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Today I’m going to talk about something that is a recurring pain when I talk to client or whoever deals with marketing in general, and it’s its ever changing nature. But why is marketing like this? Why do we have to deal with this annoying cycle and why should we even care?
Today I’ll try to explain why this happens and at the end (because you know me, I don’t like to drop problems without solutions) I’ll leave you an exercise that can help you in making this less painful. But to that properly you need to follow my logic, or it will sound like a pointless extra task on your to-do list.
the reason I decided to talk about this topic it’s because I was listening to an interview with Vinh Giang the other day (he’s a pure communication coach, pretty cool stuff) and he said something that left me thinking for a good handful of minutes.
“Don’t be so attached to who you are in the present. You don’t give the future version of you a chance.”
He was talking about communication and personal growth, but my brain inevitably went straight to marketing too. Because this is a very common thing I’ve seen in business owners that struggle with marketing: Attachment.
Attachment to the way they’ve always done things, even when those things aren’t working anymore. And I get it, Changing feels risky and tiring, especially when you’ve already put time, energy, and probably money into something. But let me ask you something before we go any further.
Ever asked yourself WHY marketing keeps changing?
Take a second with that. Why does it never stay still? Why does every platform seem to shift, every trend seem to die, every strategy that worked last year suddenly feel old?
And I’d genuinely love to know so please, hit reply or leave a comment on Substack and tell me. I’m very curious to hear what comes up for different people.
I’ll wait.
…
What did you come up with?
Here’s what I think, and it’s actually pretty simple: Marketing changes because people change.
Their habits change. Their environment changes. The way they spend their time, what they pay attention to, how they make decisions. All of it is always in constant, inevitable evolution.
And we often focus on the surrounding changing, but we never really think about what’s happening inside our clients, right?
To some, marketing feels like some unpredictable beast doing random things on purpose to frustrate you. But what it does, it’s just trying to keep up with actual human beings.
So when a founder says “that’s how we’ve always done it“ they’re just trying to run from the truth, and that’s that they’re slowly going out of sync with the people they want to reach.
And sooner or later they will notice, because clients don’t magically freeze in time when you build your first offer. They keep living and existing.
The question is, did your marketing move with them? Because not moving has its costs, let me explain.
The cost of staying the same
When you stay attached to what you’ve always done, it creates a gap between the language you’re using to talk to your clients and the one they are actually using.
And it might seems like a little thing, but it’s not like they look at your content and think “ahah, this is outdated.” They just don’t feel seen anymore. Therefore, they scroll past, they don’t click, they don’t book.
And you’re left tearing your hair out, when actually the only thing that needs updating is the bridge between you and them.
Marketing is about being understood. And to be understood, you have to speak their current language. This is literally the definition of communication.
By the way, if this is resonating and you want more of this kind of thinking, you can subscribe to my newsletter.
Ok Chiara, what does updating your language looks like then?
So, before you freak out on me, I’m not talking about reinventing your whole brand every six months, don’t worry (actually don’t ever do that please.)
It’s all about going back to your ideal client from time to time, to check who they are right now. What are they worried about today? What words are they using to describe their problem? What did they try recently that didn’t work?
Think about the past years, did anything change in your market, in your business, in their lives. If the answer is yes, you likely need to refresh your avatar by doing some good old market research.
Because the gap between “I like what you do“ and “I need to buy from/work with you“ closes with language, with recognition, and with that warm feeling of “Wow, this is exactly what I’m going through.“
Finally, my gift for you: a prompt for your routine
Not an AI one, but one for you. To get your brain working.
Here’s one small thing you can do right now, ask yourself: what’s one little and doable thing that could help me update my language today?
Maybe it’s spending 20 minutes on the social media profiles of your actual clients to listen. Maybe it’s leveraging AI to do some deep research (I actually teach a very nice and deep method in my program, if you don’t know how to do this) or maybe you can just start a conversation.
How do they talk about their problems? What words do they actually use? What are the phrases that come up again and again?
Whatever feels feasible for you, do just that one thing today. Not because it will transform everything overnight. But because it’s how you break the mold and give future-you a chance, like Vinh Giang said.
And speaking of not figuring things out alone, if you’re an introverted founder who’s tired of doing this whole marketing thing in isolation, as always I invite you to join my community on Facebook.
It’s still quiet, but there’s no pressure to be “on.” It’s a space to think through your marketing with people who get it. You’ll find a list of the next events here, and if time and work allows, I plan on launching a new type of meeting soon, so stay tuned.
It’s a nice and chilled way to network without having to be at a huge event (eheh.)
Hugs,
Chiara
