We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jaclyn Freedman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jaclyn, thanks for joining us today. It’s easy to look at a business or industry as an outsider and assume it’s super profitable – but we’ve seen over and over again in our conversation with folks that most industries have factors that make profitability a challenge. What’s biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

Marketing has always been hard, but in 2024, wow! For small and medium-sized business owners, I often hear that marketing is often the bane of their professional existence. It is a necessary evil that coincides with their trying to build a passion-based business – and it can be really difficult.

The biggest challenge to profitability in marketing is often the tendency to focus too narrowly on one stage of the marketing funnel, rather than taking a holistic view of the entire buyer’s journey.

Here are the key issues I see:

Single-Stage Focus: Many marketers concentrate too much on one part of the funnel, such as lead generation or conversion, without understanding how each stage connects and how to nurture prospects through the entire journey. This can lead to inefficiencies and lost opportunities for engagement and conversion.

Channel Dependence: Over-reliance on channels that aren’t owned, like social media, can be problematic. While these platforms are invaluable for awareness and engagement, they are subject to algorithm changes and other factors beyond your control. This can make it difficult to maintain consistent reach and engagement if that is your only focus.

Lack of Community Building: Instead of merely using social channels for broadcasting messages, successful marketing requires building a community. This means creating meaningful interactions and relationships, which can then be nurtured through more controllable channels like email.

Inadequate Nurturing: Moving prospects from initial interest to becoming loyal customers and eventually, brand advocates requires continuous nurturing. This involves personalized communication, value-added content, and ongoing engagement across multiple touchpoints. You need to meet people where they are, and then nurture them to where you want them to be.

Understanding the Buyer’s Journey: Business owners need to understand and map out the unique journey their customers take to becoming a customer. This includes identifying key touchpoints, pain points, and motivations that drive decision-making.

To address these challenges, marketers should adopt a more integrated and strategic approach, focusing on the following:

Holistic Funnel Management: Ensure that efforts are distributed across all stages of the funnel, from awareness to advocacy, and that strategies are in place to move prospects smoothly through each stage.

Diversified Channel Strategy: While leveraging social media is important, it should be part of a broader strategy that includes owned channels like email, your website, and direct customer engagement.

Social Strategy: Foster genuine connections on social media, and then move them to a different platform. Or, at least, get their email address.

Continuous Nurturing: Develop nurturing sequences and content strategies that provide ongoing value and keep prospects and customers engaged throughout their journey.

Buyer Journey Mapping: Invest time in understanding and mapping out the buyer’s journey for your specific audience, allowing for more personalized and effective marketing efforts.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hey there! I’m Jaclyn Freedman, marketer by trade, but sales guides my heart.

My love for marketing began in the 5th grade when I ran for class president. I won but had more fun running the campaign than doing the job. That was the start of my marketing education: learning what motivates people to purchase, what makes them tick, and how to best get them to respond through the right mix of copy and visualization.

I’ve spent my career in marketing doing a few things — aligning sales + marketing teams, creating content marketing programs, leading digital marketing, and strategizing campaigns that straight up close business.

I truly believe in the value of educating first and selling second, and holding true to this mentality has allowed me to do things like grow demo requests from 126 requests to 1,400 in a year, and increase MQLs by 66% year over year. I’ve launched products and have overseen GTM strategy for the most successful initiatives at small startups and global companies alike.

-If you’re a brand and want to talk about consulting, content, trainings, or speaking engagements, email me at [email protected].

– If you’re a professional looking for marketing tips, career advice, and general learnings, follow me on LinkedIn.

Here’s to better marketing!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I am deeply driven by the notion that great marketing should not be invasive, but rather, educational and helpful.

Over fifteen years in this industry has proven that the only way to truly be effective at marketing is through authentically providing value. This philosophy is my first aligning goal in all that I do.

Why is this true? Because people are smart, and no one wants to be told what to spend their money on. Instead, the right marketing mix meets people where they are with the right content at the right time to get them to convert.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I’ve had to learn as a marketer is about allocating time. Trends, platforms.. they all come and go, and where you spend your time matters! You cannot do everything well – whether that be in your personal life, or when trying to grow your business. Rather than focusing everywhere, it will yield better long-term results to focus on one output, whether that be a great newsletter, really showing up on reels, or just making it to the gym every Monday. You can’t control it all, but you can control where and how you spend your time.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.JaclynFreedman.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/marketingwithjaclyn/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jaclynfreedman/