168: How a Marketing Strategy and Plan Work Hand-in-Hand with Terri Fisher

Andrea Liebross: Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.

Hey, my friends, welcome back to the Time to Level Up Podcast. Today, I have a repeat guest. However, she is coming to us with a different hat on. She's finally switched her hats. It's been a while but she did it. Not only is she going to tell us what hats she has switched out but I am bringing her on here really as what I call a guest expert because she is an expert in a topic that comes up over and over and over and over again in my coaching conversations.

It is not a topic that I'm necessarily an expert at by any means so in true Andrea fashion, let's just go to the expert. Let's just cut to the chase and not pretend I know what I'm talking about and let's just ask someone who does. That's how I roll. It's part of securing support. FYI, if anyone's following along, it's one of my chief tenets in thinking big.

Okay, so I am going to have the lovely Terri Fisher introduce herself and then we are going to get started. Hello, Terri Fisher.

Terri Fisher: Hello, Andrea Liebross. Thank you for having me. I am the founder and owner of Strategy Light, which is a marketing strategy firm, and we help small businesses make sure that they're investing wisely as it relates to their marketing, so making sure they have a strategy that works so they know where to invest their time, resources, and brainpower.

Andrea Liebross: I love that. How did one found Strategy Light and when? What was the journey that went on?

Terri Fisher: Sure. Yeah. This is for me personally has been about a two-year journey, so if others are out there and they've been thinking about it for a while in making a move, don't be disheartened because it can take some time but my background, I worked for about 15 to 16 years in professional services, consulting, accounting, tax, really exciting stuff, doing marketing, marketing strategy, execution, and digital marketing for professional services companies.

I just reached a point in my career where I started assessing what was next and looked in a lot of different places from a corporate perspective to see what made sense and realized that none of it really made sense for me for what I was looking to do. Imagine that.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah. What didn't make sense about it? What do you think?

Terri Fisher: I think because I'm in the middle of my career where I was at, the organization I was with, there weren't a lot of options for, I would say, upward mobility or for a career trajectory there, and looking at other opportunities in the marketplace, I either didn't have enough of what they were looking for or I had too much of what they were looking for. I'm sure others out there can relate and was just finding it really hard.

My skill set was not matching the job description perfectly. What they wanted me to do was maybe only half of what I wanted to do. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to do and I felt like I was going to make a move that it needed to better align with what I was looking for.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, totally fair, and you tried to create opportunities. You put in a valiant effort, lots of gold stars, and it just wasn't happening, right?

Terri Fisher: Yeah, that's right. The organization I was with for the last 11 years, great organization. I really looked for opportunities to even create something within. But the last four years have been interesting because with COVID, from a marketing perspective, things changed very dramatically. I tried to ride that wave and carve out something but it didn't come to fruition, and that's okay.

Andrea Liebross: So here we are with Strategy Light.

Terri Fisher: Here we are.

Andrea Liebross: I was thinking about this last week. I was like, “Strategy Light, should it be strategy heavy? No. It should be strategy light,” and also we could use light in so many different ways.

Terri Fisher: Yes. It has so many meanings. There are so many.

Andrea Liebross: Alright. Here is one of the reasons I asked her to come on. I was talking with my podcast producer, Stacey, and we were talking about how a lot of my clients say, “Hey, should I start a podcast?” or “I want to start a podcast.” Should I start a podcast? I want to start a podcast. Would it be smart to start a podcast? All of those kinds of questions.

Before I really can refer them to Stacey with a clear conscience, I should know what their marketing strategy is and who their target market is, what their messaging is, all of that. I don't need to necessarily create that with them. We can have someone else do that but I should be able to say it out loud and a lot of times I can't. So Stacey and I were like, “Yeah, I don't want to talk to them.” She said, “I don't want to talk to them until they know who they're talking to and what they're talking about.”

So I said, “Well, I have the perfect person that can help us explain what that really means, what a marketing strategy is, what a plan is, and all of that. That is why I have Terri on here, one of the many reasons that I have Terri on here but let's just dig in. Tell me what do people need to know about a marketing strategy?

Terri Fisher: Sure. I'll take it from what does that mean, what does a marketing strategy mean. It's focused on how will you position and promote yourself to your prospects and customers to meet your business goals. It's pretty simplistic but it's important.

Like many of the processes and concepts that you teach, Andrea, you need to write it down. You need to write it down for a couple of reasons but I think for yourself first and foremost as your organization grows so that you can define it to your employees but also, a lot of times, small businesses will use contractors and it's really important that they're in alignment with your strategy as well.

Because, to your point, who you target, so the things that you need to have understood to create the marketing strategy like who you're going to target and what you're going to offer them is very important. If you have more than one product or service, you may be marketing them to two different people.

If you don't delineate that, things could get confusing very quickly. I think just being crystal clear, and like I said, writing it down so that it's like a proclamation, “This is how we're going to approach the marketplace,” and then also that tiny little bit at the end to meet your business goals, writing it down also then allows you to go back to it and say, “Okay, this is what we were trying to accomplish. This is what we did accomplish. Is there a differential and why?” I think that that's why it's really important to write it down. That's what a marketing strategy is.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Before someone sits down with you, they hire you to create a marketing strategy, they should know, hopefully, who their target is and what services or offers they have to help those targeted people. Is there anything else they need to know before they create their marketing strategy?

Terri Fisher: I think the other really important thing, and I totally appreciate that a lot of businesses may need some help with this, but I think it's important to think through what are your key differentiators. Set another way like what is your unique selling point or what is your value prop. How are you different than the competition?

A lot of businesses struggle with this. That's okay, especially if you're going to engage someone else, sometimes it's nice to have that third-party perspective to say, “Oh, that's interesting because I wouldn't think that this company would do it that way or provide this.” It's helpful for you to think about that first and just brainstorm things.

Andrea Liebross: That's one of the pieces of when I do the Vision to Action organizer, we touch on marketing but those unique selling points or I call them your three uniques, that's hard work sometimes.

Terri Fisher: Yeah. It really is, because sometimes it's hard to step outside of yourself.

Andrea Liebross: I always say, “Okay, tell me if you think I should be giving a different direction.” Sometimes people will say, “Well, I have 52 years of experience.” Is that important? Is that a unique selling point necessarily? I guess if you're a plumbing company and you've been around since 1925, I don't know, what do you think?

Terri Fisher: I think given the market we're in and most products that you sell, the amount of time that you've been doing it is somewhat irrelevant. There is some consistency to “This business isn't going to go away overnight for some products.” But I think that can't be the only thing.

Andrea Liebross: No, I don't think it should almost take up real estate as being one of the three in a sense.

Terri Fisher: Correct. I’m using some of your language, that's just a fact. You've been in business for 52 years. Because what if another business has been in business for 53, then are they better than you? There is some stability in you being around, yes, I would agree, but that's not necessarily what makes your business unique.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. A strategy, we need to know the target audience, and I'm going to throw something in here. Yes, I know that a lot of you could help a lot of people, but who do you really want to help?

I had a client who listens to all my podcasts so if you're listening, tell me that her target market was ages 60 to 85, families, single people, divorced people, it was like everybody in the whole world except for people under the age of six. No, let's get more specific. Isn't that helpful if we know more than that?

Terri Fisher: Absolutely. Look, hey, I'm a relatively new small business owner too so I get it. We don't want to miss any opportunities but here's the challenge, the next step is putting pen to paper on the tactical plan. If you are targeting everyone from the age of 4 to 84, you can't do that through one channel and there's just no way that you can accomplish that in a meaningful way.

Yes, who do you want to work with? Who can you bring the most value to? Who is your ideal client? Whatever one of those questions makes the most sense to you but yeah, I think getting granular, I just had this conversation with a client yesterday, I was like, “You need to get a little bit more granular. You've picked an industry, great, but let's go a level deeper and let's talk about what kinds of companies in that industry you want to focus on.”

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Alright. So we got the strategy, what's the plan? What is a marketing plan?

Terri Fisher: Right. I’m guilty of this sometimes too, the terms are used a little bit interchangeably but the strategy is your direction, your northstar, and the plan is then literally that tactical or step-by-step approach. Usually, most companies I work with, most businesses will put this together on an annual basis like, “This is our plan for the year based on our strategy.”

As I was saying, this focuses on, “Okay, given our target audience, what channel are we going to use?” This goes back to what you're saying about podcasts like how do we best get in front of this audience with our message? That's the biggest thing is the channels.

The one thing I would say about the plan too, and the reason that it's important to put it together all at once, a lot of times I see with small businesses, they're doing a lot of things, they're doing a lot of executing a lot of tactics or they're on social, they have a website, maybe they're even doing live events but they're not all working together. They're executed singularly in a silo.

What a plan does is it makes sure that yeah, we have a content strategy that is spread out through our social, our website, our events, whatever the case may be. The content strategy spans all of those things as opposed to being siloed into one channel or another. Everything needs to work together in harmony.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Channels are used to execute on strategy, so a channel could be a physical location. I have some clients that have storefronts, brick and mortar, it could be an in-person event, it could be Instagram, it could be a podcast, it could be an email funnel, email marketing. Is that fair? Is that a channel?

Terri Fisher: Absolutely. Yeah, there are a variety of channels. You've got your direct or your live where you've got the physical locations, in-person events, the face-to-face meetings, and then you've got all the digital you just listed. You've got your website, you've got social, and you also have got things depending on how complex that is indirect which are like referrals, affiliates, partnerships, and those types of things. There are lots of channels depending on your industry and who you're focused on, but yes, that’s a good way to define it.

Andrea Liebross: Okay, because I've been doing some article writing for some magazines. I consider that part of my marketing plan or TV appearances. That's all part of the marketing plan.

Terri Fisher: Absolutely. That's the PR almost component of it.

Andrea Liebross: Right. So planning, and I loved how you said this is more on an annual basis, how do we know when we need to create a marketing plan? How do we know that we need to re-evaluate this? Or how do we know if it's working?

Terri Fisher: Yeah. Those are all great questions. I would suggest, as part of the plan when you build it, the opportunity is that within your plan, you're appreciating the goals that you have for the business.

Andrea Liebross: I love real examples, so give me a real example. Pull one out of your brain of someone that you just worked with. What was one of their goals?

Terri Fisher: Okay. I was working with a photographer and one of her goals, literally, we broke it down, she had a revenue goal. We broke that down by the number of clients, the average cost per client. We said, “Okay, this year, you need 30 new clients.” Part of those clients come from corporate headshots. We said, “Okay, where are you going to find business clients that want corporate headshots?”

She's got a lot of relationships in the corporate world as well as she's an active member of her local chamber. Let's go to the chamber and let's talk about hosting an event where you can do professional headshots. Let's also talk about reaching out to all of the small business members through email and inviting them for an opportunity to get a corporate headshot. That's just one basic example.

She's got a target audience through one of these memberships that she has and so let's take advantage of that. Based off of conversations she's had in the past, how many people do we think that she can get corporate headshots for? We estimated two to three a month. If she does two to three a month, that would get her pretty close to her goal.

Then there are other tactics that would also help support her getting the 30 clients if that two to three a month ended up being one to two a month. But that's how we would back into a revenue or a client goal then assigned with a very specific tactic.

Andrea Liebross: So you're kind of backing into it because she has some background knowledge or she's assuming that if she uses the chamber, she's going to have two to three a month.

Terri Fisher: That's right, yeah. Based off of the number, the number of people they’re engaged with.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. What other numbers or metrics do you think people need to look at? Is that part of their plan? Tell me about the numbers.

Terri Fisher: Well, yeah, for my small business clients, I like to start with their revenue goal and then literally dividing that up by the number of clients, projects, however they measure it. They have a very specific number in front of them. Then I'm always like, “Does that seem reasonable? Does that seem reasonable based off of who can execute this, what you've done in the past, everything that you have on the horizon, that kind of thing?” Most of the time, I get that people are nodding their heads. Sometimes there's a pause like, “Oh, we might need more people if we want to reach this goal.”

Andrea Liebross: You might need more people in your business to help run your business?

Terri Fisher: Yes. Exactly.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. You need more help.

Terri Fisher: Right, yes, exactly.

Andrea Liebross: Okay.

Terri Fisher: Exactly. I like to get really specific with them on that. Then like I said, once you have that large number of projects or clients that need to be sold, then breaking that down on a monthly and a quarterly basis so that at any point in time in the month, they know, “Am I hitting my goal or not? In order to get 30 clients, I need to bring in two to three new clients a month.”

If you're not doing that, then that's worth going back and certainly taking a look at what you've defined, how you thought you were going to get those, and assessing. Other numbers, oh, gosh, there's so many. But I think based on your plan, how you're bringing people in and where you’re bringing them to, most people, or at least I encourage most people to bring them back to your website as a focal point.

There are measurement metrics that you can look at on your website, the big three I usually look at just in general, how many people are visiting, unique visitors, how long are they staying, so time on page or number of pages they visit, and then bounce rate, are people getting there and leaving? That can sometimes indicate that maybe what you're pushing them to is either not relevant or maybe the messaging is inconsistent. You need to look at those things. But I think those are some metrics that you can look at that are helpful.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. It's almost like, “Don't worry about the number of Instagram followers you have if you haven't really been focusing on Instagram.

Terri Fisher: Yeah, and not even that, you could be focusing on putting content out there on Instagram but are you actively soliciting new followers in other ways? I don't think they just magically come.

Andrea Liebross: Right, if you post.

Terri Fisher: Yes, agreed. Yes, don't measure where you're not putting effort. Now you may see growth just organically through other things which is great but yeah, I wouldn't focus on that if that's not where you're putting your effort.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Fair enough. When do you know that you need a marketing strategy? Say you don't have any data, say you don't have any clients, do you need one from day one?

Terri Fisher: Well, I'm probably a little bit biased.

Andrea Liebross: Probably, but that's why you're here.

Terri Fisher: A little bit. Much like your business strategy, your marketing strategy is really going to be your road map for business development right like, “How am I going to acquire new clients?” I like to tell my clients, “Ideally, I'd like to help you create something so that your marketing is working for you 24/7. You're not the pivotal point in making it happen. With a strategy, you're more likely to be able to do that.”

But removing my bias, I think that a lot of times, this is when people come to me, reach out, or are curious, your pipeline from referrals and relationships, especially if you're in startup mode, has started to slow. You're not getting just the free flow that you were before from word-of-mouth marketing. That's when you need to put a strategy in place.

Because I think that the thing that people often forget, and maybe it's confusing marketing with other things, it's not a switch that can just be flipped. You can't just be like, “I got a strategy and it's on tomorrow.” I've rarely ever seen that as a possibility.

Andrea Liebross: We're just going to create this and it's going to come out tomorrow, it doesn't work that way, does it?

Terri Fisher: Yeah, it doesn't. Not only that but when you think about marketing, it's really about engaging in a dialogue, engaging in a conversation with other people. To some extent, you're at the mercy of them and them responding. Let's put a strategy together and get in front of them way in advance so that they know about you when you are ready to put out the offer or they know about you and are picking up the phone before you have to reach out to them.

It really is a longer-term play. I've talked to several people, they're like, “Well, I want to do this for summer,” and I'm like, “Well, we should really be thinking about a strategy now then because it's going to take time to get it built, and then you want to launch it before you're ready to sell or promote, whatever it is that you want to do.”

Because if you just start promoting it a month before, let's say you want to do an event, you want to launch a summer course, or whatever the case may be, if you start launching that in May and it's going in June, that doesn't give you much runway. It also doesn't give the people you're sending it too much runway. Marketing is a long-term game and getting in front of it as early as possible, [inaudible] for success.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Fair enough. I'm all in on that. Totally all in on that. Why do you think this is so hard? Or is it hard? The way you describe it, it’s simple, doable, and fun. That's right.

Terri Fisher: Well, I'd like to think it is but even I think people in the marketing industry, there are challenges but we find them fun and interesting and we can do that for you. I would say this in what makes marketing, from my perspective, challenging. It was funny in doing a little bit of research for this conversation, I Googled “creating a marketing strategy.”

There is no shortage of resources out there. You can get a template. You can get the seven steps. You can get books. You could read for a day and be just as knowledgeable about this. But I think the problem is that those are all great but they're high level. They're talking about the steps you need to go through.

But this strategy and plan, they need to be unique and specific to your business. I will tell you, I've been sitting in on a lot of marketing conferences and events and the last four months, the big thing has been authenticity. People want to buy from people and brands that are authentic. That should be easy but it's hard. It's hard to translate that.

Andrea Liebross: I know.

Terri Fisher: A lot of people I talk to are like, “Well, my competitor is doing this so I should be doing it,” or “The experts say,” whoever the experts are, “that I should be doing this.” Or their small business friends did it and so they should be doing it. But it really has to all be rationalized against your audience and what you're selling. That's what makes it hard.

Andrea Liebross: The authenticity thing is hard.

Terri Fisher: It is. It sounds ridiculous because like, “Well, I know how to be authentic.” But it needs to translate to the people on the other end, and that's not easy.

Andrea Liebross: No, it's not. It's not. Believe me, because I think there are 50 million coaches out there, so why is someone going to hire me? Well, I think it's because they like me. It definitely has something to do with me, myself, and I. But how do I convey that? How do I get that out there? How do I get who me, myself, and I is out there? That's the challenge.

I think the other piece is, and you can tell me if you think I'm crazy, but everything's constantly changing. I've engaged in some Facebook ads in the past six months. I feel like that's a moving target. It's always different. Or in 2022, I did a lot of SEO focus. I should probably even go back, it's probably all wrong now because it's been a whole year, not wrong but just different.

Terri Fisher: Yeah, exactly. It has gotten a lot more technical too, to your point. SEO is a constantly moving target. It's a constantly moving target because more organizations are entering the universe, but it's also that the search engines are constantly changing their algorithms to catch up with a lot of things. It's all moving in a good direction, again, of authentic useful content, services, and companies.

But yeah, it's hard to keep pace with that when you're focused on growing your business. You're also going to keep pace with that, yeah, you mentioned paid social, paid search, they're becoming increasingly expensive. Not only that but competitive. Small businesses are entering the market there and it's hard to compete, especially some that are very niche. It's hard to compete against huge brands that have a ridiculous budget.

Then the email marketing rules are changing. GDPR over in Europe, things are just changing and you've got to keep pace with those to make sure that you're not breaking any rules.

Andrea Liebross: Right. That's the whole like your privacy, and what's it called? Privacy and something at the bottom of my website, whatever that is.

Terri Fisher: Privacy policy?

Andrea Liebross: Yes, privacy policy. We actually looked at that, Lynda and I, a couple of weeks ago. I was like, “Okay, do we need to revisit this?”

Terri Fisher: I think the final thing that is the biggest challenge, and this goes back to the authenticity point, is that the buyer, we use that term very loosely but your buyer demands and expectations are evolving too, how they engage, and I'm sure you've experienced this, Andrea, in your business, how they want to engage with you. It is constantly evolving. A lot of that requires a little bit of infrastructure to be able to make that engagement that they're looking for happen.

Andrea Liebross: Then you think, “Oh, I need to hire someone else.”

Terri Fisher: Yes. They can hire someone that's an expert in that.

Andrea Liebross: Right. To wrap up, tell me what are three things that someone might be thinking that are triggers for them to reach out to you. If you're thinking X, you should probably call Terri. Tell me three things. What do you think?

Terri Fisher: Yeah. It's a good question.

Andrea Liebross: I have one. Can I throw one in? Can I do number one?

Terri Fisher: Sure. Yeah.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. I think number one is, “Hey, my original source of clients feels like it's drying up,” or “Everything just used to be coming to me from referrals, I didn't have to put much effort into marketing but I'm not feeling that anymore.” I would say that's a good time to reach out to you. Is that true?

Terri Fisher: That is absolutely true, yes.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. What else do you think?

Terri Fisher: Ground level. I think the other is, and this ties on that, but maybe things aren't drying up per se but you are looking to grow dynamically, whether that be grow your team, maybe grow your services, whether that's revenue or new services. I think it's really important to reach out because you need to have a strategy in order to do that. You need to be systematic in how you do that.

Then the third scenario I think is, and this hopefully will apply to some of the small business owners out there, but a lot of the people I talk to have no shortage of ideas. I have all of these ideas but I don't know which ones to execute on. If you have all these things swirling around in your head, “I want to do this, I want to do this, and I want to do this. I just need to figure out the right way to put it out there and promote it,” it would be a really good time to call me because we'll parse out each of those pieces. Maybe they all work together or maybe they need to be cadenced. They need to come out in more of an order.

Andrea Liebross: Gradual.

Terri Fisher: Yeah, in a gradual way.

Andrea Liebross: Yeah, what comes first, second, and third. I think that's another, because people are like, “Should I be focusing on this or this? Should I be focusing on the podcast or should I be writing blogs?” I don't know.

Terri Fisher: Where should I put my energy?

Andrea Liebross: Your resources, your time, money, your brain power, and your relationships, your most valuable resources. That's a good way to think about it.

Okay, if someone's going to reach out, where should they reach out? How should they find you? Tell us.

Terri Fisher: Absolutely. The best way to get in touch is to visit my website which is strategylight.com. There's more information there about me, about my offerings, but also how to get in touch. That's probably the best way. Set up a discovery call, we'll talk through, and see if I can help your business.

Andrea Liebross: Super. We'll put that link in the show notes as always.

Terri Fisher: Perfect.

Andrea Liebross: Alright, you ready for the speed round? I think we did this once before but I'm going to see if your answers are different. Have you ever done the speed round with me?

Terri Fisher: I don't know. I think I have. Now I'm nervous.

Andrea Liebross: Here we go. We're going to see if the answers are different. You ready?

Terri Fisher: Okay.

Andrea Liebross: Okay. Three things in your refrigerator.

Terri Fisher: Butter, jelly, half and half.

Andrea Liebross: Oh, look at that. She was very quick on that. Okay, half and half, that's a girl after my own heart. Three things in your car besides three car seats. Are we down to two car seats? What do we have?

Terri Fisher: Two car seats. Car seat and a booster.

Andrea Liebross: You’re graduating. Look at who’s graduating.

Terri Fisher: We have.

Andrea Liebross: This is exciting.

Terri Fisher: A scraper, very interesting for this time of year, a phone charger, and our insurance cards.

Andrea Liebross: Good thing to have. Look at how smart she is. You, guys, should definitely call her. How do you want to be remembered by? If someone said, “That Terri Fisher, she was…” I know this is a hard one. This is a really hard one. Whatever comes to your mind.

Terri Fisher: Well, I think the saying that comes to my brain is like underpromise and overdeliver in how I work with my clients, how I show up for my friends and family, that kind of thing is that expectation that they have, that I can meet that and exceed it. I don't know, I guess that's the heart, with a smile.

Andrea Liebross: With a smile. Right. Well, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. I think this is going to be a really valuable episode for a lot of people.

Terri Fisher: I hope so. I hope so.

Andrea Liebross: I hate to see people struggle with this. There are so many great small businesses out there and I want to see them succeed so love it.

Terri Fisher: I hope it’s helpful.

Andrea Liebross: If you are listening and you know someone who might find this episode valuable, I would suggest, number one, click that little square with the arrow up and share it with them or post it on social media, again, that little square usually helps you, and tell us what you found most valuable about it because I bet someone else would too.

I'm always up for any DMs on Instagram, which I've been hanging out more on Instagram and on LinkedIn. Feel free to reach out there. If you're thinking about, “Okay, I need a marketing strategy,” and you also think you need other things, this is one component of it, feel free to reach out to my website, go to andreaslinks.com, and schedule a call there too because I am full of resources.

Yes, you need Terri but if you need someone else too, I can probably point you in the right direction. Alright, my friends, until next time. This is it, man, this is 2024. This is your time to level up. Let's go. What are you waiting for? Enough wishing, waiting, and wanting. Let's do it. Alright. I will see you next week.

Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.