Setting the Right Intention With Your Marketing

Our Martha, who’s well into her running, was recently cat-called on a run. Some bloke in a car wolf-whistled at her, and she didn’t know how to take it.

“What do you expect to happen, that I’ll chase after your car shouting out my phone number? Like… what was your intention here?” she says.

And that’s the question we’re asking today.

Why would you do anything without an intention?

I get quite frustrated with people when they don’t know what they want. A lot of people do things just for the sake of it, without actually knowing why.

To me, that’s just mental.

Because whatever I do is done with intent.

It could be something simple like trying to eat well or achieving something at work or doing my best deadlift or ticking things off my bucket list.

But there’s always an intention behind it.

I’ve sat in meetings at other companies where it feels like the first time they’ve thought about that meeting was at the start of that meeting.

There was no intention, and no action points from the meeting. If you have a meeting and there aren’t action points at the end of it…

What was the point of that meeting? 

This is a big thing in marketing, too. There’s no point approaching an agency or a freelancer or your team, and saying: “I want better Facebook ads” without having a clear intention behind it. 

What result do you want? Are Facebook ads the best way to get to it?

It always comes back to knowing the destination you’re heading to, because if you don’t?

It’s like walking a path without a map.

Some people say: “Well, I just want my ads to be better.”

So tell me what ‘better’ is?

You have to be really clear what you’re asking people to do, so they can give you the right strategy to get there.

That starts with knowing what your goal is.

Maybe it’s making more sales or getting more customers.

They’re two completely different goals which need two completely different strategies.

One is about sending people somewhere to buy something straight away, while the other is about having a call first.

And what are you asking of your customers?

Because there’s a huge difference between investing £50k in your services and buying a £50 e-book from you.

The same marketing strategy won’t work for both things. 

Say your intention was to make 50 sales but you only made 30. It might not be the figure you wanted, but are you still profitable? Have you still added new prospects to your database? Is it still moving you towards your goal?

Intent comes with a lot of questions behind it.

For example, if your intention is to increase your turnover by 40% this year, I’d ask why you needed to do that. Maybe you underperformed last year, and you need to do better this year. 

OK, fine – so what needs to happen for you to reach that?

It might mean you have to increase your marketing spend by 40%, for instance. And if your profit margin is usually around 40%, that marketing investment might drop it down to 35%.

Which means your profit is being squeezed.

But because the pie’s bigger, there’ll be a bigger chunk of the pie left at the end.

Your intention has to be realistic, though.

How do you know if it is?

Follow the data.

If the data doesn’t support your intention, then you need to adapt it.

For example, if you want more sales so you start running Facebook ads – and the data shows that people click on the ads but don’t enquire – there’s a landing page issue.

That’s where the AB test comes in handy.

You send exactly the same traffic to two different places and see what happens, so you know where the issue is – and change your strategy accordingly.

Making your decisions based on data takes the emotion out of it, which often clouds peoples’ intentions.

Often, I see business owners running Facebook ads to new audiences, completely forgetting about the warm audience they have already.

A warm audience could land on a landing page that literally just says: ‘Sign up here’.

And they actually might do that.

Because they’ve already heard of you.

But a cold audience could land on the same page and not take action, because they don’t know you. You have to guide them through the process.

So, how do you set realistic, achievable intentions with your next marketing campaign?

Know where you want it to take you.

Think about what you want. Is it profit? More customers? To warm up your funnel?

Identify your end goal, figure out the most likely route to get there, and put a date on it.

Then shoot – with the acceptance that there might be a few detours along the way.

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.