Half-Built Bridges (And Why Your Marketing Isn't Working)

You know what I see more than anything else when I look at a business’s marketing?

Half-built bridges…

…and lots of them!

Bridges that start strong, get halfway across and just stop.

A landing page with no traffic going to it.

An email list with no emails being sent.

A social media account that posted every day for three weeks and then nothing for months.

Sound familiar?

Most of the business owners I work with aren’t lazy and they’re not clueless, they’ve built good businesses doing work they’re proper good at.

The problem isn’t that they’ve done nothing.

The problem is they’ve started everything and finished nothing.

The shiny object trap

It usually goes something like this.

You hear Instagram is the place to be, so you set up an account, post a few things and maybe even get a few followers.

Then someone at a networking event tells you email is where the real money is, so you sign up for Mailchimp, build a list of twelve people, send two emails and then…

…get distracted by a podcast about TikTok.

Three months later you’ve got an Instagram account you haven’t touched, an email list you’ve abandoned and a TikTok account with one video on it.

Three bridges, all half-built, and none of them taking anyone anywhere.

And the worst part?

You feel like you’ve been busy.

That’s because you HAVE been busy, just on the wrong things.

Why a half-built bridge is worse than no bridge

If you’d never started any of them, you’d just be a business that hasn’t done much marketing yet.

No harm done, and you’d still have all that time and energy.

But a half-built bridge?

That’s a constant reminder that you tried and it didn’t work, and it chips away at your confidence until you start telling yourself “I’m just not good at this.”

It also hands you the wrong conclusion.

“Email marketing doesn’t work.”

Yea it does, you sent two emails to twelve people and stopped.

That’s not email failing, that’s a bridge that never got finished.

“Social media is a waste of time.”

It can be, but not most of the time. You posted for three weeks with no plan behind it and gave up.

I hear “I’ve tried that, it doesn’t work” all the time.

And when I dig into it, I almost always find someone who started something, didn’t see results quick enough and moved on before the first thing even had a chance.

The tactic wasn’t the problem, the lack of strategy around it was.

One bridge, all the way to the other side

The fix is simple to explain and harder to do.

Pick one bridge.

Finish it.

All the way to the other side.

Before you start the next one, make sure the first one actually takes people from one side to the other.

So what does that look like in real life?

Say you’re an accountant and you decide email is your bridge.

Don’t just set up the tool and collect a few addresses, finish it.

Make something worth signing up for, like a year-end checklist or a tax deadlines cheat sheet (something your ideal client actually wants).

Put it on your website where people can find it, and send people to it from your posts, your emails and the conversations you have at networking.

Set up a welcome email so new subscribers hear from you straight away, then send them regular emails that are actually useful.

Give people who want to work with you a clear next step.

That’s a finished bridge.

It takes someone from just finding out you exist all the way through to becoming a customer, and every part connects to the next.

Now compare that to “I set up Mailchimp and collected some emails.”

See the difference?

“But I’ve got loads of things I need to do”

Yea, I get that (we all have), but it’s pointless if you’re going to start them all and finish none of them.

Focus on one, get version one working, then move on to the next.

If you’ve got five half-built bridges and zero finished ones right now, the smartest thing you can do is pick the one that matters most and finish it.

Then the next one.

Then the one after that.

Think about real bridges for a second.

If a small island needed a couple of bridges to the mainland, nobody would start building two at once from different ends - they’d build one, open it, let people use it, then start the next.

Your marketing works the same way.

One bridge, open and working, is worth more than three that stop halfway across.

How to spot your half-built bridges

Grab a pen.

Write down every bit of marketing you’ve started in the last year or two.

Every account, every tool, every campaign, every idea you acted on.

Now be honest with yourself.

How many are actually finished and doing their job, end to end?

And how many are sat there, half-done, gathering dust?

No judgement, seriously.

Almost every business owner I’ve worked with has a collection of these (I’ve still got loads 🤦).

Once you can see them, you’ve got a choice to make with each one: is it worth finishing, or is it worth letting go?

Some aren’t worth finishing.

You started them for the wrong reasons, or things have moved on, or they just don’t fit your business anymore, and that’s fine, let them go.

But one or two of them are prob worth finishing.

Pick the one closest to actually getting you customers and finish that first.

It’s not about doing more

Marketing isn’t about doing more stuff.

It’s about finishing what matters, one bridge at a time, built properly all the way to the other side.

Simple and consistent ALWAYS beats complicated and all over the place.

Your job today

Write down your half-built bridges. All of them.

Circle the one closest to getting you customers.

Don’t start anything new until that one reaches the other side.

Not sure which bridge to finish first?

That’s what Your Web Review is for.

I go through your website, Google profile, reviews and socials, then send you a video of me talking through it all and the three things I’d fix first.

No big sales pitch.

Get your free Web Review

And if you’d like one short email every Sunday on making your marketing easier, get the Marketing Memo. It’s free.