It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.
Marketing has one job: get people to notice you. Everything else, the rules, the message, the funnel, is just how you do that job without wasting money or annoying people in the process.
Start with two answers
Before any of this works, you need to know two things:
What are you selling?
Who are you selling it to?
Sell something to everyone and you’ll end up selling nothing to no one. Get specific on both, and every decision after this gets easier.
Know, like, trust
People buy from people they know, like, and trust. Unless you’re a monopoly, in which case they don’t have a choice, and even then it costs you: Southern Railways is the only operator running trains into central London from parts of the South of England, and years of service problems mean plenty of customers don’t like or trust them. They buy tickets anyway, because there’s no alternative. Most businesses don’t get that luxury.
Do anything that damages trust and you’ll lose the sale. Do things that build it and you’ll win more. That’s why food businesses hand out free samples: taste the product, trust goes up, the sale follows.
People are lazy and busy
Being the best isn’t enough. Your product could be the best in town and you’d still lose sales to people who meant to buy but never quite got round to it. Make it easy. If it takes five clicks to reach what you’re selling, they’re already gone.
Know your customer
The answer to every marketing question you’ll ever ask is who is my customer?
Should I use flyers? Who’s your customer?
Should I be on Instagram? Who’s your customer?
Big companies spend millions figuring this out, because the closer their marketing gets to what the customer actually wants, the more sales go up.
Marketing is a GIFT
Run everything you make, a networking chat, a flyer, a website, through this acronym.
G: Get Attention
Only around 7% of adverts actually get seen. Put yours in front of 100 people and roughly seven will notice it exists. So shout. Be bold. Be controversial. Take your idea and make it ten times louder than feels comfortable.
I: Interest
Imagine a first date where you deliver your full life history in the first five minutes. They’d be looking for the exit. Hook interest first, one picture or one line that makes someone curious. Save the detail for when they’ve asked for it.
F: Feel It
Nobody buys what a thing is. They buy what it gives them. “Maintenance and grass cutting” is a feature. “Get your garden ready for summer” is the benefit.
T: Take Action
Give people exactly one thing to do next, not five contact methods in tiny writing on the side of a van. Marketing without action is just customer distraction.
Your message: Why, What, How
Once people notice you and trust you, you need the right words. Most people lead with the what: “I’m a yoga teacher.” Cool. But what does that even mean to your customer?
Start with the why instead, what your customer actually wants, in their own words. Nobody wakes up wanting hypnotherapy sessions. They want to stop smoking, or feel like anxiety doesn’t run their life anymore. “What if anxiety didn’t run your life anymore?” speaks to that want directly.
Then the what: the plain, factual details. “I’m a certified hypnotherapist who helps people rewire stress and anxiety at a subconscious level through guided sessions.”
Then the how: your call to action.
Buy now.
Call.
Email.
Sign up.
Book a meeting.
Pick one, a page offering five options gives people permission to do none of them. Good calls to action also create a feeling: “20% off until Friday” doesn’t just inform, it creates urgency.
Features vs benefits
The fastest way to find your why: list the features of what you do, then ask what each one means to your customer.
Laces are a feature; the benefit is safety, they adjust so the shoe won’t fall off.
An air cushion is a feature; the benefit is comfort.
Write “which means to my customer…” next to everything you do, and finish the sentence. That’s your benefit, and your why.
Create the marketing itself, then take payment
Once you’ve got a message, creating the marketing takes minutes rather than days; a tool like Canva covers websites, social posts, flyers, and QR codes in one place. Taking payment is just as quick to set up, a payment link or online store through something like SumUp gets you from “interested” to “paid” without building anything from scratch.
(The above links are affiliates – this helps keep our education free to you)
The size of the action is the whole game
A message is only half the job. Here’s a real funnel:
472 emails sent,
15 to 20 replies,
5 meetings,
2 sales.
Rebel’s very first campaign was 35 letters, three calls, two meetings, one sale. It felt like a win. It wasn’t, not really: we should have sent 500.
Don’t send five emails, send five hundred.
Don’t make one call, make one hundred.
Don’t send ten tweets, send one thousand.
Most people quit long before they’ve sent enough to see the funnel actually work. That’s not the marketing failing. That’s the sample size failing.
Your Marketing Action: Build your funnel
- Your marketing methods (emails, calls, posts, flyers)
- Which leads to ____ (replies, views, sign-ups)
- Which leads to ____ (meetings, conversations)
- Sales
Fill in real numbers once you’ve actually run it.
You don’t need to guess: run the activity, count what happens at each stage, and you’ll know exactly how much action it takes to get one sale. Then do more of it.
Additional resources
Rebel Canva Website Template (Dark)
Rebel Canva Website Template (Light)
How to use Canva course – Free course by Canva
