Have you ever heard the expression, “junk in, junk out” when it comes to nutrition, habits, and overall wellness?

As wellness is one of my top 4 values (being #2 on my list), I find this exercise along with regular attendance at CEO Days an essential part of keeping up with the health of your business and marketing “department.”

Do you ever evaluate the health of your marketing?

Maybe you feel like you are abiding by your plan, but do you know when it is actually working?

Here is a list of ways to look at your marketing and diagnose where you should be focusing on your efforts!

Please give yourself a rating of 1-10 in each area. 1 being weakest, 10 being strongest!

1. Look in the mirror

   First of all, what do we see? Take a look at your emails, your social feeds, put yourself on the listening end of your spoken elevator pitch- what do you notice? 

   Often, we can pinpoint what we like/ don’t like about others’ marketing, but what about doing a little self-check? We notice from others if their messages or posts made any sense or if it just seemed annoying. Have we taken a look at our own marketing content?
   
   

   1. Does this marketing content make me PROUD of my abilities or do I feel like I’m not giving it my best shot?

   2. What would I rate myself (1-10) on my efforts?
      Rating__________
      
      

2. Look at the metrics

   Data is easily accessible on our platform’s analytics dashboards- have you logged into these?

   Maybe you are taking a look too often and need to make some little “wins” along the way to keep feeling good and guided from these metrics. 

   1. Are my metrics clear and do they make sense?

   2. Am I using the application properly?

   3. How would I rate my performance on these platforms? (1-10)
      Rating__________

   
   

3. Look at who’s engaging vs. who’s looking

   1. Sent an email and ever notice who opened it, but they need a follow up?

   2. Do you have fans on your social media that you haven’t asked to become a client?

   3. Are you getting lots of positive feedback from people, but they never buy?

   4. How would you rate your overall engagement
      Rating__________
      
      

4. Look at what’s up to date

   Go through and make sure all of your systems are up-to-date and consistent

   Log into your multiple platforms- are they all saying the same thing?

   1. Do you see consistency or breaks or confusing elements across all of your systems or platforms?

   2. How would you rate your marketing “freshness” and being accurate with your information?
      Rating__________
      
      

5. Look at feedback

   If you are making a multi-platform funnel or sales flow, don’t stop testing and coming at the process with a critical eye

   If enrolled, ask MKTG Group members in Slack or friends and family to give you honest feedback and say, “who do you think this is intended for what problem am I solving- is the solution clear- would you buy it if you were in my customer’s position, why or why not?
   
   

   1. Do you regularly ask for feedback and how your marketing makes others feel?

   2. How would you rate your overall ability to get honest, non-biased feedback
      Rating__________
      
      

Marketing Health Analysis

Where do you score and what can you improve on?

Come up with a plan

1. If you notice some things need to be nursed back to health, don’t try to do everything overnight, let’s map it out!

2. Come up with a game-plan (below) to space things out and alleviate stress and anxiety around making these big changes:

3. Once you have all of your notes logged in, you can add to your calendar or plan out which weeks in the Impact-Driven MKTG Group, you’d like to work on these things with Dana’s 1-1 support help, the MKTG Group’s support slack channel, or on your own during our accountability work sprint time!

I’d love to hear about your marketing “health” and what you got out of this analysis! If you are interested in working together to nurse your marketing body back to health, let’s schedule a strategy session today!

Photography by Jungle Branch

Are you hungry for a more juicy and delicious way to market your vision in 2022?

A marketing “umami” strategy reminds me of the perfect combination of elements coming together to give your diner the experience of a lifetime. Sweet, savory, bitter, sour, and salty. 

WHAT’S ON THE MENU?

Are you hungry for a more juicy and delicious way to market your vision in 2022?

A marketing “umami” strategy reminds me of the perfect combination of elements coming together to give your diner the experience of a lifetime. Sweet, savory, bitter, sour, and salty. 

All great leaders have a salivating VISION for the future, that’s why we follow them and want to eat up every “bite”. The insights and ideas bring perspective, bring empowerment, and bring hope- that’s why they are so irresistibly impactful. 

I believe that all entrepreneurs who are building a personal brand can be mission-driven the moment they start to really get intentional about their marketing becoming a way to inspire and educate their community. 

When it comes to measuring the impact of your vision, consider it’s value by how often it’s accessed, experienced, and utilized. All chefs love to see the plate cleaned as the best complement. Think of your marketing department as the same way eating up every part of your vision! 

A marketing “umami” strategy reminds me of the perfect combination of elements coming together to give your diner the experience of a lifetime. Sweet, savory, bitter, sour, and salty. 

For entrepreneurs struggling with carving out time and focus to work on their own marketing when it doesn’t come innately intuitive to them, you may relate, I put together a quick list of 5 ways you can simply share your vision. Mark one of these prompts into your calendar spread out over the next 12 months and enjoy the simplicity of knowing it’s being broadcasted easily and quickly!

1. GET FAMILIAR
   Right out of the gate, this whole list wouldn't work unless you can quickly and easily access your vision statement. Did you even write one yet?
   
   Your vision for the year can be: 

1. A video of yourself talking it out (5-10 minutes)

2. A few pages of it written out

3. A collage/vision board put together by mixed media or assembled digitally

4. A playlist of music that describes your experiences that you want to have with artists, styles, and lyrics that are intentionally gathered

5. A recipe of a dish that has all of the ingredients, along with the flavors and sensations of taste that you are after - how can a delicious cheeseburger relate to your business goals and the results you are after? Is it responsibly raised meat with locally gathered greens and a beautiful steamy stack of ingredients perfectly standing still with the most perfectly seasoned french fries and a Belgian quad beer to wash it down? That’s what mastery tastes like to me!!!
   
   

Whatever the way your brain is wired to reference the way you dream up to keep yourself referencing a guide for yourself, make it a finished piece! And then put your vision somewhere visible to you to access for the following exercises below.

2. GET VISUAL
Use this prompt to help your vision become something, well, to visualize! Use your imagination, creativity, pictures, references, and other elements that resemble your vision.

Perhaps you have a dream home you pass to / from your commute every day, or a song that brings out feelings that you also want to feel when you live out your vision in your business. Use those to tell a story or support a post in your marketing. 

When you explain it deep, wide, and with every detail you can describe, you are helping others “get it” and understand your vision. You can share it as a statement, as a video, as a graphic or photo, or with key phrases or keywords.

3. GET CHOOSY
You are clear with who needs to hear about this vision. It’s one thing to scream something loud and clear on the rooftops for everyone to hear, but you may be missing out on getting more intentional, creating a stronger pull with knowing the audience and focusing on them.

For example, when sharing my vision, I am using adjectives about the community I want to attract. Words like, “passionate, purpose-driven, inspired by social justice, environmentally-focused, responsible for their dreams, driven, experimental, humorous” which can detract people as much as it attracts people.

4. GET CLEAR(ER)

Are there other ways you can talk about your vision after sharing it or presenting it? I love doing market research at the beginning of the year with colleagues and new connections about “does this whole idea or concept even make sense?” and do the edits. Put out a few different iterations of your vision: short, long, in different places, and with different creative elements to let it get digested by different audiences who will find it useful and relevant!

For example, you may have used the cheeseburger recipe, but try to then take that and elaborate a bit more, or shorten it up, “I want to have my business stacked with clients enough to keep me full, but excited to come back for more once I get my appetite back- I want to rate my business 5-stars on yelp when I look at it with the level of service and quality I put forth!”

5. GET CONSISTENT
Last but not least, you are consistent with your vision and share it often. This work and these messages do not end on January 31st. You bring this vision into all of your meetings with your team, new people you meet, on your website, on the back of your business card, and weave it into the way you talk about your offerings. 

1. Add your vision into your offerings

2. Add your vision into your meetings

3. Add your vision into the way you introduce yourself while networking

4. Add your vision into your branding & messaging

5. Add your vision in all conversations you have and describe ways that the people in front of you, on the other side of your social media messages, email marketing pieces, etc. play a role in your vision

If you are stuck creating a vision, I highly encourage you to start with a simple way to visualize a vision using the “umami” five basic taste sensations.

If you like simplicity, just start with a power phrase or word and let the details work around you each month.

As always, if you are in need of additional support around this vision and carrying it out into your marketing, the Impact-Driven MKTG Group supports you each week to put your vision into action!

Powerfully declare what your year will be in a word or phrase.

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful celebration reflecting on 2021! Do you feel ready to “TURN ON” your most impactful year yet in your business?

My power word for 2022 is “MASTERY”
I know this past year tested me in so many ways and although my profitability and performance weren’t anything to put on the shelf, I’m beyond grateful for the lessons that helped shape a new direction for me to focus on in 2022.

I want to fulfill all of the things I’ve started with an approach to master the skills, the intentions, and the systems that I had initiated over the last 2 years and make more prideful & profitable results from my efforts.

How about you?

If you are someone who just can’t get with the idea of mapping out a giant complicated, multi-layered plan for your marketing or your business, you may want to take a small, very small, effort to set a powerful direction for yourself.

Words are powerfully linked to our subconscious and conscious mind

If your brain hears a certain word, you assign meaning. You recall experiences. And you feel what that word means emotionally and physically in your body.

What if each day you can wake up and make a small statement or phrase around ONE word that you wish to assign to 2022?

How can that one word said every day give you a nudge in the direction you desire to think/feel/ act on?

Select ONE word and make a commitment to using it regularly

To start a brand new year, I want to give you one challenge- pick a single word to name 2022.

Next, each morning, each start of the week, or at the beginning of each month, create a phrase that assigns meaning around that word. Make those your written verbal, and visual pledges to yourself that you can use to stay in alignment with what you desire the year to be.

Use these words + phrases in your marketing

Have you heard of the Law of Attraction? It’s about pulling inward what you desire, who you desire, and manifesting outcomes that help make anything possible!

What you are putting out there is what you are going to receive back. Using the MKTG Dashboard Process, a MKTG Brand Strategic tool, you can plug your words and phrases as themes and sub-themes into your marketing plan, making your intentions front and center of everything you are talking about.

The best part about being consistent being clear, and being communicative about the things and words you are sharing is that people will receive this, understand this about you, and start to associate that powerful word or phrase with your branding. It’s such a beautiful thing!

Being Intentional

Keeping your intentions small and bite-sized, like using just one word at a time, is what I hope to encourage empowerment and confidence in you so that you can be all that you need to be in order to live out your business + life’s mission this year.

If you’d like to learn more about setting regular intentions, make sure to subscribe to the Sunday Intentions newsletter!

Building your email list is simple if you LOVE events. And getting your events out into the world on a platform like Eventbrite can make things a lot more visible for you.

But how can this process be more automated, simple, and give your customers a branded experience that you want that isn’t all about Eventbrite’s standard email updates?

In this video you will take a peek into:

• How to use your Eventbrite account to launch automated email campaigns

• Where to setup a Zapier integration between Eventbrite & Flodesk (BETA) that allows for you to keep your contacts on your email platform

• Automate your emails into a beautifully designed Flodesk Workflow that is simple & visually appealing to use!

💸 If you haven’t yet started your journey with Flodesk, check out my resources here for a discount code to get 50% OFF your entire annual plan for 1-year!

For more updates and information based on questions YOU want to ask, consider joining the MKTG Group for weekly resources & support > The MKTG Group -Weekly Accountability Program