We’ve all been there: asking ourselves “Am I doing the right thing?” Whether you’re a small business owner, content creator, or even a fellow marketer, we’re always looking to do the next big thing. However, determining your strategy, producing the deliverable, and then the back and forth of reviewing and revising can be a slippery slope.
While you’re overanalyzing your content, you’re also underproducing and your competitors are making progress. The process of strategizing, developing, reviewing, and revising works great (this is what we do daily), but constant changes halt progress. So, how can we overcome and avoid overthinking every marketing initiative? Here are 6 tips:
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Research and Analyze Your Audience
By understanding your organization’s targets, you’ll be able to develop buyer personas. These include your prospects’ demographic and psychographic information. From ages and professions to hobbies and where they digest their media, this information helps you define your marketing strategy and create content going forward.
Abandon Perfectionism
Perfection paralysis stops many in their footsteps. Is this blog really the right message? What if I rewrote it? Should this newsletter include one more story? While you spin your wheels, it’s doing more harm than good. You will never know how something performs unless you try. The more frequently you produce content and get it out to your audience, the more you can perfect it. You’re taking what you produce and adjusting based on the data you receive and how your audience responds.
No deliverable is 100% perfect: there will always be something you can do better. Yes, you could add another photo into a newsletter or rewrite the blog. But you’re missing the opportunity to get your message out and on time. Remember, the content isn’t for you, it is for your audience. So, ask yourself: “Would this adjustment provide a clearer picture for my customers?”
Remember the consequences with perfection: the more you tweak and delay, the more likely a competitor will swoop in and get ahead.
Focus on What Matters
Deciding the tools, tactics, and strategy for your digital marketing can be overwhelming. To avoid overthinking about what you should be doing, start with one focus. This is one thing you want to achieve, that you know how to, and doesn’t require purchasing additional tools to it done.
Think about it in terms of social media. Posting content to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube all at once can make your head spin. But this is why you researched your buyer personas. Where do they spend time scrolling? If your audience is mostly on Facebook, there’s no need to stress about creating a TikTok right off the bat, right? Choose one platform to focus on for now and schedule a post! This checks off a box and starts getting your content in front of prospective customers.
It is also worth mentioning that doing too much all at once can be confusing for your growing audience. Why purchase Google or Facebook ads if you’re not actively creating meaningful content? Save those dollars for now. Just because you saw somewhere to run ads, doesn’t mean you need to immediately. By focusing on what matters, you can find clarity in your strategy and begin making real progress.
Don’t Obsess Over Virality
With the emergence of digital marketing, primarily on social media, there has been a dramatic shift in the way we talk about content. In today’s world, everyone is looking to create something that will “go viral.” The problem with this is that it causes you to overthink the content and lose focus of what the actual goal is. To avoid overthinking your social content, remember what you can do to reach your audience. When you think about viral content, what comes to mind? Often, it’s silly and happens by accident. Remember the Corn Song? (Or was that just in my feed?).
When trying to create content for the sole purpose of “going viral” you lose sight of the needs of your audience and neglect your core products and services. Are the five minutes of fame worth the loss of customer needs? Stop obsessing over virality and create quality content that will resonate with your audience and build lasting online engagement.
Don’t Let Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
Whether it’s an infographic or social post, the review stage can be helpful to ensure it’s top-notch. However, where this becomes ineffective is when there are too many people involved. Whether you’re looking to internal teams for ideas or passing along a post for reviewing, you’re missing out on getting your content out while large teams add their piece.
Instead, limit the number of people who are responsible for reviewing. By streamlining the feedback process, you can produce more meaningful content that is on brand. Simply having 1-3 people you can count on for feedback ensures consistency and understanding of the strategy.
Stop Comparing Yourself
Overanalyzing what your competition is doing can create imposter syndrome. What you see online isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of how their business is performing. Yeah, 10k likes on a Facebook page is great, but it isn’t why you’re in business. Remember your why.
Are you running a business to earn a living to support your family? Are you trying to make the world a better place with your product? Regardless of your reason, your business needs revenue and profit to survive. There are thousands of businesses and creators with large social audiences who have also failed to convert their followers into customers.
Remember, social media is just one piece of the puzzle. There is so much more to a successful business than posting every day and having more followers than other organizations. Where do you want to go? And how are you going to get there?
Identify your objectives, make a plan, and invest in the right tools and resources to help you get there. As your business expands, you’ll create connections, and your marketing will follow. Don’t get hung up on someone who’s been doing it longer, they had to adapt, too.
When You Stop Overthinking Great Things Happen
Marketing is ever-changing and your strategy will too. As new technologies emerge and trends come and go, your organization will adjust and readjust. When first starting out, the fear of not doing enough is common. But don’t let this stop you from producing at all. How will you know if you’re not doing enough if you don’t even try? Overthinking and overanalyzing everything you’re doing is causing more harm than good. Marketing takes time; building relationships online with your customers does, too. By creating consistent and meaningful content, you’ll get there in no time and Sharp Wilkinson can help. Interested in learning more about our data-driven marketing solutions? Reach out today!
