Is Your Marketing Still Representing Your Business?

Chances are, your business has changed a lot over the past few years.

It may have changed in how you do your work, or whom you now work with, and most likely your level of expertise has elevated, too.

But if someone came across your business for the first time today, would your marketing tell them what kind of business you have now?

Because while your business has been evolving over time, some of your marketing may still be representing an earlier version of it.

Let’s walk through a possible scenario where someone was referred to you this morning. Before reaching out, they look you up on LinkedIn or Facebook, then go visit your website, maybe even download your free resource, and start receiving your emails.

By the time they’ve done all of that, what version of your business have they actually encountered?

Hi, I’m Susan Friesen, your Small Business Brand Positioning Strategist.

In these Stand Out and Thrive videos, I share practical insights to help you better understand how your business is being perceived so you can make more informed brand and marketing decisions.

If that sounds useful to you, I’d love for you to subscribe to my channel so you don’t miss future videos.

Now, what makes this particular issue so easy to overlook is that most businesses don’t change overnight.

They evolve gradually.

Over time, even the way you talk about your work can change because you understand your clients and their needs better than you did five years ago.

From your perspective, those changes make perfect sense because you lived through them. You know what changed and why.

But someone finding out about you today doesn’t have any of that history.

They only have what is in front of them in this moment.

And that’s where things can get interesting.

Let’s say your website was updated fairly recently, so it does a pretty good job of representing where the business is today.

But your LinkedIn profile still describes your work the way you did three years ago.

There’s also a lead magnet on your website that was created for an audience you don’t really focus on anymore. It’s still informative, so you’ve never had much reason, or time, to take it down.

Then there’s the automated email sequence connected to it that talks quite a bit about a service that used to be central to your business but isn’t anymore.

Now head over to YouTube where your outdated videos sit but still get found through search.

The thing is, none of those individual items are necessarily a problem on their own.

The problem is that the person researching you doesn’t know which pieces are old, and which are reflective of what your business is now.

They don’t look at an email and think, “Oh, Susan must have written this before her business evolved.”

They assume what they’re seeing represents the business today.

And I think that’s something we often forget when we look at our own marketing. I know I’m guilty of this!

We have the benefit of knowing when something was created and how our business has changed since then. The person checking us out doesn’t know any of that. They’re simply taking in what they find and using it to figure out what kind of business we are today.

So, if your website is saying one thing and an older profile or piece of content is giving them a different impression, they’re left trying to make sense of it.

And they may come away with an impression you never intended to happen.

I’ve been finding pieces of this in my own business lately, which is probably one of the reasons I’ve been thinking about it so much.

When you’ve been in business as long as I have, there’s quite a trail behind you.

And because I know the history of my business, I automatically put older things into that context.

That’s why I think it’s useful every so often to look at your marketing from the outside in.

And I don’t mean opening your website and immediately looking for things you want to rewrite.

Instead, try looking at what’s already out there as though you knew nothing about the history behind it.

What would you think this business is known for today?

Would that match what you want to be known for now?

You might notice that some of the language no longer sounds like the way you talk about your business. Or perhaps you’re still putting a lot of emphasis on something that has become a much smaller part of what you do.

And it could very well be that you find everything fits together perfectly!

But then again, you could find something you had completely forgotten was still out there…

And I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens.

Older marketing has a habit of sticking around because there’s rarely an obvious moment when it announces, “I am now irrelevant and no longer represent your business anymore.”

It just keeps plugging away, doing what it was designed to originally do.

Meanwhile, you’ve moved on.

This is one of the reasons ongoing alignment is part of my Position Strong method.

As your business evolves, what you want to be known for can change, too.

And your marketing needs to keep up with those changes.

That doesn’t mean you need to throw everything out every time your business evolves.

It might just mean updating a bio, retiring an old lead magnet, or revising an email auto-responder sequence.

What matters is that you know those older pieces exist and you make a conscious decision about whether they still represent you.

Because your potential clients can’t separate your current marketing from your old marketing.

So, before you create the next piece of content or add another campaign, take a look at what’s already there from the outside in.

See what someone else would see.

Then ask yourself whether the business they would describe back to you is the business you believe you’re running today.

If you try this and discover something that surprises you, let me know in the comments. I’d be curious to hear what you find.

Until next time, I’m Susan Friesen, your Small Business Brand Positioning Strategist, inviting you to stay clear, stay focused, and stand out.

About the Author, Susan Friesen

Located in the lower mainland of B.C., Susan Friesen is a visionary brand strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of British Columbia’s premiere boutique web development and digital marketing agency, eVision Media.

With over 20 years of experience in the industry, she is an expert in helping businesses establish their online presence and create a strong brand identity.

Her passion for empowering entrepreneurs and small business owners to succeed in the digital world has earned her a reputation as a leading authority in the branding and marketing industry.

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