170 Marketing: What's Working In 2025

Sumantha [: 00:00

So we all know that we should be talking about what we offer. We should be marketing unless we've achieved the kind of ecosystem where people recommend us all the time. And then we can rely on word of mouth.

Sumantha [: 00:15

Now. If you've achieved that, if you're in that situation, does that mean that you don't need marketing anymore? That you don't need to be talking about what you offer?

Sumantha [: 00:26

I don't know. I remember my friend saying how she was hesitant to hire a decorator. Now this decorator was recommended to her. But she looked him up online and couldn't find anything.

Sumantha [: 00:38

Now, in the end, she did go with him because his books were full for months, and she took that as a good sign.

Sumantha [: 00:45

So for me, the jury's out on that one. You know, should we be continuing to talk about what we offer or not? If we are okay with word of mouth and people referring us?

Sumantha [: 00:57

But if you are working hard with your marketing, with putting content out there, we do need to address some really important questions. Is marketing what we think it is?

Sumantha [: 01:09

Is it what we think it is anymore? Is yours working as hard as it should be? And how do you even know what results to look out for? What do good results look like and how can you make your marketing efforts work harder?

Sumantha [: 01:22

These are the questions that I'm going to dive into in this episode. Enjoy.

Sumantha [: 01:28

Welcome to the Upgrade Your Education Business podcast. I'm your host, Samantha, and I'm so pleased you are here.

Sumantha [: 01:36

As an education business owner, myself and a former teacher, I understand the nuances that only apply to us. So in this podcast, I share fluff free, tailored, and actionable ideas. That you can mold to suit your needs.

Sumantha [: 01:50

If you'd like to take this conversation further, please do reach out. I would love to meet you. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. That way you'll be helping me help more people. Thank you for tuning in. Enjoy.

Sumantha [: 02:05

When you hear the word marketing, what springs to mind?

Sumantha [: 02:09

Maybe you instantly think of social media. Perhaps it's about catching people's attention and standing out. Do you see it as something that's just constant?

Sumantha [: 02:17

I think all of this and more have been true over time, but times have changed. The number seven, for example, has been really powerful in the world of sales and advertising for years.

Sumantha [: 02:28

People need to see you seven times before they take action. People need seven touch points before they buy. Follow up with people seven times.

Sumantha [: 02:37

The problem is that latest research, as in released in 2025 has shown that that number has dramatically changed. It's now an average of 28.8.

Sumantha [: 02:48

People need to see us 28.8 times before they take action, before they buy.

Sumantha [: 02:54

So what does that mean for us small business owners, and how does that affect our marketing?

Sumantha [: 02:59

Well, it certainly means that consumer behavior has changed. People are more discerning, quite rightly, after all, the digital world is unregulated.

Sumantha [: 03:08

So people can make whatever promises they want. We don't know if they're any good, if they can actually deliver.

Sumantha [: 03:14

So when it comes to marketing, we need to move beyond the goal of standing out. We need substance.

Sumantha [: 03:21

If I were to condense a new possible definition of marketing into three elements, here's what they would include.

Sumantha [: 03:28

The first one is that marketing actually starts with our offering, not how we promote what we offer needs to be so good that. People are talking about it.

Sumantha [: 03:38

People are recommending us that we are really and truly delivering and solving that problem that we're promising to solve.

Sumantha [: 03:45

The second thing is that the content we put out there needs to cut through the noise.

Sumantha [: 03:49

It needs to help our future customers who need that 28.8. It needs to help them realize why we are the best, the best person, the best solution for them.

Sumantha [: 03:59

And thirdly, we do need to stand out, but for the right reasons.

Sumantha [: 04:04

So let's dive into each one of these so that you can make your marketing work hard for you so you can attract the right clients.

Sumantha [: 04:11

So I mentioned that marketing actually starts with our offering, not how we promote what we need. What we offer needs to be so good that people spread the word, that it's really delivering on its promise.

Sumantha [: 04:23

So word of mouth really feels like the ideal, but the reality is that for some of us, relying on it doesn't feel safe.

Sumantha [: 04:30

For instance, I have some clients who support families preparing for entrance exams. These are competitive exams.

Sumantha [: 04:36

So often parents don't even want to share that they use a tutor, let alone recommend to their competitors.

Sumantha [: 04:43

I've had clients sheepishly admit that they're hesitant to recommend me to others in case I end up supporting one of their competitors.

Sumantha [: 04:51

So what do we do? Well, this is where marketing, I think, can work in tandem with the talkable points of our offer.

Sumantha [: 04:59

I mentioned that marketing starts with our offering, so we do need to start there. We need to ask ourselves: are we the best?

Sumantha [: 05:07

And I'm not talking about one-upmanship against our competitors. I'm talking about being the best for the people who we want to work with, the people we serve.

Sumantha [: 05:16

A question that I often ask clients that unlocks certain ideas is: what are your clients going elsewhere for that you could, or you should offer?

Sumantha [: 05:26

That could be a starting point. And the "could or should" part is actually really important because we need to distinguish between what will genuinely make our offer the best and what will dilute it.

Sumantha [: 05:37

Because we can't be everything to everyone. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

Sumantha [: 05:43

I can help people start their businesses. I have helped people start their businesses, but I also work with established business owners who want to grow.

Sumantha [: 05:52

They want to release time, they want to spread their impact. So if I try to do it all, especially in places like my Mastermind, I would risk some clients feeling like I'm not solving their problems, that I'm not really listening to them.

Sumantha [: 06:06

So since so many people do ask me to help them launch, my workaround has been to put together a short course inside the Mastermind for launching.

Sumantha [: 06:15

So the other content, the live content, can serve the majority and the people who I'm, you know, delivering that promise to.

Sumantha [: 06:23

But if someone needs that foundation step first, they have something they can use that works.

Sumantha [: 06:29

But if we want people talking about what we offer, we need to go a little bit deeper.

Sumantha [: 06:34

What makes what we offer so outstanding that people talk about it, even people who aren't our clients?

Sumantha [: 06:40

Well, the answer will look different to everyone because you need to tailor this to your business and to your client's problems that you solve.

Sumantha [: 06:48

But an example might help.

Sumantha [: 06:50

The official line for what's included in the Mastermind is that we have monthly topics.

Sumantha [: 06:56

I deliver monthly 90-minute action-focused sessions. You know, on that topic, we have a monthly coworking session, and at the end of each month, I do a Q&A session.

Sumantha [: 07:06

All of those live sessions are recorded and they're uploaded into the training vault.

Sumantha [: 07:11

And when you join the Mastermind, you get instant access to everything, all the historical content, everything that's happening right now.

Sumantha [: 07:19

Now that's the official line, but unofficially I do more.

Sumantha [: 07:23

Around every quarter I host a three-day sales sprint to help people take faster action that moves the needle on sales.

Sumantha [: 07:31

Masterminders comment every time, how they get results within 24 hours of taking action. Just really small but mighty things.

Sumantha [: 07:40

Last month, two of the masterminders collaborated to create a webinar.

Sumantha [: 07:45

So I jumped on live and I shared how to structure a webinar that sells.

Sumantha [: 07:49

I shared my learnings from training that I attended, that I learned from another expert, someone else who's an expert with webinars.

Sumantha [: 07:57

So unofficially I actually respond to exactly what masterminders are working on.

Sumantha [: 08:03

Even though it's a membership, they do have direct access to me and I invest in training and coaching, and I spend time learning from different sources, and I share that with them in a way that's molded to their businesses, to our niche.

Sumantha [: 08:17

They don't have to spend the time and money. I'm doing it for them.

Sumantha [: 08:22

Now. That alone has led to masterminders publicly talking about the Mastermind without me asking, without an incentive.

Sumantha [: 08:31

Also just to top that up, I could share it through my content as well. That way other people, people who aren't yet in the Mastermind might talk about it too.

Sumantha [: 08:42

Now the second element of my new definition of marketing was that the content that we put out there needs to cut through the noise and to help our discerning future customers realize why we are the best, why we are the best person, why we offer the best solution for them, for their problems.

Sumantha [: 08:58

Whenever my husband and I go on holiday, we never research things like restaurants beforehand.

Sumantha [: 09:04

Instead, we ask locals for recommendations for the best restaurants in the area.

Sumantha [: 09:09

We never ask for the mediocre ones, only the best ones.

Sumantha [: 09:13

So when you think of your clients, are they likely to be looking for the mediocre solution to their problem? Or the best solution to their problem?

Sumantha [: 09:22

We all look for the best, and best means something different to all of us.

Sumantha [: 09:27

The best handbag for one person might be one that's big enough to hold their phone, their keys, their medication, while someone else might want something really small that holds a credit card and a phone.

Sumantha [: 09:38

So what does best look like for your clients? Well, to answer it, you really need to know your people. You need to know them well — really, really well.

Sumantha [: 09:47

So here are some questions that might help. Let's start with the basics. What problem do they have? How do they feel about the problem?

Sumantha [: 09:56

What are their beliefs about solving the problem?

Sumantha [: 10:00

Why do they feel that way about it? What conversations or arguments are they having at home about the problem?

Sumantha [: 10:07

What do they wish they could access to make navigating the problem just a little easier?

Sumantha [: 10:13

What do they wish they could access to make the problem go away?

Sumantha [: 10:17

If you are posting, let's say, on social media all the time, if you've got emails heading out to your list constantly, if you're recording YouTube videos, blogging. Whatever.

Sumantha [: 10:27

Consistency isn't the only thing you need. You won't attract the right people if you are not meeting them where they are and giving them what they need based on where they're at.

Sumantha [: 10:38

So one way to look at your marketing here is the same way as your offer. Your offer is designed to solve a very specific problem.

Sumantha [: 10:47

Well, how could you make your marketing also solve a specific problem?

Sumantha [: 10:52

And what problem do you need to solve to help people see why you are the best for them?

Sumantha [: 10:57

Here’s an example based on an interesting journey me and one of my one-to-one clients took.

Sumantha [: 11:03

This client started her business providing courses and coaching to burnt out teachers.

Sumantha [: 11:09

She had done a really good job of just really and truly understanding her clients, and since she had been a burnt out teacher herself, she could really connect with them, she could really relate to them.

Sumantha [: 11:20

But here was the problem, and the reason why in two years she hadn't made any sales: she had forgotten that when she was a burnt out teacher, she didn't have the headspace or time to even think about, let alone commit to watching self-paced courses or booking coaching sessions.

Sumantha [: 11:36

In fact, when we both recalled our experiences, when we were in the thick of it, we didn't even believe that there was a viable solution.

Sumantha [: 11:45

So there were two angles that we had to come from to analyse why what she was doing wasn't working.

Sumantha [: 11:52

Now, the first angle relates to how I mentioned at the start that marketing starts with our offer, not how we promote, and this really illustrates it.

Sumantha [: 12:00

The offer provided burnt out teachers with everything they needed to help them through and out of that situation.

Sumantha [: 12:07

But it was asking people for time and headspace they didn't have.

Sumantha [: 12:11

The second angle that relates to this point of making your marketing solve a specific problem to help people realise that you are the best, is that her content was talking about burnout and her journey and how to navigate the experience, but it wasn't getting people ready to buy.

Sumantha [: 12:28

Her marketing needed to start with helping people get the headspace, release some time first. Only then would they be ready to invest in what she offered.

Sumantha [: 12:44

Now this really links in with the third element of my definition of marketing.

Sumantha [: 12:49

Your marketing isn't there to solely catch someone's attention for a few seconds or for a few minutes.

Sumantha [: 12:55

We want to catch someone's attention because what we're putting out there should be a gateway to helping someone get ready to be in a position to buy from you.

Sumantha [: 13:05

So we do need to stand out, but for the right reasons.

Sumantha [: 13:10

When I say stand out, I don't mean posting videos of you dancing.

Sumantha [: 13:15

I mean, you could if you wanted to, and that might stop someone in their tracks.

Sumantha [: 13:20

But if it doesn't move them further along in that journey with you, then all you've really achieved is stopping the scroll for a few seconds.

Sumantha [: 13:27

And in addition to standing out because you are the best or because you are helping people be in a position to buy from you, we also need to acknowledge that the people in our audience are at completely different points in their journeys.

Sumantha [: 13:41

And at first glance, we don't actually have any information that helps us understand what position they are individually in.

Sumantha [: 13:48

And to make things even more complicated, when we are marketing, who do we speak to?

Sumantha [: 13:54

Should we be speaking to the people who have just discovered us, or should we be speaking to people who have been in our world for a while and might be very close to buying?

Sumantha [: 14:03

Treating everybody in our audience the same or trying to connect with everyone regardless of which position they're in is one of the biggest reasons why our marketing doesn't actually work hard enough for us.

Sumantha [: 14:15

So the solution here is to understand where individual people are on their journeys and to cater to them.

Sumantha [: 14:22

And to achieve this, there is something known in the marketing world as hand-raise content, or you may have heard of segmenting your audience. That's very common with email marketing.

Sumantha [: 14:34

These essentially refer to finding a way to get tangible signals from our audience as to which position they're in so that we can share very specific content with them.

Sumantha [: 14:44

A really easy example that I can give you so that you can see what this might look like involves email marketing just because of how those platforms work.

Sumantha [: 14:52

But bear in mind, you can still achieve this on social media through things like polls or just simply by speaking to people.

Sumantha [: 15:01

So I could send my email list an email that gives them, let's say, three options and they can select any one of them.

Sumantha [: 15:09

I can set it up so that when they're tagged, they are labeled according to which option they selected, and I can create a series of emails that are sent to them that's really tailored for whichever option they selected.

Sumantha [: 15:22

When you integrate things like this into your marketing, it's really powerful.

Sumantha [: 15:27

And like I said, you don't have to use email marketing or polls to do this. You can just go out and speak to people to really understand them and to respond.

Sumantha [: 15:37

So, in order for this to work, you need to actually have some data, some information about your audience, data that they have voluntarily given to you, rather than just going out there and marketing blind.

Sumantha [: 15:49

Secondly, your marketing works hard for you and brings you results because you are showing people why you are the best for them in a really targeted way, in a way that caters to exactly what they need because of the position they're in.

Sumantha [: 16:02

And thirdly, this works because it helps you stand out for all the right reasons.

Sumantha [: 16:07

So I've shared quite a lot in this episode, and as you can tell, it's quite a deep topic.

Sumantha [: 16:13

So I'm actually going to be delivering training to the masterminders on this next month in September.

Sumantha [: 16:19

But regardless of when you're listening to this, it's going to be recorded and added to the training vault so you can get instant access to it anyway.

Sumantha [: 16:27

And if you join, instead of trying to look for the training that's relevant, really understanding your audience, drop me a message and I'll just send you the direct link.

Sumantha [: 16:38

So on that note, think about what I've talked about and choose one thing that you can deep dive into and really take action on.

Sumantha [: 16:47

And remember that marketing is not about the how. It's not about which platform you should be on and what content you should be putting out there.

Sumantha [: 16:56

Fundamentally, marketing starts with what we offer and that offer being the best for the people that we serve.

Sumantha [: 17:04

Thank you as always for listening, and you'll hear from me on Wednesday.

Sumantha [: 17:10

Would you like to take this discussion further? Perhaps you have some questions or you'd like more ideas on tailoring your business.

Sumantha [: 17:17

If so, book a free discovery call through the link in the show notes.