Marketing Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All — Here’s How to Find What Works for You

If you’ve ever tried to follow someone else’s “proven” marketing formula only to feel like it just doesn’t fit your business, you’re not alone. The truth is—marketing isn’t one-size-fits-all. What works for one business may completely flop for another, and that’s okay.

In this episode, I’ll show you how to cut through the noise, tune into your strengths, and create a marketing approach that actually feels aligned and gets results. You’ll discover how to identify what works for your business, when to ditch strategies that aren’t serving you, and how to build a plan that’s sustainable long-term.

If you’re tired of trying to force yourself into someone else’s box, this conversation will help you find your way forward—with clarity and confidence.

Connect with me

Website: www.newschoolofmarketing.com
Facebook: @newschoolofmarketing
Instagram: @bianca_mckenzie

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https://newschoolofmarketing.com/accelerate

🔵 MARKETING MOMENTUM: a 6-week 1:1 mentoring package designed to get your marketing unstuck. With three strategy-packed sessions and personalised support, you’ll gain clarity, confidence, and a plan that actually moves your business forward—no more guesswork or going it alone.
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Transcript

Hey. Welcome to the New School of Marketing podcast. I'm Bianca McKenzie and this is the place where we break down marketing strategies that actually work without the overwhelm.

Before we dive in, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land I live and work on, the Palawa people of Lutruwita. I pay my respects to eldest, past and present and I acknowledge the deep connection they have to this land, culture and community.

Now let's dive in and make marketing work for you.

So if you've ever tried to follow someone else's marketing blueprint to the letter and wondered why it felt flat for you, or if you've bought like one of those courses promising the exact system that made me six figures only to find it didn't work in your business, then you're going to love this episode.

Today we're talking about why there's no such thing as a one size fits all marketing approach.

And more importantly, how to actually figure out what works for you and your unique business, your personality and your audience.

Because here's the truth.

What works really well for someone else might be completely wrong for you. And that is not a failure on your part.

Let's start with something I see happening all the time.

Someone has success with a particular marketing strategy.

Maybe they built their business entirely through Instagram, or they swear by email marketing, or they're all about networking events.

Then they package up their exact approach and sell it as a as the way to do marketing.

And look, I get why this happens. When something works well for us, it's natural to think it'll work for everyone.

But marketing's not like following a recipe where the same ingredient always produces the same cake.

And here's why cookie cutter approaches fail most of the time.

Firstly, your audience is different.

The people who follow that Instagram guru might love visual content and scroll for hours, while your audience might prefer detailed written content.

And they might only check Instagram occasionally.

The next one is that your business model is different. What works for a course creator selling digital products might be completely wrong for a local service provider or like a business to business consultant.

And then the next one is that you are different.

Maybe that person is naturally extroverted and loves being on camera while you're more comfortable writing or having one on one conversations.

And the next one is that your resources are different.

They might have had a team of five people and a massive ad budget while you're working solo and on a shoestring budget.

So let's look at what makes your marketing unique and what actually determines the right marketing approach for you.

And there are five key factors that make your marketing needs unique.

And understanding these will actually save you from wasting time on strategies that were never going to work for you anyway.

The first one is your business model.

The way you make money fundamentally changes how you should approach marketing.

And I'll give you some examples.

If you're selling high ticket services or consulting, you probably need marketing that builds trust and positions you as the expert.

Think thought leadership, content, case studies, speaking opportunities.

You're not trying to convert strangers immediately, you're actually nurturing relationships.

If you're selling lower priced products to lots of people, then you might need marketing that reaches a broader audience and that converts quickly.

So think social ads, influencer partnerships, content that goes viral. Like there's, there's a big difference.

And if you're a local business, your marketing needs to be hyperlocal.

Think about like Google my business, local SEO, community partnerships, word of mouth strategies.

They'll be way more important than having a massive social media following.

And if you're B2B business to business, LinkedIn might be your gold mine while TikTok is going to be a waste of time. But if you're selling business to consumer to for example teenagers, it might be the exact, exact opposite.

So your business model really should inform you how to approach your marketing factor number two is your natural communication style. And this one is huge and it's often overlooked.

The best marketing strategy for you is one that lets you communicate in a way that feels natural and and authentic.

Are you someone who thinks out loud and loves spontaneous conversations? Or maybe live video podcasting? Twitter, they're like perfect for you. But if you prefer to think things through and craft your words really carefully, then you might go towards blogging, email newsletters, or maybe a polished YouTube kind of account.

Maybe you're really good at explaining complex concepts, but you hate small talk.

In that case, you might want to create educational content, host webinars or more in depth tutorials than like casual social media posts.

Or if you love connecting with people one on one, but you like really feel awkward in front of a big kind of group.

Networking events might work partnerships or personalized Outreach.

Like, there's so many different ways to use your natural communication style.

There's no right or wrong here, just what works for you.

I've seen introverted business owners kill it with email marketing while they're actually struggling with social media. And I've seen extroverts who dominate on video, but they come write a blog post to save their lives.

So no right or wrong. It's literally what works for you.

Factor number three is your audience's preference and behaviour.

So your audience gets a vote in your marketing strategy too. It doesn't matter how much you love making TikTok videos if your ideal clients are all on LinkedIn reading industry articles like you're wasting your time on TikTok.

Here's how to figure out what your audience actually prefers.

It's super simple.

You ask them directly.

You can send a survey or, you know, just ask.

In your next few sales conversations, you can ask questions like, when you're looking for someone like me, where do you usually start your search?

Or what type of content do you find most helpful when making decisions about? And then like, you know, insert your industry.

So I could say, what type of content do you find most helpful when making decisions about finding an ad manager?

And look at their behaviour, not just their words, because people might say that they read every email, but if your open rates are terrible, it's kind of telling you something different.

Notice patterns in your best customers.

How did they find you?

What convinced them to work with you?

And if most of your best clients came through referrals, maybe relationship building should be your focus rather than content creation.

So there's a good one, right?

So think about your audience in this as well. Factor number four is your available resources.

Let's be realistic about what you can actually sustain.

The best marketing strategy in the world is useless if you can't actually maintain it.

You need to consider your time.

If you're working in your business 50 hours a week, a content strategy that requires daily posting might not actually be sustainable.

Maybe a weekly blog post or a monthly newsletter is more realistic.

And we're not quite getting to outsourcing yet. We'll get there too.

Think about your skills. Are you a natural writer?

Are you a confident speaker?

Or maybe a creative visual person or more of an analytical type?

So lean into your strengths rather than forcing yourself to do things you hate because you're not going to keep up with it.

Also, look at your budget.

Some strategies require you to spend on ads to work effectively, while others are more about time investment. So it's like it's, you know, money versus time sometimes be honest about what you can afford financially, but also with your time and then consider your support system.

Do you have a team who can help with content creation or are you actually doing everything yourself?

And this again should influence how complex your marketing approach is.

Or potentially you might just have to think about it and go, well, do I hire someone to help me with this?

So your resources are important too.

Factor number five is your industry and your competition.

Every industry has its own marketing norms and customer expectations and while you don't have to follow them blindly, you should understand them.

In some industries like law or finance, trust and credibility are everything.

And your marketing might need to be more conservative and authority building. And I'm not saying it needs to be dull and I'm saying conservative.

You just need to be aware of what you can and can't do. I know Allied Health is one of the industries where they can't use certain things.

In for example, creative industries, showing personality and behind the scenes content might be crucial for standing out in highly competitive spaces. You might need to find a completely different angle or channel that your competitors aren't using to actually be seen.

And in newer or niche industries, you might need to do more education and awareness building before you can actually sell anything.

So just be aware of your industry, your competition, definitely don't always follow what they're doing.

You can, you know, you need to stand out, but you just need to be aware of a lot of things.

So how do you actually use all this to create a marketing strategy that works for you?

Here's my step by step process.

Step number one Do a marketing audit of yourself. Get honest about who you are and what you're working with.

Write down what your business model is and how you make money.

Write down your natural communication strengths and preferences.

Write down your available time, your budget, your skills, and then also write down what you absolutely hate doing because you won't sustain it anyway.

Just get like super honest and go through it all so so that you can actually start making a plan. Step number two is research your audience's reality.

Don't guess.

Ask.

Reach out to current customers, to ideal customers, ideal prospects or people in your network who fit your target market.

And find out where they go for information in your industry, what type of content they find most helpful.

Also find out how they prefer to be contacted. Some people hate getting on a phone call. They also hate getting emails sometimes. But just ask them how they prefer to be contacted and also what convinced them to buy from similar businesses.

And like I said, don't guess. Ask.

Step number three is to map your constraints and your opportunities.

So look at your industry, look at the competition, and look at market reality.

Look at what's working well for similar businesses.

Where are the gaps in the market that you could fill?

And this is often where you can go to, like, industry forums and stuff, where people kind of go, oh, I wish there was this and this. So where are the gaps in the market that you could fill?

What are the unspoken rules or expectations in the industry? And like I said, you don't have to follow them blindly, but some of those sort of, like, unspoken rules or expectations are there for a reason. So find out what they are and then also where. Do you have any unique advantages?

Like, is there something about your location? Is there something about your skill set? Like, you know, do you have any unique advantages?

All right, the next step is to design your custom strategy based on everything that you've just gone through. Like step 1, 2, 3.

You need to choose 1 to 2 primary marketing channels where you're focused most of your efforts.

And I'm saying one to two because you cannot be everywhere because you're gonna burn out unless you have a team to support you.

Start with one to two primary marketing channels and focus on those.

Also the type of content that matches your strengths and your audience needs.

So think about what you'd like to do, but also where your natural ability to communicate lies, what type of content and then what does your audience want and need?

And then create a sustainable posting schedule or an outreach schedule where you literally reach out to people in the way that they prefer to be contacted.

Also define what success means for your new strategy.

So you need to have some success metrics that means something with your new strategy.

And then step five, test and refine.

Start with your best guess based on your research and be prepared to adjust.

Give your new approach at least three months before you judge whether it's working or not, because you need to be consistent and you need to actually do it for a while before you actually know if it's working.

But. But pay attention to sort of early signals to see what's resonating.

Like, you gotta be really switched on while you do this because you've gotta figure out what's resonating.

Now, before we move on, let me share three mistakes that I see people make when trying to customize their marketing.

The first one is that they choose what they think they should do rather than what fits them.

Just because everyone Says you need to be on social media doesn't mean it's right for your business.

Some businesses thrive on referrals and networking alone. So I know that's like a really big kind of bold statement.

But some businesses absolutely do not need to be on social media.

I know, sounds crazy.

I do think everyone should have a website, but that's a whole different discussion.

But don't choose based on what you think you should do.

Mistake number two is to try and customize everything at once.

Pick one or two elements to customize first and get working on those.

Then you can refine other aspects.

Don't try to reinvent your entire marketing approach overnight.

Like make one change or two changes at a time.

Because if you change everything, you actually can't even track what change is making a difference. So don't do it all at once.

Mistake number three is to ignore what actually works because it doesn't fit the, you know, the cool marketing trends.

If boring emails, email newsletters are driving most of your sales, don't abandon them just because everyone's talking about TikTok. Like, don't jump to the next, you know, cool thing to see if that's gonna work.

If your sales are coming from a certain platform or a certain avenue, don't just ditch it.

Don't hop from one platform to the next to sort of see what's working.

Little insight here. I'm not on TikTok. I do not have a TikTok account one, because I didn't want to learn another thing again.

But also, I know where my audience is,

so I'm not going to spend time there. I'm sure that a portion of my audience is on TikTok, but not enough for me to fully invest in it.

So don't ignore what actually works, because it's not, you know, the cool thing.

All right, let me give you some examples of how this met, how this might play out.

The first one is Sarah, the financial planner.

She tried Instagram because everyone said she needed to be visual. But her ideal clients are busy professionals and they want detailed, trustworthy information. So when she switched to LinkedIn and wrote articles, like a monthly kind of newsletter and LinkedIn articles, everything changed. It was a much better fit.

So some of her audience might have been on Instagram, but Instagram was not the platform for her.

Okay, Mike the fitness trainer, he was trying to build a YouTube channel, like, really cool workout videos, but he's naturally more of a motivator than a teacher.

So he actually changed to Instagram stories Showing client transformations, motivation posts, and then his engagement went up like heaps.

Lisa, the B2B consultant, she was forcing herself to create daily content across multiple platforms.

And guess what happened? She burnt out. So she swapped to one detailed LinkedIn post per week, and then she spent the rest of her time building relationships through comments and DMs, which was much more sustainable and effective for her.

So it's up to you to find your marketing sweet spot.

Your perfect marketing approach sits at the intersection of what you're good at, what your audience wants, and what your business needs.

I know it's like a busy intersection, and it might not look like anyone else's approach. And that is exactly the point.

The goal isn't to find the best marketing strategy.

The goal is to find the best marketing strategy for you.

And that might change as your business grows, your audience evolves or your own preferences shift. And that is totally normal. Like, it doesn't mean that what you do now, it's like, it's not a tattoo.

You can change it.

But right now, where are you at?

So there you have it. Marketing isn't one size fits all. And the sooner you stop trying to force someone else's strategy to work for you, the sooner you can build something that actually works.

Your marketing should feel like a natural extension of who you are and how you like to communicate.

It should fit your business model.

It should serve your audience's needs, and it needs to be sustainable with your available resources, with your time, with your money.

And when you get this alignment right, it will stop feeling like it's a struggle. Because marketing doesn't need to be a struggle.

So here's your action step for this week.

Do that marketing app audit that I mentioned.

Spend 30 minutes and just get super honest with yourself. What marketing activities do you actually enjoy doing?

What does your audience tell you they want? More of?

What marketing efforts have generated the best results so far.

And even if they weren't what you expected to be, and what are you forcing yourself to do that feels completely wrong?

Just get super, super honest with yourself.

And then based on those answers, what's one change you can make to better align your marketing with who you are and what your audience needs?

And if you found this episode helpful, I'd love it if you could share it with another business owner.

Maybe someone who's struggling to make cookie cutter marketing strategies work.

Sometimes the most helpful thing we can hear is that it's okay to do things differently.

All right, thanks so much for tuning in to the new school of marketing. Podcast.

Remember, the best marketing strategy isn't the one that works for everyone. It's the one that works for you and the people you serve.

I'm Bianca McKenzie, and I'll catch you in the next episode where we'll talk about what no one tells you about growing a business in a small town.

Until then, keep making marketing work for you.