Why your marketing isn't working, and what to do about it (December)

The posts go out. The website got rebuilt. Maybe there's an agency or a freelancer, or someone on the team doing their best with what they've been given. Some months it works, most months it's flat, and nobody can quite tell you why.

So the next move is usually more. Another channel, another campaign. But marketing amplifies whatever sits underneath it, and when the decisions underneath don't line up, more marketing just makes the noise louder.

You don't have a marketing problem. You have a strategy problem.

What we'll do in the two hours

This isn't about posting more, better hooks or which platform to be on. We'll look at what's happening underneath the marketing.

You'll learn the Market Alignment Model and use it on your own business to work out where your market, offer and delivery have drifted apart, and what needs fixing first.

What you'll leave with

• The model, and how to use it - one page you can put any business against, and reuse whenever a new decision comes up

• A diagnosis of your own business - scored by you, against your real business rather than a case study

• One decision to make next - the highest-value fix, named before you spend another dollar on activity

• The handbook and self-assessment to take home

Come along if

• You're spending real money or real time on marketing and the results are inconsistent

• Sales lean too heavily on referrals, and on you

• You're about to brief an agency, a freelancer or a new hire

• You run a product or service business with customers and revenue

Give it a miss if

• You're after platform tactics, hooks and posting schedules

• You haven't started trading yet

About Saskia

Saskia Thornton is a Taranaki-based growth strategist, former CMO and founder with 17 years’ hands-on experience building and growing businesses.

Inside Bevie, she found the gap and developed and brought to market Mad Millie, which grew to around 130,000 kits a year across New Zealand, Australia, the USA and the UK. It was also her idea to move into craft brewing, and she led the Grainfather brand, which reached around $35 million in sales in its first 3 years. She was CMO with a board seat at Bevie through its acquisition, and went on to co-found FTN Motion.

Date: 25 November

Time: 9:30 - 11:30 (two hours)

Where: Manifold Coworking Space (49 Currie Street, New Plymouth)

Price: $200 + GST

Funding: Eligible NZ businesses may get up to 75% funded through the Regional Business Partner Network, to check your eligibility, apply directly with Regional Business Partners ---> Link to RBP form

Places: a small group of max 10, so there's plenty of time for questions and to work on your own business with Saskia in the room

What to bring: the business you're actually running, a rough sense of what you've been spending on marketing, a pen to write on the worksheets.