Episode 615 Build a Foundation Before Your Market
Show Highlights
Episode 615 Build a Foundation Before You Market is a solo show hosted by Rob Cairns of the SDM Show. Cairns, who is the founder and CEO of Stunning Digital Marketing, emphasizes the critical importance of establishing a solid digital foundation before engaging in any marketing efforts. He stresses that website health is paramount, detailing necessary checks such as ensuring forms work and are spam-protected, maintaining regular backups, updating WordPress, and auditing analytics and content. Cairns concludes that fixing foundational issues must precede marketing to ensure that promotional efforts are directed toward a functional and appealing “house.”
Show Notes
Episode Summary
In this episode, Rob Cairns addresses a common misconception in the business world: the idea that you can simply “turn on” marketing and watch the leads roll in. Rob argues that before you spend a dime on promotion, you must have your digital house in order. If your foundation—your website—is weak, traffic won’t convert into sales.
Rob walks listeners through a vital checklist of technical, aesthetic, and content-related elements that must be optimized before you start your marketing engine.
Key Takeaways
Before launching a marketing campaign, audit your website against this checklist:
- Visuals and Usability: Is your website aesthetically pleasing? Are you using whitespace correctly, and are your font sizes legible?
- Forms and Communication:
- Do your contact forms actually work? (Test them!)
- Are you protected against form spam? Without protection, legitimate leads get lost in the noise.
- Maintenance and Security:
- Are you running regular backups?
- Is your WordPress core, theme, and plugin list up to date?
- Crucial Step: Have you tested the site functionality after running those updates?
- Know Your Numbers: You cannot market effectively if you don’t know your baseline. You must run some form of analytics (Google Analytics or otherwise) to understand which pages are being viewed and which are ignored.
- The Human Connection: Have you written a Founder Story? People buy from people.
- SEO Health: Have you performed a basic SEO audit to ensure your site is readable by search engines?
Quotes from the Episode
“Everybody thinks they can just jump into marketing and the leads will come… The reality is that’s not how it works.”
“How can you market if you don’t know what your numbers are? You got to be able to quantify everything to figure out what’s working.”
“You must build that foundation first before you turn around and try and increase your marketing.”
Mentioned in this Episode
- Todd Jones: Rob mentions Todd regarding the importance of writing a “Founder Story” to help clients connect with the people behind the brand.
Action Plan
- Test your forms immediately to ensure you aren’t missing leads.
- Review your analytics today. If you don’t have any installed, get a basic package set up.
- Draft your Founder Story to add a personal touch to your brand.
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