Do You Really Need a Lead Magnet for Your Business?
(Or a big social media following, or an email list, or any of the marketing “shoulds.”)
Here’s a question that small business owners don’t ask themselves enough: Are “best practices” really best… if they’re not best for you???
This issue came up loud and clear recently in a convo with one of my clients, Sydney of Simply You Nutrition (an absolute GEM of a dietitian and human – if you’re Oklahoma based, find her here!).
A recent dip in her SEO rankings opened a whooole pandora’s box about what she should do next and where she should focus her marketing energy.
One pro recommended that she hire someone to blog for her.
Someone else told her that she should get on Pinterest for discoverability.
And there’s obviously no shortage of “make a lead magnet, cultivate an email audience, and build your following on all of the social platforms!!!” advice out there.
But when she checked in with me (the delight of having years-long relationships with clients!), I said, “Let’s pump. the. brakes.”
Does hiring someone to write blog posts with nutrition tips really make sense if your brand isn’t about one-to-many education (and we haven’t even diagnosed the back-end SEO issues that caused the dip yet)?
Does throwing energy into a lead magnet + email audience make sense if you can only work with a handful of clients at any given time, and they all have to live in your state?
Does building your social following really make sense if a local referral relationship could bring you more clients who are ready to work with you RIGHT NOW than Instagram ever could?
What if flyers (gasp, printed pieces of paper!) in local gyms, grocery stores, and yoga studios would get seen by more of the right, “qualified” eyeballs than random lovely people around the world might hear you on a podcast?
The longer I’ve been copywriting for clients, the more I find myself talking about marketing – because your website copy is something you have to intentionally activate through some kind of marketing efforts.
(You gotta SEND the eyeballs to your site, not just hope they stumble across you!)
And the more I guide my clients on their marketing, the more I’m reminded that…
Marketing doesn’t just happen on the internet.
Marketing isn’t just “content.”
And the “best practices,” like creating lead magnets or building your following, might have been designed for a business that has COMPLETELY different needs, goals, and circumstances than yours.
So in Sydney’s case, it turns out that she doesn’t need to knock herself out making reels and pump out keywordy blog posts and do her damndest to get people to trade their email address for a freebie.
“Marketing,” for her, can look nearly unrecognizable from the super slick, online way it’s often presented to us. For her, it can be entirely unfancy and still unbelievably effective.
Joining her local Chamber of Commerce. Intentional networking with local referral partners. Putting flyers in local areas where people who need a dietitian are already existing.
She doesn’t really need to “build an audience” (much less an empire). She just needs to be where her people already are.
Simple. Beautiful. Authentic. Inexpensive. And deeply human. These are the best practices for HER business.
So what might be the best marketing practices for YOUR online business?
Because you may not be a dietitian, let me hit you with some other examples that might help you imagine how these shifts could work in your own marketing.
Bookkeeper:
We’ve all seen zillions of checklists, blog posts, and infographics from bookkeepers with general financial tips, right? Often the marketing funnel that’s taught for bookkeepers alllll about content: get people on your site, have your copy send them to some kind of downloadable freebie, and now that you’ve “captured” them for your email list, you can sell your 1:1 services for them.
But someone who’s downloading general (and fairly Google-able) bookkeeping tips has pretty clear DIY intent—aka they’re not really looking for done-for-you services. So sure, now they’re on your email list, but you did all that work to get them there and they’re not really even likely to become a client.
One thing a bookkeeper could focus on instead is partnerships + speaking. Say you develop some partnerships with small business associations and offer industry-specific workshops that have more focused topics.
One of my bookkeeper clients, Numbers by Jen, has talked about bookkeeping strategies for independent salons at, you guessed it, local groups of salon owners. Maybe you’d love to work with some restaurants, so you team up with the local restaurant association or Chamber of Commerce to offer workshops like "Managing Cash Flow in Seasonal Restaurants."
This way, instead of throwing general tips and content into the black hole of the internet, you’re 1) positioned as an industry expert, 2) directly in front of the people you want to work with, and 3) well set up for referrals!
Therapist:
Soooo idk if you’ve tried to get an appointment with a therapist lately, but so many are booked. solidly. up. Which makes sense, because they can only have a handful of clients on their roster at any given time! Which also means it makes way less sense for them to pour energy into building a large email list or social media following to attract clients.
A different approach could be focusing on targeted referrals instead of trying to build a broad online presence. If you’re focused on trauma recovery, you could network with local primary care providers, nonprofits that work with trauma survivors, and even the police department’s victim support unit. If you’re focused on supporting clients with eating disorders, you could reach out to dietitians who specialize in the same thing (like my client Sydney!).
By sharing detailed info about your approach with fellow providers, you can nurture a network of referral partners that keeps your practice full with clients who specifically need your expertise, without sapping your precious capacity by making random IG posts.
High-End Interior Designer:
“Content is king” ain’t it for a luxury interior designer. Sure, rich people use the internet and social media, but nobody who wants to book a highly personal, high-touch, highly expensive project wants to be added to an email funnel.
This is an opportunity when partnering up and then borrowing someone else’s audience could be a better fit! If you collaborate with luxury real estate agents and architects on a few projects each year and then pitch coverage of those projects to upscale publications, now you’re feeding two birds with one scone: building referral relationships and getting media coverage where your target clients’ eyeballs already are. (In my area, Boston Magazine would be my top rec of where fancy people are looking at other fancy people’s home projects.)
This strategy has more of that air of exclusivity that’s appropriate for your service and your clients, while still showing off your talents (aka marketing) to the right audience.
And if you already have a large audience…
Here’s a tip for any kind of biz that already has a substantial audience (and if you’re a service provider who can only work with a handful of clients at a time, the amount that qualifies as “substantial” is probably lower than you think!).
Online biz culture has drilled into our heads that we need more, more, more, more, more eyeballs on our stuff. More people on our email lists. More followers. More likes and subscribes. More. new. people. always.
But—is that true? Do you really need to cultivate a “bigger audience,” or could you better cultivate the very people who have already opted into being part of your community???
This was a hard lesson for me to learn, and in many ways, I’m still learning it! But it’s such a big one.
Ask yourself: am I getting to know the people who are already here with me, nurturing their needs and interests, and actually selling to them in the fullest possible way that I can? Or have I gotten overly distracted by/focused on constantly bringing more new people into the fold?
I recently talked this one through with my client Nicole, the founder of Veterinary Care Logistics: the coolest ever (and only!!!) brand that offers education to veterinary inventory managers. Inventory managers are SO hungry for knowledge and community, because there’s relatively little training in their industry—and that means that Nicole’s Facebook group now exceeds 10,000 people. (And there are only about 32,000 vet practices in the whole country, so compare those numbers!)
So when Nicole and I work on her marketing, we’re not actually focused on reeling new people in. Instead, we’ve doubled down on supporting those 10k people, creating more opportunities for her to answer their questions, build awareness of her courses, and guide people to the program that makes the most sense for them.
And it feels amazing! Her existing audience gets to benefit from her expertise even further, and she gets to feel the warm fuzzies (and integrity) of knowing that she’s serving them well.
Copywriting first, marketing second, aligned strategy always.
I hope this post got your wheels turning about ways you can adjust your marketing to be more effective and save your sanity—and if you’d love to have some support from a thought partner/second brain/words woman, I’m here for you.
The process always starts with copy—either brand messaging + custom web copy or done-with-you web copy—and after that, the world is our oyster. It’s an honor and a delight to get to support clients over the course of years as they develop their marketing! From quarterly strategy to email sequences to blogging, there’s basically nothing I won’t do for you. (Words-wise, that is!!)
If you’re curious, check out the pages I linked above and then pop in an inquiry when you’re ready for an intro chat. Til then, get out there and find your people. They’re ready and waiting for y-o-u.