Your marketing isn’t the problem but your understanding of customers is.
And your content isn’t broken, it’s just unsupervised (- by your customers).
👋 Hi, I’m Ritika a Customer Marketer and the CMO at By Default. Welcome to the 71th edition - One minute on Customer Insights.
Lately, I’ve been talking to a lot of early-stage founders about a familiar frustration:
“We’re posting every week. We’re writing content. We are almost everywhere. We’re doing marketing, but it’s not working. Nothing’s converting.”
I hear it over and over again. And it’s happening a lot. Everything just resets to zero. There’s no compounding effect. No momentum.
As the attention span is reducing, AI is getting better and just being out there is hardly helping. You can’t follow a content calendar, a theme or try out strategies.
This leads to confusion, burnout, and second-guessing everything. And I get it. Marketing isn’t something one-time-done thing with the only goal to get more customers “now”.
But here’s the truth:
Marketing isn’t magic. It’s a system. And most importantly - it’s long-term.
Why Content Alone Isn’t Enough
If your strategy is just "create more content and hope it works," it’s no surprise you’re stuck.
Here’s what’s really happening:
You’re focusing on execution without alignment.
You're not sure who you’re creating for. (Most of the people I talked to didn’t even had a clear ICP)
You're measuring everything based on short-term conversion.
The result? A marketing that feels like a treadmill. You’re moving, but going nowhere.
How I walk the founders off this problem?
Here’s a breakdown of how I guide founders through this problem — step-by-step. These are practical actions you can take this week.
1. Don’t Rely Entirely on Marketing for Growth
Yes, marketing matters. But if all your energy is going into content without understanding how it maps to sales or customer behavior, you’ll always feel like it’s not “working.”
Instead: focus on revenue-generating conversations and AllBound (inbound + outbound). Use marketing as a tool to drive learning and traction, not just engagement.
2. Get Closer to Your Customers
If your content isn’t converting, it likely means you’re unclear on one (or more) of these:
Who your ideal customer is
What situation they’re in when they find you
What problem they actually care about solving
How they want to be spoken to
Whether your offer is even a good fit (have a customer-fit offer)
Solution: Create a short-term sprints or goals and start by re-learning your customer.
Let Me Turn It Into 3-Part to Get You Back on Track
Here’s the exact system I run with founders:
1. Simplify → Start by knowing your customers & defining right ICP
Before anything else, do this:
“Know the moment your customer will need you and why they’ll choose you.”
✅ Start here:
Past Customers: Who bought from you before? What was going on in their life or business?
Lost Deals: Why didn’t they convert? What was missing?
Current Users: What makes them stick around?
Potential ICPs: Who do you want to work with and what do they care about?
🛠 Quick Sprint (Do This in 7 Days):
Talk to 5–10 customers. Ask about their buying triggers.
Review engagement data: Which topics or pain points get the most response?
Use this data to map patterns - these are signals of Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
📌 Example of a Strong ICP:
“B2B SaaS companies with 50–200 employees, focused on cybersecurity, based in North America, targeting IT decision-makers.”
Compare this to who’s actually engaging or converting. Find the gap.
2. Prioritize → One type of customer & One channel
Forget the full 30-day content calendar for now.
Start with this instead:
What 1–2 conversations will you have this week?
What 1 insight did you learn that can shape messaging?
What content will help your ICP make a decision or understand your value?
Pick 1 primary channel (e.g. LinkedIn, email, outbound) and go deep.
3. Systemize → Focus on Consistency, Not Creativity
Creativity matters, but what builds growth is consistent clarity:
Show up every week with value.
Talk about your customer’s problem in a way they can recognize it instantly.
Share real stories, breakdowns, frameworks.
If you repeat the same core message 50 times in slightly different ways — that’s good. That’s brand memory.
Founders, if your marketing feels like a chore, or if you're wondering why it’s not working — you're not alone.
But the solution isn’t more content.
It’s clarity, customer understanding, and consistency.
The good news? You don’t need a full-time marketer or 100 pieces of content.
You need to:
Know your ideal customer
Align your message & offer with their problem
Show up consistently with proof, value, and real conversations
📌 If you're stuck and want to walk through this system in more detail, I’m happy to help. I go through this process with every founder I work with — and it’s helped unlock real traction, not just traffic.
👉 Reply to this email 📧 to book a Free 30-min session
Thanks for reading, see you all next time!
Ritika👋
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