhere at once.

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And I think this comes from the way

that businesses consume content.

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So typically in our day-to-day lives,

we are on multiple channels at once.

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Of course, we have channels that

we're on the majority of the time.

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You might be a TikTok girlie, an

Instagram person, a LinkedIn person.

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You have your go-to that it is

that you check, but you also review

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content from multiple other platforms.

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So you may get sent a

video and it's on YouTube.

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You're not really someone who watches

YouTube, but you go to YouTube, and

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then you get sucked in to watching

a whole bunch of YouTube Shorts.

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Or maybe you're someone who is reading

an article in The New York Times and it

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takes you to another article, and the

next thing you know, you're down a rabbit

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hole with reading a bunch of blogs.

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And so it's natural for us as consumers

to experience multiple different

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marketing platforms in a day or in a week.

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And so typically what ends up happening

is that when you, the business owner,

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decide to put your business online, people

often start by looking at the content

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that they consume every single day.

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So if you are a dentist office and you

are on TikTok and you're noticing that

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your competitors are doing all of these

different fun office reels on TikTok,

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what you will do is you will immediately

try to mirror that or what you're doing

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is you're trying to mimic the content

that you consume or the content that you

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perceive your ideal customer is consuming,

and therefore most businesses will spread

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themselves thin trying to be in all the

places that they consume content from

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and that they think that their potential

clients are consuming content from.

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And so the first thing that I would

tell anyone to do is pick one to

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two platforms that you wanna be on,

and we'll talk about how to choose

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those platforms in another episode.

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But starting there first, rather than

trying to spread yourself thin and

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thinking about all the places that you

can get the maximum amount of reach,

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you'll just end up wearing yourself out.

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You'll wear your team out.

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There won't be a cohesive strategy.

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It'll be a lot of data that you'll

have to be reviewing, the success

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metrics for LinkedIn versus Instagram

versus TikTok versus YouTube.

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It'll just have your hands

in a lot of different pots.

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So until you're able to fully assess

what does your business need, I would

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say the first place that you should

start is anywhere with one to two.

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I would not recommend being on so

many different platforms at one time.

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And if you currently are marketing

on so many different platforms right

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now, analyze which ones are doing

the best for you, and then keep

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those and get really good at those

platforms, and then grow from there.

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Okay, mistake number two is hiring a

content creator instead of a marketer.

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Now, I'm gonna explain to you the

difference between the two, because

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I think that their titles have become

interchangeable over the years,

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and they actually have two separate

goals and two separate approaches.

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So a content creator's job is

to create compelling content.

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If the winning metric on Instagram

is views, it's to get you views.

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If the winning metric on TikTok is shares,

it's to get you shares or comments.

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A content creator, knows how to create

content that people want to watch.

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A marketer's job is to work with a

content creator to create content

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that is going to sell your product.

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Their goal is to not just get you

visibility, but to get you visibility

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that will eventually convert to a lead.

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So for example, I was watching a TikTok

the other day, and the TikTok that I was

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watching was very interesting content.

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It was a dentist office, and they were

doing this really cute, trendy reel,

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and it was so much fun to look at.

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I laughed about it.

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I sent it to my mom.

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This dentist office is nowhere near me.

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I think it's, like, in freaking

Indiana or something like that.

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It's not even in the

same state that I'm in.

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But I ended up watching the content

and thinking it was interesting.

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Am I gonna be their customer?

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No, they're not in the same state as me.

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So them creating a bunch of entertaining

reels that showcase their office

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environment when they're nowhere near

me is good for content creation, and

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it's good for creator metrics, but it's

not good for actually generating sales.

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And so when I went to their feed,

I saw that this dentist office had

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a bunch of funny reels to watch,

which made them look more comedic.

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It also broadened their reach to a

bunch of people that aren't local

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to them, that aren't shopping for

what it is that they're looking for.

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And again, it was good content,

but not necessarily content that

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would direct someone to a sale.

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And so you need a variety.

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It's great to have that fun, interesting

content, but you also wanna have

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content that is designed to get

someone to take an action after they

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have reviewed your content, and that

is what a marketer specializes in.

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That's what we specialize in as an agency,

is thinking about how can we share the

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story of your business, your values,

how you support your clients, and then

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how can we also make it interesting and

appealing to enough so that people want

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to watch and engage with the content,

but also still take an action afterwards?

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So that is the difference between

a content creator and a marketer.

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Now, a lot of people will start by

trying to hire a content creator 'cause

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they want their content to look good,

they want their content to sound fun,

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they want their brand to be cool.

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And so they think, "I will hire

a content creator or a social

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media strategist, and all of these

people will be one and the same.

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This content creator and this social

media strategist will also be able

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to help me get more traffic to my

website and generate more leads."

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But you will notice that the performance

metrics that they are tracking to

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are not the same that a marketing

agency like ours would be tracking to.

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A marketing agency like ours is going

to be looking at your Google traffic.

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We're gonna be looking at how are

we maximizing the conversations that

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you're having on social and taking

those off of that platform and onto

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the place where your buyer can convert.

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A social media manager or a content

creator will be looking at the

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success metrics on the platform.

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Will they be tracking traffic afterwards?

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Sure, probably.

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But their primary goal will be the

success of the channels on the social

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media platforms that they are managing.

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So that is the difference between

a content creator, a social

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media manager, and a marketer.

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They all can produce content,

but all of them are tracking

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to different success metrics.

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So you need to decide which one you wanna

hire based on what your ideal goals are

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Mistake number three is, like I mentioned

earlier, being too entertaining.

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So you've seen it, the doctor

doing a trending audio, or

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the lawyer doing a skit.

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And if that's genuinely working

for them, great, but for most

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established businesses, that is not

the move that I would recommend.

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Your audience isn't

coming to you for a show.

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They are coming because they have

a real problem, and they need

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someone they trust to solve it.

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And so when the content is optimized

for entertainment, you might get views,

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and you might even get followers.

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But like I mentioned earlier, you

will attract people who are there

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for the content, not the service.

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And then the question becomes,

why isn't my audience converting?

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And the answer is usually that the content

was never really talking to a buyer.

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It was talking to someone who was going

to be interested in the content you were

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producing, not necessarily interested

in the service that you were providing.

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Okay, mistake number four is

leading purely with education.

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So you'll see a lot of people do talk

to camera reels where they will be

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educating their audience, or you will

see someone, let's say you own a gym,

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and you are showing people , how to

do squats or how to do hip thrusts,

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and it's a lot of educational content.

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Now, I'm not saying that

doesn't have its place.

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It absolutely does.

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But when every single piece of

content is a tip or a tutorial or

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a how-to, what you have done is you

have given someone everything that

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they need to figure it out on their

own, and that will build an audience.

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You will get a lot of people

who will save your content.

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You will get a lot of people

who will share your content.

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You will get a lot of people who

will like your content, but it will

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not always build a client base.

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So you need a content mix.

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You need education, but you

also need content that builds

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trust in you specifically.

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You need content that speaks to

the experience of working with you.

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You need content that invites

someone to take the next step.

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And when it's education all the

time, you become a resource, and the

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goal is to actually position your

services as a solution, not just be

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a fun fitness column for people to

review or a page for people to visit.

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You wanna be someone that people can see

as someone who can solve their problem,

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and to do that, you're gonna need a

lot more than just educational content.

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You're gonna need a variety.

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Okay, mistake number five is trying

to create content week by week.

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Now, this is something that

sounds very easy to do.

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If you go on Instagram, LinkedIn, any

marketing channel and you listen to all

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the marketing gurus, they'll say, "All

you need to do is just sit down for 15

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minutes a day and write an email," or,

"All you need to do is just sit down and

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for one day out of the week and record

all of your content in your car or Just

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go ahead and sit down and time block

every Tuesday for 20 minutes that you're

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gonna work on X, Y, and Z marketing task.

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And that sounds amazing, and for

some people it works, but for a lot

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of the clients that I work with, it

doesn't work, and it's why they end up

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reaching out to work with us because

they get to a point where they realize

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that trying to create their content

week to week is not sustainable.

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And what they need is they need someone

to do it for them, but they also

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don't want it to be something that

they have to think about every single

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week, and I'll explain to you why.

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The reason why I think that you

should not be trying to create content

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week to week is for two reasons.

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One, it makes you extremely

reactive to your marketing.

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So what happens is you create content on

Monday, you post that content on Tuesday.

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By Wednesday, you've gotten a

couple views, you've gotten a couple

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likes, you've gotten feedback from

your audience on how it's landed.

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On Thursday, whatever content that

you're gonna be creating, it will

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subconsciously try to mimic the

success or avoid the failure of

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the content that came before it.

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And so what happens is that every

single day or every other day, whatever

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your posting schedule is you are

adjusting your content in real time

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to match, like I said, the success

of one post or the failure of a post.

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You are either trying to replicate what's

working or avoid what's not working, which

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means that you're not giving yourself

time to create a concept,, run with the

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idea, and allow enough data, whether

it's data that says it's working or data

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that says it's not working, to collect

so you can make an informed decision.

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You cannot make an informed

marketing decision with data

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that changes week to week.

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You need to allow yourself time

to build, and you won't if you are

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trying to create content week to week.

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So that's number one.

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The second reason why I say that you

shouldn't try to create content weekly,

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and why I think it's a mistake to try

to do so, is because at some point, the

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marketing is going to start working.

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Some point, all of that content

that you've been pushing out, all of

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those emails saying, "Buy my product.

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Look at this.

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Here's my educational stuff.

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Here's my cool ideas on LinkedIn," all

of that stuff, guys, is gonna start

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working if you're doing it right.

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Which means you're gonna start getting

clients through the door, which means

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you're gonna be really freaking busy.

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So that little 15 minutes that it is

that you used to have every Monday

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that used to be uninterrupted is now

suddenly taken over by the fact that

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your team now needs to have a standup

with you every morning to go over the

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six new clients that you just signed.

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That 20 minutes that you were supposed

to have as a trainer filming your

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own content in the gym and using

it to market your business is now

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filled by you working with a client.

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So trying to create content week to

week does not factor in what happens

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when the content starts converting.

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Once the content does convert and you

do get the client, your marketing is

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gonna be one of the first things to

fall off, and that's normally the season

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where clients come to me and they're

like, , "Listen, I either have the time

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to create content, but the content that

I'm creating isn't working," likely

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because you're being too reactive to

the content you're producing and you're

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not allowing enough data to build to

make an educated, informed decision.

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Or number two, you are producing

the content, the marketing starts

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working, and then you're so busy

with your clients that you don't have

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time to do your marketing anymore.

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So that's the reason why I say

trying to create content week

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to week is not sustainable.

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And that's why the way that we work

at my studio is we build your content

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plan and your strategy in advance, and

it is connected to your goal and it's

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ready to go before the week even starts.

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Our clients aren't sitting down

on Monday wondering what to post.

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They're not wondering what it

is that we're gonna be putting

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out for them week to week.

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They know.

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They know that information in advance, and

of course, if things come up and we need

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to tweak things, that happens very often.

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But for the most part,

the strategy is set.

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We know exactly what

we're gonna be testing.

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We know what we're trying to achieve,

and everybody is on the same page.

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We've already agreed on what it is

that we're gonna do, and now it's

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just a matter of putting it out there.

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So those are the core mistakes that

I see most businesses do when they

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are first starting out in marketing.

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If you are anywhere on this list and

you're doing any of these mistakes

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and you are like, "Oh my gosh, I'm

doing all of those mistakes," or,

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"I've made those mistakes in the

past," feel free to reach out to us.

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I would love, love, love

to be able to support you.

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All of the information is in the

show notes, or you can head to

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our website, klcthestudio.com,

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and book a call with us.

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I'd love to be able to support you.

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Until then, I'll see

you on the next episode.