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Your Marketing Probably Has All the Pieces. Here’s Why That’s Not Enough written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Most founders who’ve been at this for a few years have pieces. Some strategic clarity. A decent presence. Content running, mostly. Owned channels being built. Customer work happening somewhere. The pieces are disconnected. Nobody owns the full picture. Different parts run on different rhythms. Reporting covers what each piece did in isolation, not whether the […]
Read more → 11 Jun 2026The Back Half of the Hourglass Is Where Your Best Growth Lives written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
The Marketing Hourglass has 7 stages: Know, Like, Trust, Try, Buy, Repeat, Refer. Most small businesses have systems for the first five. They know how to get found, how to build some trust, how to close. Then the marketing ends. Repeat and Refer, the back half, get left to chance. Good work, happy customers, and […]
Read more → 9 Jun 2026You’re Renting Your Lead Flow. Here’s What That’s Actually Costing You. written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
If your largest paid channel disappeared tomorrow, platform shuts down, algorithm changes, cost doubles, your pipeline is gone inside 30 days. If that’s true, you don’t have a Growth Engine. You have a rented pipeline. This is the situation most founders are in. Paid ads on two or three platforms. Paid social. Maybe a paid […]
Read more → 6 Jun 2026Why Producing More Content Is Making Some Businesses Invisible written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
An accounting firm at about $2.5 million in revenue came to me after publishing a monthly blog post for 3 years. Mostly tax updates and compliance news. Traffic was flat. Inbound inquiries were rare. They were thinking about hiring an agency to triple their output. The right move was the opposite: publish less, go deeper, […]
Read more → 27 May 2026The New Kind of Invisible: AI Can’t Find Your Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Try this right now. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude. Type three questions your best customer would ask before hiring someone like you. Does your business show up? I’ve run this test with dozens of small business owners in the last year. Most of them disappear completely. Some show up but get described in ways that […]
Read more → 23 May 2026The Reason Your Marketing Feels Broken (And Why More Tactics Won’t Fix It) written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
I’ve given this diagnosis so many times it has a name: Random Acts of Marketing.SEO aimed at one audience. Paid ads targeting another. The website describes the business differently than the founder does in a sales call. The content sounds like it came from a different company than the pitch deck. Everything is technically running. […]
Read more → 8 May 2026When Referrals Stop, Do This Before Touching a Single Marketing Tactic written by Shawna Salinger read more at Duct Tape Marketing
When Referrals Dry Up: What Small Businesses Should Do Before Touching a Single Marketing Tactic Featuring insights from Sara Nay, CEO of Duct Tape Marketing It starts with a sick feeling. You built your business on referrals. Good work led to good word of mouth and for years, that was enough. Then you look up […]
Read more → 2 May 2026Marketing Strategy for Businesses That Have Outgrown More Tactics written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Marketing Strategy for Small Business: Why Clarity Beats More Tactics Every Time Most small businesses aren’t short on marketing activity. They’re short on the clarity that would let them do less of it. After working with hundreds of small businesses on their marketing strategy over 30 years, I’ve seen the same pattern: scattered tactics, inconsistent […]
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