👀 Visibility ≠ Discovery 👀
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Hello Reader, I've been thinking a lot of about the confusion marketers create when talking about creating more "visibility" for ourselves and our businesses. This is where the problem of telling people to "show up" as a marketing tactic often falls flat. The problem being that simply making ourselves more visible is unlikely to create momentum unless we've been discovered by the right people—people who can make decisions to, you know, pay us for our high skill services. When your discovery strategy and visibility tactics intersect, you've got a bit of magic on your hands. For example, if you are working your hardest to post and engage on Instagram, but you're not booking clients or even sales calls—and you know you don't have a product problem, that people do actually want what you're offering—you're likely missing the right discovery strategy. (Are you with me? I know this can be a bit messy to conceptualize sometimes. Hence the super professional drawings.) In this example, what I often see happening (remember, we're using Instagram as our example) is that people have been discovered by colleagues or even friends, but not by potential customers/clients. So, their visibility tactics are ineffective—ouch! When we diagnose this marketing malfunction, we step back and ask, "What's the prescription for the RIGHT people to discover us so we can then work on being visible to them?" This can take a lot of forms (and ultimately a healthy marketing strategy involves multiple channels, but pick one and master it first).
You'll see that the key here—with the exception of some forms of networking—is that you're expanding your circle of influence (or influence map, as behavioral design experts label it). Once you've built a discovery engine, then it's time to do the visibility work—do not invert this process. I don't have a lot of rules, but this is one I take a hard line on as I see too many talented, brilliant people struggle because they're addressing the wrong audience. Obviously, I have my own preferences for knowledge businesses and experts in terms of what the shortest paths are to discovery, but for folks who have exhausted their social networks, I typically recommend focusing on an organic search tool and/or local reach. (I also like paid ads, but oftentimes folks don't have anything to run ads to, again, a discovery problem.) Organic search and local reach are deeply intertwined, and that's a subject for another newsletter, but they tend to be good bang for the time buck, especially if you don't have an influential network (yet) or you have a busy life that makes networking a challenge. Plus, they often are discovery engines you can repurpose endlessly. Again, highly efficient and long term thinking is always a win!
Right now feels like a really great time to be focusing on foundations, and leaning into discovery through subject matter expertise. Marketing has a lot of chaotic energy right now—people are making wild predictions, some folks even claiming that original content is dead. (I have thoughts I'll keep to myself about that claim, ahem.) And since I've been doing this work for a couple decades, I can't help but double-down on what I know is true: highly skilled professionals who can clearly communicate with their audience are always in style, no matter the trends. Until next time, Sarah |