The Critical Scaling Error Brands Make That Absolutely Kills Profits

Acquiring new customers at a profit, and keeping them coming back again and again, is essential if you want to grow your business. Without it, you won’t have the cashflow or the profitability to sustain your business, because those two things – cash flow and profits – are like blood and oxygen to your business. However, the way you go about acquiring and retaining customers will be different depending on what kind of product or service you sell. And most likely, it’ll change over time as the world we operate in changes. From time to time, I’ve found a really valuable exercise is to analyse what some of the most successful brands and companies are doing, and to compare and contrast them with others and with my own businesses. When you do this kind of exercise, not only can you come away with some fantastic new ideas to try out in your own business. But you’ll also notice that even the most successful businesses in the world don’t experience a straight upwards growth curve from start-up to success.  So today on the show, we’re going to dissect the Netflix business model and we’re going to  tease out 6 specific components that contribute to their success that you might be able to emulate. We’ll also compare these to other brands as well, to identify the type of business or product that best suits each strategy. Episode: https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-223/   Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together. https://www.catherinelangman.com/work-with-me-shopify-expert/  

Using Facebook Ads has been a tried-and-true method of increasing traffic and sales for eCommerce businesses over many years now. But, it’s never without issues along the way…  I’m sure we all know the frustration when you invest the time, energy, and money into ads that either don’t produce the expected results, OR that suddenly take a nosedive for no apparent reason. The truth is, many business owners run into the problem of their Facebook ads not converting.  Lately, Facebook has been rolling out a lot of new updates to the Ads platform, many of which have caused issues with campaigns that were otherwise performing well. And whilst there is no playbook that Meta hands out – Meta are notoriously silent when it comes to sharing any kind of information about what they’re doing and how it impacts the way we use the platforms – so there’s no foolproof guide for troubleshooting issues when they happen. However, long experience tells me there are several steps you can take to bring your ad performance back where you need it to be. So in this episode, I’ll share 10 fixes you can implement when your Facebook ads are broken or stop converting.   Episode: https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-222/     Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together. https://www.catherinelangman.com/work-with-me-shopify-expert/  

In the increasingly busy digital landscape we operate in as brand owners and eCommerce businesses, it’s harder and harder to capture the attention of your customers. Think of the last time you spent time on social media. How many pieces of content did you notice? Did you scroll past most of it? What was it that actually stopped you scrolling? One of the most effective ways to cut through the clutter is through brand design. I don’t mean just your logo. A logo is only one small part of your branding.  Think about the brands whose marketing you really notice and engage with. They all have a distinct personality.  Their visual, written and experiential elements all consistently convey the brand personality and brand value. And they manage to produce marketing content that is engaging, memorable and inspires action – purchase. In this episode, I’m joined by brand designer Janelle and we dissect the branding of 4 successful brands, teasing out what it is that helps them connect with their customers.  At the end, we have a fun, free exercise you can do to help identify your own brand’s personality and style, so that you can also elevate your marketing to the next, more impactful level. Episode: https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-221/   Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together.    https://www.apple.com/au/ https://au.whogivesacrap.org/ https://gotoskincare.com/ https://styleware.com.au/  

Did your eCommerce revenue drop in March? Or maybe February? When results decline, the common knee-jerk reaction is to assume you’ve stuffed up in some way. That you did something to cause the downturn.  Or, to blame poor sales on the state of the economy.  Either way, you’re liable to end up in the same place: not investing time or money in marketing to drive your business forwards. First of all, just because your sales might decline sometimes, does not mean your business is a failure.  Nor does it mean that consumer demand for your products has all but dried up and your business is doomed. However, if you are experiencing a sales slump, not taking any action to rectify that situation WILL lead to that dismal ending! And I don’t want that for you. So today on the show, I want to help you to identify what the real issue is, and what is the right action you need to take to fix it. Episode: https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-220/   Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together. https://www.catherinelangman.com/work-with-me-marketing-specialist/ https://productpreneurmarketing.com/conversion-rate-optimisation/  

Is your business amazing yet? What do you need to do to get to Amazing? This past month has felt a bit chaotic and unpredictable, with things like Afterpay Day promo being a massive high, and then a bunch of changes on the Meta Ads platform destabilising ads. And I know a few of you have been feeling anxious as a result, wondering if it’s something you’ve done to stuff things up. Trust me, it’s not you, it’s across the board. However, you don’t want to let it stay like that! As we draw to the end of the first quarter of 2024, it’s time to do your quarterly review to assess what’s happened, what worked, what didn’t, and figure out what you need to do next. Don’t stress – I’m here to help! In this episode, I share 5 short, fun exercises you can do to take stock and plan your next steps. Remember, success is not an accident!  Episode: https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-219/ Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together.   https://www.catherinelangman.com/work-with-me-marketing-specialist/

Do you feel like you’re working your butt off but getting nowhere fast? Like, you’re so busy all the time you could not possibly work any harder or longer hours than you already are.  I want to talk about the concept of Return On Effort. Not Return On Investment, but Effort.  How can you get a bit more leverage into your days so that the results and outcomes you can produce are bigger and better compared to the efforts or inputs you put in. Often, people don’t figure out if their efforts are actually generating a return. I see far too many business owners working for peanuts over a very long period of time, and they don’t even realise it. In this episode, I’ll be sharing how you can plan ahead while considering your return on effort as well as investment. Then we’ll discuss how you should measure your actual return on effort to make sure the actions you took produced the level of results you wanted. And most importantly of all, we’ll discuss how you can improve your return on effort AND get there faster than ever before. For the full show notes visit https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-218/   Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together. Time Sucking Monster quiz: https://quiz.catherinelangman.com/sf/ca2386a4 90 Day Planning Process podcast: https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-158/ Hire a VA: https://www.catherinelangman.com/ecommerce-virtual-assistant/  

It’s often the case that entrepreneurs launch their brands feeling as though they’ve done the hard work by actually getting their product to launch.  But while designing and manufacturing a product and getting it to market is no small feat, the real hard work of growing a business is yet to happen. Building an audience. Gaining brand awareness. Getting customers to actually buy your product – not just once, but over and over again to produce consistent and growing revenues. None of that stuff is easy. Often it’s a bit boring. There are frequent problems and disappointments and issues that require solving.   There are certain ingredients we must have in order to sustain motivation and productivity over the long-haul, which is necessary if we want to experience lasting success.And certain strategies we need to employ consistently if we want to build brand awareness, create demand for our products and convert paying customers. Your eCommerce business and the success and profitability of your digital marketing, requires all of these ingredients, which is the topic of today’s episode. Today on the show I’m joined by Raph McGowan, founder of innovative Aussie brand Bakslap. Since launching only a few years ago, Bakslap has experienced some rapid growth and is now primed to take some major international markets by storm. There are four key takeaways I want you to take away from this conversation, that could really help ignite massive brand visibility and fuel faster growth in your own business. Starting with passion and purpose, the two ingredients that fuel Raph’s motivation through all the ups and downs, as well as forming the basis of the stories and content that capture and engage his audience’s attention. And then the two key strategies – public, grass-roots events and partnerships – take those stories to the masses, giving Raph and Bakslap the kind of brand awareness that a successful eCommerce business needs to leverage in order to scale and grow. Aside from creating this incredibly successful venture, Raph is also humble and clearly enjoys what he does every day. His positivity is quite infectious!   For the full show notes visit https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-217/ Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together. https://bakslap.com/ https://productpreneurmarketing.com/lets-talk/   Photo Credit: Couriermail Australia

One of the hardest things when it comes to planning for growth, is estimating your future revenue and setting goals around how much you’ll grow month on month and year on year.   Business owners and leaders crave predictable, profitable growth.   But, most people who have been in business for even a short while, know from experience that there are a lot of variables outside your control, which makes it extremely difficult to plan ahead with confidence.   It also makes it extremely difficult for many entrepreneurs to spend money with confidence on things like advertising or other strategies to generate that growth.   What then happens, is business owners proceed with a high degree of caution and are very conservative with their marketing investments – not wanting to risk too much money until they have proof that their ads or other activities are getting good results, and assuming that they’ll then be able to scale up in time to achieve their goals.    Unfortunately, this rarely produces the results that they’re after, which then dents the business owner's level of confidence and their motivation to keep at it.   For starters, they often don’t go out with the right mix of channels required to get the best results.     There’s also a commonly-held misconception that you can never guarantee any kind of specific result when it comes to your digital marketing.     However, as the business owner, or if you work with a marketing specialist that does work across all of those channels to implement whole-of-business growth strategies, then there are ways to be able to predict your revenue and profit growth with a high level of accuracy.   And in 2024, with the state of our economy right now, net profit growth is probably far more important than top line revenue growth. So if you don’t master this, you will definitely struggle more…   So today on the show, I’m going to walk you through the revenue growth modelling method I’ve developed that leads to much more accurate growth predictions and overall better results, both in terms of revenue and profits. For the full show notes visit https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-216/

With all this hype and media coverage around Taylor Swift's Downunder Tour, and with all the records this tour has smashed in terms of ticket sales and revenue, it got us thinking about the marketing for such mania.  Did you know that the average Swiftie fan wasn't just attending a concert, but embarking on a full-blown adventure?  With an estimated spending of $1300 on tickets, travel, accommodation, and merchandise, it's clear that attending a Taylor Swift concert was more than just a show—it was a pilgrimage for fans.  So for this episode, grab your sparkly outfits and get ready to uncover the marketing strategies and business lessons that makes the Eras Tour an unforgettable journey for fans and a lucrative venture for Taylor Swift, and how you can effectively apply these mega strategies to your own business marketing.  For the full show notes visit https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-215/ Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together. https://productpreneurmarketing.com/lets-talk/  

One of the most critical elements of a high converting eCommerce website is the navigation. We know, statistically, that providing customers with a great website user experience is hugely impactful on conversions. With an intuitive navigation, your customers can quickly find what they’re looking for. Additionally, with more than 70% of website visitors now on mobile devices, the navigation becomes even more critical. We have such a small amount of real estate on a mobile device screen, so the way we design our navigation plays an even bigger role. Plus, if you include all the right design and interactive elements you’ll give them nice little hits of dopamine as they successfully navigate on your site, and you’ll find your conversion rate will go up significantly.  In this episode, we go through the most common mistakes we see eCommerce businesses make all the time with their navigation, as well as her top tips for getting this critical component of your website right. So by the end of the episode, you will have several steps you can take and implement immediately on your own website. For the full show notes visit https://www.catherinelangman.com/episode-214/   Links mentioned in this episode: If you’d like help to achieve your goals in 2024 I invite you to have a chat to find out how we can make that happen together.   https://productpreneurmarketing.com/lets-talk/