5 Ways CEO's Overthink Marketing

Marketing takes up a lot of time. There's always more to do than you can get done, so I want to encourage you to spend your scarce resources on the things that matter most, and don't get distracted and overthink the things that don't really matter. So here are five ways that CEOs commonly overthink their marketing.

1.Your Website

First, your website. Yes, it's important, yes, you need one, but depending on your business, it's not as important as you may think. For example, common experience, and I've experienced it many times, is spending a lot of time with the team on that homepage. And what happens when people come to our website and I think what happens is you start to think that that's how your customers find you is from the homepage of your website, which the reality is for most businesses, it's a small fraction of the people that find you that way. Most people will connect to the important stuff inside of your website or find you on social media, or find you with your people and your products in the market.

2.Your Competitors

Secondly, your competitors. You need to do competitive analysis for sure, as you're developing your product and your business. And you need to understand how you fit in that market and your positioning- very important. What you don't wanna do is worry every day about the things that your competitors are doing and feel like you have to respond in kind to everything. Remember, you are not a commodity. Hopefully, I'm encouraging you not to be a commodity, and your value is not dependent on what your competitors do. It's a factor, but it shouldn't be driving your actions and forcing you to react on a weekly basis.

3.Your Image

Your image. By this, I mean your concern about what others will think about you or your business by what you do, and especially people that aren't your customers. An example, a lot of people go to trade shows and they're very expensive, and when they talk about not going anymore, one of the reasons they continue to go is how it will look, if they don't show up. That might be a factor, but if it's about your image and your reputation with your peer companies, and it's not about your customers and where they are, and if they would get value from you being at that show, or if it would be a way for you to find people, then you don't want to obsess about that.

4.Your Collateral

Fourth, you're collateral, and by this I mean all of the things you create to communicate with your clients and have them use your products. A common one that is overthought is PowerPoints, right? How intricate is your PowerPoint design and how many different versions you have, not to mention how many words you have on each slide. PowerPoints, sales sheets and other collateral are a means to an end. Your best presentation is your people telling a story about your value rather than a multimedia, dazzling presentation. Again, different industries, different needs, but don't do it just because.

5.What's In It For You

And then finally, a real problem for your business is if in the sales process, as you're talking with your clients and you're helping to solve their problems, if you switch from thinking about what they need and start thinking ahead about how much money you're gonna get and, how long they'll stay your client and you start worrying about what you get rather than what you need to provide, you're gonna be less effective. Stay in that zone as long as you can of 'what does my client need and how can I overachieve on that?', and the rest will follow.

And if you're able to under think on some of these factors, that's gonna free up valuable time and resources for you to focus on all those other really important things in your marketing program.