Fractional CMO Insight: The Importance of Having a Marketing Strategy with Natalie Swan

Speaker A: The Virtual CMO podcast is sponsored by the Strategic Marketing Advisory Services of the five Echelon Group. If you'd like to work directly with the five Echelon Group and discuss how fractional CMO services can help optimize your business, enhance marketing effectiveness, and grow revenue, visit 5echelon.com. That's F I V E E C H e l o n.com to learn more and schedule a free consultation today. I'm excited to have guest Natalie Swan on the program. Natalie is a fractional CMO who enjoys helping her clients turn business objectives into strategic, actionable marketing. She believes that trying to grow a business without a good marketing strategy simply doesn't work. I couldn't agree more. Natalie. Welcome to the program.

Speaker B: Hi Eric. Thank you so much. I'm very excited to be here and to have this conversation with you.

Speaker A: I'm excited to have the conversation too, because I love to talk to other people who are doing fractional work work as well as people who truly understand the value of strategy and to kick things off. That was just a real short introduction. Could you just give us a little bit of your background? How did you get into marketing? What has been your, uh, your experience in the field to date?

Speaker B: Absolutely, yes. So I studied business administration in school. Um, I went to the University of Oregon. So go Ducks. And four days after I graduated, I ended up taking an internship in Chicago, um, with a company there that was incredibly fast growing at the time. Um, it was a large scale event production company. And so we were hosting events for tens of thousands of people all across the United States and internationally. And this company was started by two, um, two young men in their late 20s and scaled to tens of millions of dollars very quickly. Um, this is when social media was just becoming a thing. So people are taking pictures at mud runs and the music festivals. And as you can imagine, it was incredibly fun to be part of marketing, uh, at this imagine, yeah, growing, you know, we're getting a ton of attention and, and people are loving it. And so I just really found a knack for telling that story and for promoting those things. And because of how fast the company was growing as well, you know, I was so new in my career and so I got to do everything. I was the one who was sending marketing emails, writing the copy, um, posting on Facebook. But then I also had the opportunity to really work my way up to work with the executive leadership team on annual strategic planning for our marketing on go to market for our new brands and helping being part of the brand development process. Um, and just really seeing what it takes to be in marketing at a fast growing organization and why you really need to have the strategy and the systems to support that in order to be effective. So, so it was an incredible way to start my career. Um, I was there for six years and then I ended up moving to Seattle where I, um, ended up getting my business license. And this was in 2017. And my former employer became my first paying client, which I know we'll talk a little bit later. Um, and so that was the light bulb moment of, okay, I can do this virtually, I can do it remote, I can do it part time and still be incredibly effective with being a marketing leader. Um, um, I did end up taking a job full time at a marketing strategy firm, which was incredible because that was my first experience managing clients and really seeing what that was like. I got to work for several months at a Fortune 50 tech company. I got to work with, uh, really large international brands. And so it was a completely different experience. Um, um, but a year into that I really realized, you know, it's, I've got to take a chance on myself. I, I've got to, you know, I really feeling called to be around entrepreneurs and to support other business owners. And so in 2018, I left, uh, my full time role and this is what I've been doing ever since.

Speaker A: You know, one thing I really love about your journey is, let's face it, marketing can be a lot of fun. There are a lot of activities that take place in marketing, the tactical things that you do that can really be a lot of fun. And I know many marketers that are entering the field get very excited about some of those things. Right. But then you sort of went from that excitement of a lot of the tactical execution to the strategy side and really seeing, okay, how do all those pieces come together and develop a strategy? What, what was your takeaway from that? You know, as you, as you worked on that strategy piece?

Speaker B: Yeah, and it's, it's funny you say the tactics are fun because I, I agree with you certainly. And I've been practicing m fun tactics, but for me the strategy is the fun piece. And then, you know, maybe I'm the oddball with that, but I, I really find, um, it's just fun to see your stuff work. Right. It's fun when you're getting traction with marketing, when you're building momentum, which, um, we all know nothing works right away. And so that's sort of the expectation is that, you know, we're going to implement something and we're going to optimize it. And so I found that um, you know, it was so much more fun to be able to work cross functionally work among the brand marketing team, work with the leadership team when everyone was so crystal clear about what are we trying to do and why are we making decisions and how do these fun tactics or tests or whatever we're doing still support the overall goal and the overall roadmap of what we're trying to accomplish. I have a really hard time, um, when that uh, piece doesn't exist. And I see other people have a hard time with it too because a lot of companies do not prioritize this the way that they really should. And so they end up with, you know, the spaghetti at the wall marketing. And you know, this didn't work. So we're going to pop over here and spend tens of thousands more dollars on something else. And so, uh, that's not fun. Right. So we're not seeing our marketing work, um, and we just sort of keep jumping ship to the next thing.

Speaker A: You're so right. Because when marketing isn't working, it's not being effective. There is that stress of spending all of this money, all this energy and not seeing the results. And so strategy is so important and we're going to dig into that a little bit more in this conversation. But I'm interested too in your journey from going and working in a corpor environment to working on your own. How have you found it since then? Sort of moving beyond those initial connections to actually having to generate business on your own.

Speaker B: Yes. So, um, yeah, my first paying client was my former employer. And then after that when I left my full time role, I really told anyone and everyone about my business. And I think that this is a piece that um, when people are new to starting out, they think, okay, I need to be on social media and I need to be creating content, doing all this stuff when you really can just make it so much more simple than that. And uh, and it's so much more effective when it's simpler than that. And so I just told everyone and because of the work uh, that I've done previously, the company and the network that I've been a part of, I knew a lot of very entrepreneurial people, people who joined other startups who had started their own businesses. And so I just reached out and said, hey, you know, I'm, I'm thinking about doing this, I'm thinking about starting the smartening business. You know, what are some of the pitfalls you face? What are some of the challenges that you've gone through, what is your sort of ideal case for how this would be? Um, what would be a good solution for you moving forward? And so that landed me some additional clients. And you know, from there it really was just being open to opportunities. Um, I like to tell the story that one of my clients early on in my business as well was my chiropractor. And we worked together for years because we had this very effective lead generation system that we did together. And that just came up because, you know, oh, what do you do? Oh, I'm a, you know, I'm a marketer and I help small, small business with their marketing. And, and so being open to, um, just those one off circumstances can be incredibly effective. But also, you know, of course, uh, evaluating that. Right. And thinking through, okay, where have I gotten my best clients? Where have I gotten my favorite clients? What, what was their path to find me? And then how can I go ahead and optimize that moving forward too? So I don't want to sound like it was just random because it certainly wasn't. Um, and I had tools in place to help me, but, um, simplify is always a good way to go.

Speaker A: Have you found that when you talk about marketing, uh, just in random conversations with people, they think marketing is advertising or they think that marketing is email spam or social media posts, do you find that people are very sort of narrow in their thinking about what the true capabilities of marketing really might be?

Speaker B: Yes, and I wouldn't even necessarily say narrow, but more confused because m marketers are the loudest people and we all have different opinions and we all have different experiences and things that have worked for us. And so as you're sort of navigating the, uh, online landscape and new developments and the newest tactic or tool or platform, um, the marketers who are championing those things are going to be the ones telling you how great it is. Right? They're probably not going to give you the full context. They're probably not going to tell you about, okay, well, I tried this 100 other things that didn't work really well for me. Um, and so, yes, people are confused by what to pursue. Um, they're skeptical and rightfully so. And especially because a lot of times, you know, people will pay money for something that they think is going to be the solution to their problem that ends up really not being that. And one example I'll give you is, um, I spoke to a business owner who spent thousands of dollars. She's a brand new business owner to do like a full brand strategy package, which I'm a brand marketer. Like, I, I, uh, completely value brand. It's something that I place a ton of importance into my own business. But you got to be scrappy when you're, when you don't have a ton of resources. And you really, uh, need to understand why am I investing this money this time right now? Versus is this something that I could, you know, do some experimentation and talk to more people and learn a bit more about what my brand is and what my product or service is and why that resonates with people? Um, not just, you know, and then just something they're willing to pay for. Versus I want to think of a fun logo and company name which a lot of people think is, is, is the brand and the marketing, but it's so much more expensive than that.

Speaker A: As you said, there's always this fight against, you know, rushing to the low hanging fruit. Right. And doing those things that look good but don't necessarily provide all that much effectiveness towards what the company's goals or objectives are. Yeah, I see that all the time. I'm curious too. As you've worked on your own, have you refined your own ideal customer profile, the types of businesses that you're targeting?

Speaker B: Very much so, yes. Um, and I think that as a business owner, you, you should be constantly doing that. And not in a way that, you know, it's impossible to move forward or it's impossible to really like, make decisions and stick with them, but in a way that we're part of a world that is changing so quickly and there's always new opportunities and, and absolutely. I mean, I have changed my service offerings, I've changed my, uh, you know, written copy, I've changed the platforms that I've used. But I've always done it from a place of understanding why am I making this decision? Like, why is this important right now to sort of check myself that no, I'm not chasing a new shiny thing. This is either going to help me involve, evolve what I've been doing some way, or continue to build momentum in a similar way. Um, rather than just say, oh, it's not working, like, I better go try something else. Always taking away the learning from before to, you know, whatever next initiative it is that you're going to pursue.

Speaker A: Hmm, I agree with that. Yeah, you constantly gotta be looking at it, right. And refining it, seeing what's working. So how have you narrowed it down? Do you Focus mostly on B2B? B2C? Any target industries? What's the sweet spot for you?

Speaker B: The sweet spot for me. Um, I talk about it a little bit differently but I see 3 million um, dollars companies and up, uh, so I am not most effective as marketing resource number one. I have worked with micro business owners and solopreneurs before but as you know Eric, it takes a lot to get the marketing systems up and running. And so I tend to work best when I come into a situation with a company that either has a growing marketing team, you know, perhaps they have um, a more junior person in place who's doing a lot of the execution. Um, maybe they're working with an agency or they have some um, contractors or freelancers that are supporting their marketing. And what they lack is how are all these disparate activities really coming together to support the business goals? Because that's what's so often missed and I've had, you know, client projects that I come into and, and ask, you know, okay, well from leadership, like what is the direction of, of company priorities? What do we need to be focused on with the marketing in order to support those things? Because marketing is a service function, right? Like, like we, we don't exist without the company, you know, roadmap or, or North Star in order to, to execute towards. And so um, that's just such an important piece of it is understanding why are we doing these things. Um, and based on that, um, what's going to make the most sense? So I really like to come into client situations where they have some type of marketing in place and they maybe are going to have a new launch or a new initiative or a go to market that they need to scale. And I can come in and work with leadership on how are we communicating our goals, what are we actually trying to do? And then with marketing on, great. Now we need a system and an implementation plan to actually make it happen.

Speaker A: I love that and I think it's so important. I'm curious, as you engage with clients, do you get pushback? Do you get. Well, strategy is important but we just need a new website right now. We can look at the strategy after that. Do you hear that a lot?

Speaker B: I hear that and that is a, um, I'm not going to say a red flag, but that is a signal to me that maybe I'm not a great fit for that project. Um, I've definitely taken on projects in the past where, you know, especially getting started, started out like, yeah, I'll help you out with a smaller project and you know, I'll talk to the business owner about okay, well we can Start here. But we really need to, in order to truly be effective, we actually have to do these things over here as well. And so I've just kind of learned that, um, I really enjoy partnering with clients who see the value in having a strategy. You know, it takes a lot to come into an organization and have to then convince everyone why you're valuable and why you should be there and what you can do for them. But I've really been so fortunate and I think it is part of how I built my business, you know, starting with people who have seen what I can do and who worked with me before and who know sort of how I operate and can vouch for that. Um, that when I come into a client project, they, they're ready and they're excited and they say awesome, like, great. And I'm able to really step in and start leading meetings and start asking for what I know I need. Um, and not feel, um, like bad about that or not feel like, you, uh, know any hesitation there because we're, we're coming in on the same page. But Eric, it is so common, and I'm sure you hear this too, that there's a, a whole lot of people out there who, you know, strategy is for later. We don't have time, we don't have resources. You know, it's, it's, we've got to get out this press release, we've got to send out this marketing email, but that ends up wasting so much more money and time than if you just took a little bit of time to ensure everyone's on the same page. And yes, in fact, everything that we're doing really is prioritized to align with what we're trying to do as a business.

Speaker A: Yeah, I completely agree with that. It does pay to take the time to really develop out a strategy. One of the other things that I see a lot, and I'm curious as to what your thoughts are here, is come into a business and we start talking about strategy and they say, oh yeah, we have a strategy. Here's our Excel sheet. That is basically the budget. And these are all the things that we're doing and how much money we've assigned. And maybe there's a column for how many leads we've generated from each one of these things. Ta da. We have a strategy, but that's not really a strategy. That's a budget.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's a budget. And, and in addition to that, a list of tactics. Right. It'll be like, oh yeah, we're, you know, we're Working with an influencer team or we're, you know, doing all these partnerships or you know, whatever. And um, great, like, cool. Let's, you know, let's keep the ball running on those things. If they are generating sales, if, you know, if we know that they're working and there's some type of, uh, system behind them. But you still need that strategy piece because what, what happens in those situations a lot of times that I see, and I'd be curious to hear your thoughts as well, is maybe one of the things is working really well, but then there's all of these resources being spent spread so thin across all these other initiatives that aren't producing and without a strategy, you're not able to say, hey, we've been spending a lot of hours and thousands of dollars on this channel and it's not really getting us anywhere. Like maybe we should reallocate that elsewhere into what is working or into a new test or something. And, and that uh, strategy is sort of a checks and balances that helps you make those decisions effectively and also keeps everyone on the same page. Because a lot of what I hear as well and see is, you know, the leadership team and other cross functional executives want to know what is marketing doing and what is your plan of coming and how is it going to affect us? And the strategy is what helps everyone understand that story and set expectations for what's to come.

Speaker A: Hey, it's Eric here and we'll be right back to the podcast. But first, are you ready to grow, scale and take your marketing to the next level? If so, the 5Echelon Groups virtual CMO consulting service may be a great fit for you. We can help build a strategic marketing plan for your business and manage its execution step by step. We'll focus on areas like how to attract more leads, how to create compelling messaging that resonates with your ideal customers, how to strategically package and position your products and services, how to increase lead conversion, improve your margins, and scale your business. To find out more about our consulting offerings and schedule a consultation, go to 5echelon.com and click on Services. Now back to the podcast. Well, one of my favorite examples, because I think it's easy to understand, is a lot of companies, if they haven't already, they want to get more into social media. It's very common for them to have maybe a junior level person on their team who's doing social media posts. And you go in and look at them and there's a post that says Happy New Year and one that says Happy Martin Luther King Day and Happy Valentine's Day and the list goes on and on. And that's great. Those are nice feel good posts. But what's the strategy? What are you trying to accomplish? You've spent man hours and effort to put together a post, maybe create some graphics, put some things out. What is the point? What are you trying to accomplish by doing that? Is that just part of a broader social media strategy where you're actually just trying to keep your audience engaged? Or is that the strategy just to put little platitudes out on social media, hoping that people care? That's a basic example, but that's one of the things that I think people see is why are you doing something? You can do a lot of things, but what's the purpose? What are you trying to get out of it?

Speaker B: Oh my gosh. I'm, I'm. For anyone listening, I'm like smiling really big as Eric is talking because I just, I see this all the time and that is, that is a check the box marketing activity. And people think, oh, I need to be visible on social media because people are on social media and so I need to have a presence. But this is a really good time to ask yourself, what is my actual client or customer journey? Are people truly going to Instagram scrolling through the billions of other highly engaged and uh, you know, highly thought through pieces of content landing on your Happy New Year post on your company page, clicking through and then buying something like, no, that's not happening. And, and this is very common whether they have a junior person, you know, internally do it, or they maybe hire a marketing intern or they, you know, are working with a freelance, you know, the, the deal is, okay, we'll post for you three times a week on X number of channels. That's not really doing anything from a business perspective in most cases. And a lot of times what I see too is, you know, there will be five likes on the post and, and it's employees of the company, like, you know, so, so why, why are you doing that? And there may be a case, there may be a strategy where someone's listening and saying, well, we know exactly how that impacts our business and that's why we keep doing it. But, but I would say the vast majority of people who are executing in that way, it is probably wasting resources to do it and it's probably not anywhere meaningful.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I see this a lot with things like SEO as well. Companies can come in, say, we're going to help you out with your SEO and you sell Network routers. And now you rank for being a pastry chef. Okay, that's great. But, but does that help your business? Is anybody searching for pastry chefs that sell network routers? Right. Are, uh, the keywords you're ranking for important to your business? Is it driving traffic? What's the outcome that you're trying to achieve? And I think that's why a strategy person is so important to a business, because not everybody in the management team is marketing savvy, nor should they be. Right. That's a job for a marketing specialist, and that's where somebody who can come in and lead that strategy effort can really say, hey, these are the kinds of things that you need to watch out for. This is the purp of us doing this. This is why investing these dollars is an important investment for your business.

Speaker B: Yes. And I'll take it even a step further with the SEO example and also bring that back to what is your customer journey? And people miss this. People don't go through their marketing channels as their ideal customer would. You know, how are they finding me? What is the button they're clicking? What does it say on the page? How easy is it to find what happens next? And this very simple process, and I highly encourage anyone listening who is active on social media or running SEO, like, do this exercise and be really critical of it and, or even better, bring someone in to objectively do it. Bring in an ideal client or someone like that that can sort of help you refine what that process is. I was once speaking to an SEO, um, expert, and, you know, he saw a lot of what you just mentioned as well, where it's like, oh, we're ranking for all of these, you know, keywords, and they at glance seemed relevant, but it's not how people actually use search engines. I think one of the examples was like, you know, best, you know, we'll go with pastry chef in area code, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. No one searches that way. They search for pastry chef near me, or, you know, pastry chef, uh, Denver or something like that. And so it's, it's taking the time to be really critical of does this actually make sense? Um, and breaking it down really, in simplifying it in that way can be an incredibly meaningful exercise.

Speaker A: Um, I love the way you brought that up because, you know, a buyer's journey is important. It's really critical, I think, for any business to understand how buyers find you, what the buying process looks like, what are upsell opportunities down the road to really understand that full journey. But like, you Said it's not like every buyer goes through that same journey in exactly the same sequence of steps, right. People come in and out at all different places. And so you really have to understand how they're interacting with their organization and what the purpose of each tactic is. Because you never know if somebody's coming in on that tactic or a different one.

Speaker B: And that's one of the things too that I think people hear something like that and they think, oh, that means I need to be everywhere.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Because we don't know where people are coming from. But that's not the case, right. It's identifying what those channels are, where you are getting visible. Right. And getting in front of new people and really, um, introducing them to, to your brand or to your business. And then what happens next? Well, they're going to want to learn a little bit more and they're going to want to better educate themselves and explore, you know, is this company legitimate and where are some testimonials and, or case studies. And so it, you know, it's not that you have to be everywhere, it's that you have to think about, uh, think about that journey like you said, and consider what each step of that looks like for the person who you want to hire you or come into your store or whatever it is.

Speaker A: And this is the whole importance of a strategy exercise really. It's asking these kinds of questions, it's digging in deeper, really understanding what your journey is for your buyers and then what are the tactics that are needed to support it. So I think that's so critical. If a company is out there and they're saying, well, I do have some problems with my marketing, I'm not getting the kind of lead flow that I need or uh, I'm not getting the right kind of leads. What do you say to them in terms of engaging with a fractional executive? Why would they go down that path?

Speaker B: Yeah, so what I would say to them first is try to figure out to some extent what is and isn't working. And this doesn't have to be a very built out, you know, multi week exercise. But just be logical about it and ask yourself, where are customers coming from? You know, how do we know that, um, and what tools are we currently using that we're seeing be most effective in terms of why a company could consider hiring a fractional executive? Let's talk about some of the alternatives they have. So you could hire a full time high level marketing leader. You'll probably spend months looking for this person. You'll have to pay Them a six figure multiple six figure salary, benefits and hope that it works out right. That's, that's what that looks like. Um, to get that level of experience as someone who's worked probably in a variety of industries at a variety of companies and sort of seen this again and again, you can hire an agency which I know that a lot of um, a lot of companies out there do work with marketing agencies and that can be effective. But keep in mind that agencies tend to have expertise in what it is exactly that they do. They're pulling the levers on the back end of Google and Facebook and they know how to optimize campaigns. They do not necessarily deeply understand your business objectives and I've seen this go wrong time and time again. Eric, I'd be interested to hear you know, your input on this. But there is very easily misalignment between what leadership thinks is happening and wants to happen and what the agency is actually executing too. And I've also unfortunately worked with agencies where you know, even asking for something as basic as, you know, what is your plan to optimize, what is your plan to test and learn. And there's nothing like strategic and methodical that's there and that's a key piece of uh, working with paid advertising is how am I going to improve this over time? Because you, that's why having the data through those platforms is so important. Um, so, so that's another option. And, or you're working maybe with like freelancers or contractors who can be incredible, um, you know, resources to help with some execution. Like maybe you need a copywriter to help you write your website content. Once you have your strategy, maybe you need someone to help you design the display ads. Something very tactical that again supports the high level strategy. So uh, what you get with a fractional leader is someone who has the strategic experience, they understand why it's important to have the full roadmap, to have the full understanding of what we're trying to do and how it supports the business and can really um, work among the agencies, the leadership team, the other third party resources, and also cross functionally internally with the company to really make sure that everything is like humming along in a way that makes sense and where everyone is, like I mentioned before, building that momentum versus throwing things at the wall and being really um, fragmented in what's happening.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a good overview. That's a good way to put it. And look, we as marketers, we work with freelancers and agency partners all the time and they're critical to the things that we do, but oftentimes they're packaging up services. And that's not necessarily a strateg supports a strategy, but that in and of itself is not a strategy. And that's why working with a fractional is such a great way to sort of manage those, partner those, agency those freelance relationships to get that strategy executed before we close out. I'd love it if you could just tell a little bit more about where people can find you, whether it's LinkedIn on the web, if you have any offers that you want to give to the audience.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I am primarily on LinkedIn at Natalie B. Sales Swan. Go ahead and connect with me there and you can also find me online@natalie bswan.com and learn more about my services and business and any free offers I have there.

Speaker A: I love these kinds of discussions. I especially love talking about strategy with somebody who's passionate about it and it's got such an interesting background like you do. Natalie, I really appreciate you being on the show today. I will make sure that everything you mentioned there we've got linked up in the show notes so that people can find you. Thanks for you so much for your time.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Eric, thank you so much for having me. This is such a pleasure.

Speaker A: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Virtual CMO Podcast. For more episodes, go to 5echelon.com podcast to subscribe through your podcast player of choice. And if you'd like to develop consistent lead flow and a highly effective marketing strategy, visit 5echelon to learn more about our Virtual CMO consulting services.