If you’ve ever wondered why your marketing sucks and isn’t hitting the mark, then this episode of The Hayley Osborne Show is for you, my friend. I’m pulling back the curtain on the real reasons your marketing might be falling flat… and trust me, they’re more common than you think.

This isn’t about sharp ass tactics or trends. It’s about the foundations and fundamental core mistakes I see small business owners make repeatedly. The stuff that quietly leaves your dream clients scrolling on right past that “awesome” piece of marketing material you thought you made.

I’m sharing 5 truths that might sting a little, which is totally fine. The hard truths hurt sometimes, but if you’re serious about growing a magnetic brand and showing up like the superhero you are, this episode will give you the clarity and kick up the backside you need to do better.


SUMMARY
0:00:01 – Introduction 

0:02:30 – Importance of Consistency 

0:04:45 – Problem 1: Lack of Consistency 

0:06:15 – Problem 2: Over Reliance on AI 

0:08:30 – Problem 3: Unclear Messaging 

0:10:45 – Problem 4: Chasing Virality 

0:14:20 – Problem 5: Relying on Hope Instead of Strategy 

0:16:30 – Closing Remarks 

0:18:45 – Podcast Outro

Hayley Osborne  
Hi there, guys, and welcome back to another episode of this podcast. My name is Hayley. If you are new here, thank you for joining me today. I’m so happy to be in your ears. Today is a bit of a cracker, because let me just frame this for you. I This if you’re watching on YouTube. I have a white fur coat on, but it is evening. I have showered, I have put a face mask on, and I’m here with a big, fluffy white coat, because I thought, why not? And underneath is my pajamas, and I’m not mad, and it feels pretty good. So here we are, because everything is quiet and I can think my best, which you’ve probably heard me say this already, but that’s the reality of my life right now, and so here we are.

So again, like this is me being consistent and showing up every single week to record this podcast for you. And I do this because I know that consistency is really important, especially to remain top of mind, especially to keep sharing your zone of genius for an a whole lot of other reasons as to why, you know, consistency is important, and that’s one of the things I want to talk about today, because I want to talk about reasons that your marketing probably sucks. Okay, and you probably know these things anyway, but I wanted to get into them a little deeper, because your marketing probably does suck because of one or all of these five things that I’m gonna talk to you about.

And so for me to maintain this podcast, sometimes that’s what it takes. It takes like at night, after I’ve showered, I’ve put a face mask on, I’m feeling pretty relaxed, and I can think freely, talk freely, and if that’s what it takes for me to be consistent at you know, in the evening, that’s what it takes, and I’m willing to do that. I actually find it quite fun to record. So I show up like rain, hail, shine, and sometimes, yeah, in my pajamas underneath. And it’s very comfortable, actually.

So here we are, fur coats. This is actually one that I bought for my wedding, and I think it was my engagement. Actually, I bought this fur coat to wear over the top of my dress that I wore, and then I ended up having it as a backup for my wedding. If I needed it. I never actually wore it, but I had it, and I was like, You know what? I’m gonna start getting out these coats to wear this winter, because I have some beautiful coats. So anytime I’m out without my small humans in the day or in the evening, I’m going to be wearing a fancy coat. Because why the hell not? Life is too short anyway.

So we digress. So your marketing probably sucks because of one of these five things that I’m going to talk about, and the first one is because of your lack of consistency, or you just have no consistency. And so therefore, your marketing is suffering because of that, because people you post and then you ghost for three weeks or so, or you send an an email to your database once, once a month, and therefore that is not being consistent, that’s not building any kind of trust with your audience, and therefore they’re not buying from you.

And therefore your marketing probably sucks. And another really important thing that consistency provides is a Done is better than perfect approach, because you get it done because you’re consistent, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be perfect, but what it will do from being consistent is help you discover and fall into that brand or person that you want to appear as online, because if you don’t post, if you don’t share an email with your database, if you don’t show up regularly. Early in any form of your marketing, then you’re never going to know what works or what doesn’t work.

And so that’s why you need to be consistent as well. So you need to be consistent, obviously, if you want to make money in your business, because we’re not here for a haircut, correct? But it also will help you to filter out what you love and what you don’t love to do or show up as what platforms you prefer over others, because if you’re not doing any of it consistently, you’re not going to know the things that you love doing as opposed to the things that you don’t love doing. So I think consistency is massive.

Number two reason why your marketing probably sucks is because you’re not thinking anymore. Instead, you’re using AI to do your thinking, and it shows. And I just want to say, like, hello, long dash. Like, it’s so obvious. And I think your biggest asset and your biggest form of Arsenal right now, in your toolbox, in your tackle box of mastery, is your brain. Okay, hello, I got my degree before I even came about before social media.

Okay, huge, yes, I know, and I think it definitely taught me how to think. And, you know, for those of you that have been in business a lot longer than a year or two, you’ve been doing it without that. And I, I’m, you know, I think that’s awesome. And so I think that there has never been a better time to share your own thoughts through your marketing, because everyone is using AI and everyone is in a sea of sameness, and it’s bloody boring.

I know that I can sniff a mile away when content has been built with AI, and it’s fine, and I use it for research, and I love it, but it will never take away my zone of genius, and I think that that’s what has been very successful with this podcast, this podcast, and I do need to really celebrate it online through my marketing, but it’s had over 10,000 downloads now, and I will, I am preparing a campaign in the background. I actually had some chats over the weekend with those people that I want to help me do this.

And so I think that’s really exciting, but I think, you know, it’s because I have consistently shared my own thoughts and my own zone of genius. And I think if you’re using AI to do that, and that is your outward facing marketing, you’re going to run into huge issues down the track, because Hello, like it’s not you, it’s AI and you, you kind of when you put in all this research and you get all this information, I think there’s never been a better time to run a business, absolutely. But do it with your own voice. Have your own opinions come into your marketing, because nothing shines like authenticity, okay?

And people can sniff bullshit a mile away, and even if they can’t eventually, eventually they will. And so just remember, like, if you’re not thinking anymore and you’re leaning heavily on AI, and gosh, it makes business faster. And I love AI for that, and oh my gosh, it’s helped me so much with the busy life that I have in terms of my systems and processes and everything like that. Things get done a lot faster, but the bones of my ideas and how I show up and everything like that comes from my own thoughts. It comes from my own zone of genius, and that’s how I show up.

And so, you know, do yourself a favor and and think, without putting in anything into AI first, and then take those ideas and use AI to build on them. That’s what I think. And get rid of the long dash and add your own opinion over the top. Add your flavor. Add your tone of voice, okay, write how you talk, not how a robot would talk, which is through AI, anyway. So that’s number two. Number three is you haven’t quite nailed your messaging.

Now, that could be a byproduct of you using AI too much, or it could be a byproduct of you not leaning in and understanding who you are, what you know, who you serve, and what you stand for, most definitely. But I think that if your messaging isn’t right, it means that you’re probably a little bit unclear, which then also means your audience is really unclear as well.

And that definitely takes a shine off. And I think that if your audience is then unclear, so is your uncle, your audience is unclear, then when they’re unclear, they’re never going to buy okay, because they don’t quite understand how to work with you. And I see. Is so much online, over Instagram, over Facebook, even LinkedIn, even on people’s websites, on people’s home pages, it’s like, okay, like, what are the benefits here?

What is it that you do? I don’t care that you’ve got an eight week course that has touch points with you from two hours every week that will have a master class once a week, and then a Q and A once. I don’t care about those things. I care about what’s in it for me. So that definitely requires messaging and strong messaging. The fourth one I want to talk about is if you are too focused on going viral and blowing up the internet rather than adding value, because value is where true audience and true buyers come from.

Okay, they don’t care if you’ve gone viral. Viral isn’t a vanity metric. Now I know that a friend of mine in business, she was approached by these women that run competitions, and she put one of her products into one of these competitions. It was high end. What she does is very high end. And so many people wanted it because it was a one off. And so she thought, why not? It’ll get me more likes, because the terms of entry was something like, like this, like this account, tag us, comment, whatever.

And so overnight, I shit you not, she would have gained, I think it was around 15,000 followers. And she woke up to her Instagram looking at it, going, oh my god, I’m actually not sure how to deal with this. And so what then happened is that’s a form of going viral. But then quickly, quickly, quickly, over the next few weeks, her account just dropped and dropped and dropped and dropped. And I think it ended up shaving off about 9000 likes from her account because people, just unlike you know, people that are fiercely loving competitions.

We all know them. We’ve been, you know, on the receiving end of running a competition over the years, if we have, it’s so funny. But in this grand scale of things, I think, you know, going viral, instead of adding value, like the people that entered this competition to win this high end product of hers were actually never going to become clients of hers, because they just couldn’t afford what she had to offer. And so was it an aligned decision?

No. And so I think it’s an example of and to be fair, I don’t think she realized that that was going to happen to her account, that it was going to blow up, but it did. And so, you know, that’s not the best example, but it did go viral, and didn’t add value, and didn’t really grow her bottom line, because the demographic was never going to buy from her anyway. So I think chasing likes and chasing all those things is a distraction, and I think that the real impact that you can have comes from your zone of genius. It comes from you being relevant and not just worrying about reach.

Now the fifth thing I want to say is, and I see this a lot too, is that you are relying on hope. Okay, hope gets you nowhere, instead of strategy, alright, so a little bit of hope is great, and I think that’s where we all start from. That’s kind of like the guts of it all. But there’s two different ways, two different kinds of, yeah, ways that people can go into business, hope on its own, or hope and strategy. And I think when you have a strategy, I think it is inevitable that your business will become successful, because you’ve done the time to think about who your client is and what they need, okay, because you want to meet them where they’re at and what they need. Okay, so like posting something and praying that it’s going to land is not the way to create success inside your business.

Or creating some ad hoc marketing campaign or paying for some fancy display ad in a magazine is not the key to sensibly marketing, because if you haven’t got all your foundations aligned, if you don’t have everything set up from the back end, if you’re not nurturing your audience, or have some kind of nurture sequence in place To love those that come in to create value for them that and, you know, show that you’re a real person and a real brand, then you’ve got a bigger issue on your hand, and that is not having a strategy.

So that’s they’re the ones. They’re the five things I wanted to say today, and I hope that you have learned. Something, if anything, it is, if your marketing doesn’t suck, it’s just reinforced that you are on the right track and doing the right thing. But we’ve all been guilty of, like, one or all of these, whether it being not consistent. You know, I’ve had spells in my business where I haven’t been consistent, and that was probably due to, I don’t know, overworked or poor planning at the time, and then, like, an emergency comes up, or something happens and it derails you, whereas, you know, in now, I’ve definitely don’t operate from that place, because I just can’t afford to with three small humans.

Like, I, like, really value my business, and I value the information that I can show up and give you, and so I pride myself on, like, sticking to the strategy that I’ve built for myself and continuously showing up. And then, you know, tweaking measuring, tweaking measuring and being consistent, and then testing what works and what doesn’t work and all the things.

So if anything today is just a reminder of either pull your head in and start to operate from a place of mindfulness, okay, to not do any of these things and show up with love and trust, and you know, information and education and all the things, um, or it’s just a nice reality check that, oh my god yes, I am on the right track, and I do feel really great about my marketing, because it doesn’t suck.

Okay, that’s all for now, guys, I’ve loved being in your ears this evening, in for me, wherever you are when this podcast comes out, I hope that you are walking, getting some exercise in, or you’re in the car, you’re multitasking, you’re doing something while you’re listening to this and upskilling at the same time, because multitasking is great in the right order.

Okay, have the absolute best week in your business, and I look forward to supporting you however I can, whether it be soon or in the future. All right, guys, lots of love. See you later. I hope you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode. If you have hit subscribe, so you don’t miss any new episodes released every Tuesday, and while you’re there, leave me a review. I would absolutely love to read it.

Also, don’t forget to tag me @hayleykosborne over on Instagram and share this post with your audience so they can get learning too. Sharing is caring. If you want more, head over to https://hayleyosborne.com/category/podcast/  for today’s show notes and links, catch you next week for another episode of The Hayley Osborne show.