The biggest lie in marketing is: “The more you do, the faster you'll grow,” and yet most of us feel totally overwhelmed by the amount we’re trying to accomplish each week. There’s a sense of doing too many things at once and none of them all that well – sound familiar?
Bootstrapping brand growth takes a lot of effort, but your bandwidth is limited. This is why we’re relentlessly focused on helping you solve problems in the right order, optimize what's working, and repeat. Here’s one brand we’re particularly proud of: Moon & Stone, an amazing wellness company dedicated to helping people be happy and stay in the present moment.
Founders Lauren and Courtney had just launched their business in 2022 when they stumbled upon Strong Brand Social. When I first spoke with them, they were unsure about what they should be posting and how they should prioritize their time and money in marketing. As two entrepreneurs that didn’t come from a background in marketing, they weren’t confident about where to focus and how to track what was working. Their budget was TINY and they needed to make every minute count. Sound familiar?
They committed to showing up for support on a weekly basis. We prioritized their most important growth moves to set up a growth-driving digital marketing system. I steered them away from bad, expensive investments and toward the one next thing they should prioritize.
Strong Brand Social Club put them on a more clear and direct path to their goals by helping them:
- Redesign and optimize their website using their new content strategy before paying for social media advertising
- Sharpen up their messaging for better performance before they started spending money on more marketing
- Establish email marketing foundations (and generally all of their owned content) before ramping up any paid efforts
- Craft a social media strategy that systematically generated demand, conversion, and customer loyalty for faster growth and greater profit margins
With their priorities in check, they were able to end their first year in biz strong at $91k! Feeling more confident in their foundation, they set goals in January 2023 to double their annual sales and grow their reach considerably through email and social media — and I was proud to hear that they beat ALL of their goals ahead of schedule!
By October 15th, they had already hit their sales goal at $195.5K. THEN, at the end of October, we got this message:
On December 5th, they came back to us and told us that they actually beat ALL of these records in November! In their words:
“Having the support and knowing someone is there to teach you the tools you need to grow…and the ways you can do this on your own is EMPOWERING. There’s no time that’s wasted which is very important and valuable to us. Now we’ve reached a point where we need to hire someone. I was feeling some stress about that, but I know that Katie and the team have a plan for our next steps in all aspects of our business. So, we’re going to keep growing and keep relying on the support that SBS has to offer us!”
ROI from social comes down to two things, using social to create new customers and then to retain them for higher values. That should always be top of mind when thinking through your priorities. In Strong Brand Social Club, we do a growth strategy exercise with clients that involves stating our financial growth goals, looking at our budget, and reviewing the action we’re already taking to identify the next thing we will do. That means that our to-do list is much shorter and much more powerful.
Imagine that, before spending any more time or money on social media, you're certain of how every single activity directly supports your specific business goals, down to the dollar. Reviewing a week of content, a single post, choosing a hashtag, working with an influencer, deciding who to hire – you understand the intention and how to measure success on all of it, so you’re empowered to decide to continue or cancel any activity with confidence. As you become more efficient, you create extra margin to reinvest in your growth.
If you’re ready to make 2024 the best year you’ve ever had in business – from revenue growth to a better brand presence, smoother operations, and zero wasted resources – you can receive our support with your content strategy, growth roadmap, and prioritization by becoming a private client!