I was recently trying to complete a Rubik’s Cube. I had the instructions in front of me and kept reading the same step, making the same moves and ending up in the same wrong place.
I was convinced I was following them properly. After a while, though, I realised I was reading what I thought the instructions said, rather than what was actually on the page.
Stepping away for a bit helped. When I came back to it, I could see the step I had been missing.
It is easy to miss what you see every day
Running a business can be much the same. You know your services inside out. You know what customers mean when they use certain words, which enquiries are a good fit and what makes your business different.
That knowledge is valuable, but it can make it harder to see your marketing as a potential customer sees it. You already know what a page is meant to say, so you may not notice what it leaves out. You understand how your services fit together, so it might not occur to you that someone new to the business cannot find the one they need.
And when you are busy doing the work, it is difficult to find time to step back and look at the whole picture.
Look at the journey from the customer’s side
Think about the last time you needed to find a business you had never used before. You probably wanted to know fairly quickly whether it could help, whether it worked with people like you and what you should do next.
Now imagine arriving on your own website for the first time. Is it immediately clear what you offer? Can someone find the service they are looking for? Do you answer the questions they might have before getting in touch? Is the next step obvious?
The same applies beyond your website. An email may make perfect sense to you but leave the reader unsure why they have received it. A social post might describe what your business did this week without showing why it matters to a customer. Individually, these can seem like small things. Together, they affect how easy your business is to understand and choose.
This is not a reason to change everything at once. Start with the part of your marketing that matters most to your customers and ask someone who does not know your business well to look at it. Listen to the questions they ask. They may spot something you stopped noticing months ago.
Sometimes you need someone to take a step back with you
One of the most useful parts of my work is helping business owners see what is already there more clearly. We can look at what is working, where customers may be getting stuck and which changes are worth making first.
Often, the answer is not a complete overhaul. It is a clearer explanation, a better route to the right service or a question answered in the right place.
If you have been looking at your marketing for so long that it is hard to see what to do next, contact Chic Marketing. I would be happy to be that fresh pair of eyes.