Lately, I know a lot of what I'm doing (direct lead generation through cold calling/personal networking and then paid advertisement) requires time to work. Perhaps I'm impatient. But I suppose my biggest struggle is figuring out how to suss feedback out of the void -- the orange echo gumballs amid those useless white gumballs of diffusion MJ once described (p. 312 in Unscripted). This is specific to learning paid advertising campaigns where I've been slowly building up engagement (the ad points to a service/product page on my site), people share or like the ads on platforms like FB, but I haven't been able to compel them to buy. I know there's some sort of disconnect keeping them from converting, but I cannot figure out what that disconnect is.
I've been testing out different marketing strategies and got my average engagement rate up to 1.76% over the past two weeks (before it was 0.32%; both numbers are small but that's still a big improvement by comparison). But I feel like I'm just setting money on fire trying to find those orange gumballs on failed ad campaigns that didn't even get a sale. And I know the stuff I'm selling has value because, whether it's my shirts or services, I have repeat clientele from those who do buy.. it's just not a lot of them.
But I feel like I lack the level of control I want in order to scale things effectively. Maybe this trial and error is part of the journey and it's a lot of shit thrown to the wall to see what sticks and presto.. an echo that I use.
I suppose what frustrates me the most is that my clients hire me to handle this stuff for them and I'm effective af with everyone else's campaigns. But when it comes to my own stuff, I feel clueless and stupid. It floors me that one of my clients was thrilled that the posts I wrote for her business since they were published in late May, have driven so many leads for the particular service I was funneling, she doesn't know what to do with them all. Then I try to do that for myself? Crickets.
Though I recognize perhaps what I lack is someone to bounce feedback off of which is really the only main difference between marketing myself (I'm all alone) and marketing a client (I have the client to talk to). So here I am, asking your thoughts.
I'm not looking for any shortcuts because I'm earnestly trying to put in the work. I know that sometimes this is the name of the game, trying different things and seeing if anything gets any sort of reaction so you know what to do or what not to do next time -- and if that's the case, some validation to remind me I'm not going f*cking insane would be dope. But have you ever been working on your system and had to glean feedback from the void of diffusion? What did you do to get echoes from the market to better figure out what to do next? How do you cope with being impatient.. especially when some of the strategies (like waiting on campaigns or for prospects to respond at any point in the funnel) require waiting?
It doesn't help matters that I've grown obsessed with getting either system (my main content strategy business or my e-commerce side gig) up and running, being able to test their function. It's not the money for me but to overcome this challenge, learning sales and lead gen for myself and seeing if the automation I have in place (either my team of writers for the business or the platform my e-commerce site's built on) works at scale. I just feel stuck as my perspective is too limited to know what to try next without reinventing not just a wheel but the whole damn car.
So yeah.. /end rant. I'll appreciate any insight y'all can bless me with.
I've been testing out different marketing strategies and got my average engagement rate up to 1.76% over the past two weeks (before it was 0.32%; both numbers are small but that's still a big improvement by comparison). But I feel like I'm just setting money on fire trying to find those orange gumballs on failed ad campaigns that didn't even get a sale. And I know the stuff I'm selling has value because, whether it's my shirts or services, I have repeat clientele from those who do buy.. it's just not a lot of them.
But I feel like I lack the level of control I want in order to scale things effectively. Maybe this trial and error is part of the journey and it's a lot of shit thrown to the wall to see what sticks and presto.. an echo that I use.
I suppose what frustrates me the most is that my clients hire me to handle this stuff for them and I'm effective af with everyone else's campaigns. But when it comes to my own stuff, I feel clueless and stupid. It floors me that one of my clients was thrilled that the posts I wrote for her business since they were published in late May, have driven so many leads for the particular service I was funneling, she doesn't know what to do with them all. Then I try to do that for myself? Crickets.
Though I recognize perhaps what I lack is someone to bounce feedback off of which is really the only main difference between marketing myself (I'm all alone) and marketing a client (I have the client to talk to). So here I am, asking your thoughts.
I'm not looking for any shortcuts because I'm earnestly trying to put in the work. I know that sometimes this is the name of the game, trying different things and seeing if anything gets any sort of reaction so you know what to do or what not to do next time -- and if that's the case, some validation to remind me I'm not going f*cking insane would be dope. But have you ever been working on your system and had to glean feedback from the void of diffusion? What did you do to get echoes from the market to better figure out what to do next? How do you cope with being impatient.. especially when some of the strategies (like waiting on campaigns or for prospects to respond at any point in the funnel) require waiting?
It doesn't help matters that I've grown obsessed with getting either system (my main content strategy business or my e-commerce side gig) up and running, being able to test their function. It's not the money for me but to overcome this challenge, learning sales and lead gen for myself and seeing if the automation I have in place (either my team of writers for the business or the platform my e-commerce site's built on) works at scale. I just feel stuck as my perspective is too limited to know what to try next without reinventing not just a wheel but the whole damn car.
So yeah.. /end rant. I'll appreciate any insight y'all can bless me with.
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