Welcome to something new around here.
RRC Marketing Detective. 🔎
Instead of me telling you what I think about a marketing topic, I’m giving you the business.
You get the evidence.
You get the numbers.
You get the customer behavior.
And you get to decide what’s actually going wrong.
There’s only one rule:
Don’t automatically believe the business owner. 😂
Because sometimes the problem a business owner thinks they have isn’t the problem I’d investigate first.
So grab your imaginary magnifying glass.
We have a case.
⸻
🔎 CASE #001: THE GLOW ROOM
The Glow Room is a fictional local skincare business.
Business is okay.
But appointments aren’t growing the way the owner expected.
She’s frustrated because she’s posting consistently, making Reels and trying to stay active online.
And she’s already diagnosed the problem:
“I just need more followers.”
Maybe.
But we’re not accepting that diagnosis yet.
Let’s look at the evidence.
⸻
EVIDENCE #1: INSTAGRAM
The Glow Room currently has:
1,847 followers
Over the last 30 days:
31,400 Reel views
4,260 accounts reached
892 profile visits
347 website taps
68 saves
41 shares
She’s posting approximately 4–5 times per week.
But only 11 new appointments came through.
Interesting.
At first glance, you might think:
Okay. Maybe she really does need a bigger audience.
Except…
347 people tapped through to the website.
People are finding her.
They’re watching.
They’re visiting her profile.
Some are even taking the next step.
So is attention actually the biggest problem?
I’m not convinced.
Let’s keep investigating.
⸻
EVIDENCE #2: THE WEBSITE
You click the website.
The first thing you see is:
BOOK YOUR GLOW ✨
Great.
You’re interested.
You click the services.
And you’re presented with:
Glow Facial
Signature Facial
Custom Facial
Hydration Facial
Brightening Facial
Deluxe Facial
Express Facial
Dermaplane Facial
Acne Facial
Anti-Aging Facial
Ultimate Glow Facial
First-Time Facial
Twelve choices.
Prices range from $75 to $225.
You start reading.
Several descriptions sound surprisingly similar.
One says it provides a customized experience.
Another says it’s tailored to your skin.
Another promises glowing, refreshed skin.
Another includes customized skincare.
You scroll.
Then scroll again.
You’re still interested.
But now there’s a new question:
Which one am I supposed to book?
There’s no obvious:
NEW HERE? START HERE.
There’s no comparison helping you understand the difference between similar services.
And if you don’t already understand skincare treatments…
you have quite a few decisions to make.
🔎 Evidence noted.
Let’s keep going.
⸻
EVIDENCE #3: THE DMs
The owner regularly receives messages like:
“Which facial should I book?”
“What’s the difference between the Signature and Custom?”
“I’ve never had a facial before. Which one do I choose?”
“Does the Glow Facial include dermaplaning?”
And she’s good about responding.
She answers them.
She explains the services.
She makes recommendations.
That’s good customer service.
But as a marketer, something else catches my attention.
She’s answering different versions of the same question repeatedly.
Customers aren’t telling her:
“I’m not interested.”
They’re telling her:
“I’m interested, but I don’t know what to choose.”
That’s a very different problem.
🔎 Add that one to the evidence board.
⸻
EVIDENCE #4: THE REVIEWS
The Glow Room has excellent reviews.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“She was amazing! I’ll definitely be back.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“Beautiful place and wonderful experience.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“So sweet and professional!”
Nothing wrong with those reviews.
They’re positive.
They establish trust.
They tell me customers like the owner and enjoy the experience.
But imagine you’re a first-time customer still trying to choose between twelve services.
What do those reviews help you decide?
Not much.
They tell you:
She’s great.
They don’t necessarily tell you:
This service sounds like the right one for me.
That’s another clue.
⸻
🚨 TIME TO MAKE YOUR DIAGNOSIS
Stop here for a second.
Seriously.
Don’t keep scrolling yet. 😂
Here’s everything we know.
The Glow Room has:
✓ Reach
✓ Views
✓ Profile visits
✓ Website traffic
✓ Saves
✓ Shares
✓ Positive reviews
✓ Consistent content
But appointments aren’t increasing the way the owner expected.
She thinks she needs more followers.
What do YOU think is happening?
A. She needs more followers
B. She needs to post more often
C. Her prices are too high
D. Something else entirely
Pick your answer.
Okay.
Now we can compare notes.
⸻
🔎 THE RRC DIAGNOSIS
I wouldn’t start by trying to get The Glow Room more followers.
Because the evidence suggests something important:
HER MARKETING IS ALREADY GETTING PEOPLE THERE.
The problem appears later.
People are discovering the business.
They’re consuming the content.
They’re visiting the profile.
They’re clicking the website.
They’re interested enough to ask questions.
Then they reach the decision.
And suddenly they’re choosing between:
Twelve services.
Similar names.
Overlapping descriptions.
Different price points.
No obvious first step.
Reviews that build trust but don’t necessarily make choosing easier.
This looks less like an attention problem and more like a decision problem.
⸻
INTEREST ISN’T THE SAME AS CLARITY
This distinction matters.
Someone can be completely interested in buying something and still leave without buying it.
Not because they don’t want it.
Because they aren’t confident about what to choose.
And when a decision starts requiring too much work, a very normal response is:
“I’ll come back to this later.”
Which sounds harmless.
Except sometimes…
later never happens.
⸻
AND HERE’S THE TRAP
Imagine The Glow Room’s owner decides she’s going all-in on audience growth.
She gets more aggressive with Reels.
She runs ads.
She collaborates with creators.
She doubles her website traffic.
Awesome.
Except…
What happens when twice as many people arrive at the same confusing decision?
We’ve potentially created:
MORE CONFUSED PEOPLE. 😂
Traffic can amplify what’s already happening.
That includes the good stuff.
And sometimes it includes the problems.
⸻
WHAT I’D INVESTIGATE NEXT
This doesn’t mean I’d immediately delete half the services or completely rebuild the website.
We don’t have enough information to make that decision yet.
I’d investigate.
1. Service Architecture
Do twelve services genuinely need to be presented as twelve separate starting choices?
Are several serving similar customers or solving similar problems?
Could the structure become easier to understand?
2. The First-Time Customer Path
What does someone who has never booked a facial need to know?
Is there an obvious starting point?
Can someone quickly recognize:
“Oh. That’s me.”
3. Service Descriptions
Are descriptions explaining features?
Or are they helping someone decide?
Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.
4. Social Proof
Could testimonials do more than establish that the owner is nice and professional?
Could specific customer experiences help future customers recognize which service might fit what they’re looking for?
5. The Booking Experience
How many decisions does somebody have to make before completing an appointment?
And where are people leaving?
I’d want those answers before deciding that audience size is the problem.
⸻
THE BIGGER MARKETING LESSON
Business owners understandably spend a lot of time thinking about getting attention.
More followers.
More reach.
More views.
More traffic.
More people.
Sometimes that’s exactly what a business needs.
But marketing doesn’t stop when somebody clicks.
There’s an entire journey happening afterward.
I see you.
↓
I’m interested.
↓
I understand what you offer.
↓
I know which option is for me.
↓
I trust you.
↓
I know what to do next.
↓
I take action.
A problem can happen at any one of those steps.
Which means:
You don’t fix every marketing problem at the top of the funnel.
Sometimes the marketing did its job.
The customer arrived.
Now we need to figure out what happened next.
⸻
🔎 CASE #001: CLOSED
The Glow Room owner believed:
“I need more followers.”
The evidence suggested:
People were already paying attention.
The bigger question was whether interested customers had a clear enough path from:
“This looks good.”
to:
“I know exactly what to book.”
And THAT is why I love looking at marketing this way.
I’m rarely interested in immediately throwing more content at a problem.
I want to know:
Where is the actual leak?
Because if we fix the wrong problem…
we can spend a lot of time getting very good at something that wasn’t causing the problem in the first place.
Your turn.
Did you diagnose The Glow Room correctly before the reveal?
And here’s the more interesting question:
What does your business think its marketing problem is right now?
Because I’d be very curious to see whether the evidence agrees. 🔎
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