How a Missing Marketing Foundation can Crash your Results

When some of your marketing foundations are missing it means that parts of your marketing will probably not even work.

Last week my lesson focused on the 10 foundations you need in place for your marketing to be effective and get results. Let’s look at those 10 Foundations for your Online Marketing.

1. Website and SEO
2. Know your Ideal Client and Keywords
3. Blog or Podcast
4. Email Marketing System and List
5. Analytics and Tracking Stats
6. Lead Magnet
7. Lead Generation Page
8. Thank You Page
9. Social Media Profiles
10. Content Marketing Plan

You can review the previous lesson for an overview of each of these. But let’s look at a scenario of how these foundations – when missing – can cause a problem with your marketing.

Let’s start with the most common complaint I hear from folks when their marketing is not working.

My email list is not growing.

Okay … so, this is one of the top marketing activities you can be doing. Building an email list of subscribers. And it is often the top struggle people have, growing their email list. Getting people to sign up.

Using a lead magnet as the ‘carrot’ is the best way to get people to sign up to your email list.

As part of your content marketing plan, you will have activities geared to getting people to sign up for your lead magnet.

An example of this is posting on your Facebook Page something that will entice people to sign up and get the lead magnet. This is a great thing to do.

But let’s assume you only have the signup form for your lead magnet on your home page. So, the link to get that lead magnet that you added to the Facebook post is… your home page.

Now, if your home page on your website is like most home pages, there is a LOT of content on that page.

Picture someone who was intrigued and interested enough in your Facebook post to click on the link. They WANT your lead magnet! YAY! This means you did great with that piece of content! Your marketing worked!

Now, they click the link and come to your home page.

But there is a lot of information there and it is distracting. They have left that post on Facebook and may no longer remember the exact words you said on the post.

They are trying to find where they can get that lead magnet, that freebie they wanted. But the website has so much info on the page that they cannot clearly see that form. They get frustrated not finding what they came for and close your website.

Think about it …

How many times have you clicked a link online looking for something and when you get to the webpage you cannot find what you were looking for?

What do you do once you can’t find it? You probably leave. That’s what most people do.

The attention span of people online is short. You do not have a lot of time to catch their interest.

If you send them to a place to get something, and they cannot find it easily, they are gone. And you may also be gone as a trusted source for them too.

This also means your time spent on marketing that lead magnet was a waste of your time. You did not get your desired result: a new subscriber on your email list.

The foundation you are missing in this case is your lead generation page.

A lead generation page is a page on your website where the only content on it is focused on letting visitors know what that free lead magnet will help them do and a form where they can sign up and get the lead magnet. This puts their name on your email list.

When you do not have this foundation, you can be confusing people with your marketing, and this often means less signups.

A lead generation page is only one part of the entire process of list building, but it is one of the most important parts. It is how you help convert website visitors into leads so you can nurture them on your email list with the goal of converting them to a client.

All of these foundations play a key role like this in your marketing.

Making sure they are working and in place, as well as optimized as much as possible, is important if you want to make sure that the time, money and energy you spend on your marketing does what it should to help you reach your goals.

Your action step today is to review your lead magnet signup process. To make sure that the marketing content you put out is working and that your conversion marketing system is working. One of the best ways to check this is to ask a friend or family member to test it out. Someone not familiar with your website and setup.

Learn how you can streamline your marketing and create the least amount of content to get the most results, then grab this free guide. It shows you the ONLY 7 types of content you need that can fill your content calendar and planner!