How Commonsense Marketing Helps Businesses Scale
You started your business because you’re good at what you do, not because you love sales and marketing.
The problem is that no matter how good you are, you can’t sell a secret. This is where marketing comes in.
After working in the industry for over 25 years, I’ve seen a pattern emerge.
Businesses launch, eager to get going, and the owner chooses a cheap website because they figure it will get the job done. This is usually built on a platform like Wix or Squarespace, which are pitched as the cost-effective DIY approach, but lack the features that a business needs if it wants to scale.
Then, along the way, they tack on some (usually overpriced and ineffective) SEO services, dabble with writing a few blogs and have a go at Google Ads that don’t really result in anything other than a hole in their back pocket. After 2-5 years, they realise they are missing out on market share.
Then one or two things happen:
- They want to scale up, and they know it's time to get serious and develop a comprehensive marketing strategy.
- They realise their marketing assets are not doing the job, and their spend so far has been mainly wasted.
This is usually when they find or are referred to Commonsense Marketing, mostly seeking a website rebuild.
Business owners who come to us often say they “just want a new website”.
We’re happy to do that, but if you really want to scale your business, you need the right strategies and systems in place to take care of the whole customer journey. In 95% of cases, the business owner has never thought through all of this. It’s a real eye-opener.
Take a look at the all-important steps you can’t skip if you want a good marketing outcome, and how we helped one client achieve 1200% return on investment.
First things first: Review
Good marketing starts with understanding. At Commonsense Marketing, we never begin by throwing tactics at the wall or considering a website project in isolation from the rest of the business.
Instead, we start with a review process and look at:
- Who are your ideal customers (you may have several) and what are their most pressing issues or desires?
- Where do they hang out, and how do they prefer to communicate?
- How are you different / better than your competitors?
- What are your competitors doing?
- What gaps exist in your digital assets (analytics, tracking, channels, branding inconsistency, etc)
- How much traffic are you getting to your website, where is it coming from, what pages of your site are the most interesting and why aren’t more people making enquiries?
- How many qualified leads are you getting, and how many of these are you converting into sales?
- What do you do if they don’t convert straight away?
- What do you do if they do convert? What happens next?
Another important step we take is to review your digital assets and ensure the business has access to all the logins and accounts. You’d be shocked at how often we find business owners don’t own their domains, or have access to their websites or Google marketing accounts, or the Facebook business page is administered by a former employee.
For many businesses, this review is the first time they’ve received a clear picture of their online presence, and had a comparative look at their competition.
It’s also the moment the lightbulb goes on: a website is just one part of a total effective marketing strategy.
Second Step: Strategy and Recommendations
Once we have conducted an in-depth review and analysis of how things are now, it’s time to set some smart goals and timelines, so we provide you with the right recommendations to achieve those goals.
Most projects start with a website build or complete makeover, but we know that this alone will not achieve growth goals. That’s why we develop a tailored marketing plan for each client.
When you work with us, you get a partner who cares as much about your growth as you do. You have a Fractional CMO and a whole team of people with specific digital marketing qualifications and expertise.
The Marketing Plan we prepare for you will be tailored to suit your specific needs and budget. It will also contain options, so that you can implement aspects in stages to suit your cashflow and growth.
Services we may recommend that our team can provide include:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to ensure you rank in search results and AI results for important keyword terms
- Engaging content that educates, persuades and builds trust.
- Online advertising that puts you in front of the right people at the right time.
- Nurturing systems that turn enquirers into loyal clients.
- Consistent design elements that elevate your brand on all platforms.
- Tracking and reporting that give you transparency on what’s working and what isn’t.
- Client loyalty initiatives that keep customers coming back.
The Commonsense Marketing team will build, connect, monitor and refine these pieces, taking an approach that blends creativity with practical thinking. Not everyone needs all these services, so we only recommend those that we think are crucial to achieving your goals.
Third Step: Choose the right marketing program
Every business we work with has strengths and gaps unique to their business phase and current capabilities, so in our tailored marketing plan we will usually recommend one of our three flexible marketing packages.
Quite often, once the business has the right campaigns and systems in place and the growth goals are being achieved, they will move up to a more comprehensive package to scale further.
This is what we offer:
- Let’s Go Program – a strong foundation that helps you attract the right prospects to your website, give a great first impression and inspire website visitors to contact you, and a follow-up system to deliver a memorable customer experience. This package includes analytics, reports and monthly reviews.
- Growth Program – designed to build on the Let’s Go Marketing Program to maximise growth through additional marketing activities including Google Ads, advanced SEO, ongoing website updates, webchat, review system, sales management system and more.
- Accelerate Program – the top level is a go fast, all-guns-blazing package which builds on the Growth Programs and gives you complete website redevelopment, social media management, newsletters and meta retargeting campaigns.
The right program depends on where your business is today and how fast you want to grow. For a recommendation and outline of your investment, get in touch today.
Fourth Step: Get super organised with the right systems
We are constantly researching and testing different strategies, systems and tactics that will improve business life and results for our clients.
A recent addition to our ‘toolkit’ is Customer Hub, an all-in-one platform that streamlines communication and simplifies the time-consuming tasks of communicating through email, social media, messaging etc.
From issuing automated emails and messages, to scheduling social media, to booking appointments, to sales pipeline management; Customer Hub makes it easy to manage every stage of the customer journey from one place.
In industry speak, this is called a CRM (Customer Relationship Management tool), but all you need to know is that it saves you from having 10 spreadsheets, 8 different apps and constant admin to keep on top of enquiries or send messages via email and social media. Instead, you get a single location for your marketing and sales activity.
Again, three levels of service are available, depending on your needs. Get in touch to request a demo and find out how this tool can make managing marketing, sales and communications so much easier.
Ongoing service and reporting
Marketing should never stop at launch.
When you work with Commonsense, you will also receive monthly reports so you always know what’s happening, including how much traffic your website gets, how many leads convert, and what your marketing return on investment looks like.
We also take care of hosting and website care to keep everything secure, updated and running smoothly.
It’s this combination of proactive support, transparency and strategic alignment that makes our approach different.
Here’s some feedback from one of our clients, to prove we get things right:
“Over the past 16 years, Fit Merchandising has had the pleasure of partnering with many professional businesses. However, our experience with Commonsense Marketing has been notably exceptional. From our initial discussions to the final deliverables, their team has consistently exceeded our expectations.”
Case study: From “just a website” to a growth partner
One new client, a caravan park, came to Commonsense Marketing asking for a website update. On the surface, it seemed simple enough: refresh the design, tidy up the content and make the site look more modern and professional.
But as soon as we began our discovery process, the real issues came to light.
- The business had no visibility in search results.
- The business was spending money on Meta ads, but not achieving any bookings
- Their digital assets had no design continuity or personality.
- There was no clarity about what set them apart from competitors.
The client’s bookings had declined significantly, and without access to their Meta ads account or Google Analytics accounts, they had no view or control over their important digital assets.
We started with market research, competitor analysis and keyword insights, presenting the client with a clear view of where they stood. From there, we built a strategy that went beyond “just a website” and:
- Redeveloped their online presence to highlight their unique selling points
- Updated photography and content design to better reflect their brand
- Introduced tracking tools so they could see real data on performance
- Laid out a plan for SEO and content that would steadily lift their visibility
- Implemented Customer Hub to make it easier to communicate with prospects and customers and build long-term relationships
Within months, the business had moved from not being found in search results at all, to showing up high in search results for all the right search terms. More importantly, they finally felt in control of their marketing (and the surge in bookings proved that things were working).
For this client, what began as a simple website project turned into a complete marketing foundation, one that continues to deliver consistent bookings, week after week, all year round to the point where they are often booked out completely.
The results: Our last analysis revealed a 1200% return on investment.
Good marketing is Commonsense
At its heart, good marketing means asking the right questions, building the right foundations, and keeping everything connected. It means honesty, transparency and education from your marketing provider, so you always know not just what we're doing, but why. And it means going beyond a basic website or a DIY approach and working with a partner that treats your business like its own, going the extra mile to deliver results that matter.
If you have outgrown piecemeal, ineffective or DIY marketing and are ready to see what a well-planned strategy and campaign management can do for your business, send us a message today.
