If you've ever stared at a blank caption box and had no idea what to write, marketing strategist Eli Natoli can tell you exactly how to fix that.
It's not that you're inconsistent, or that you have blank page syndrome, or that you’re “just not good at social media.”
It's that you haven't dug deep enough into what makes your approach genuinely yours.
Eli has spent years studying the psychology behind buying decisions, and the deeper parts of marketing most people skip past because they’re focused on completing tasks.
In this creator story, Eli shares:
- How psychology impacts what people buy and who they buy from
- The three-layered process to finding your unique point of view
- How to never run out of ideas for what to post again
Here's what she's learned about why people actually choose to work with someone and how understanding that can change everything else in your business.
(If you’re looking for a place to build a great online business like Eli, Podia has your courses, digital products, community, and email marketing, all in one place. Try it free for 30 days.)
How Eli found the missing ingredient
Eli got into entrepreneurship many years ago when she and her husband started a web design and development agency. To learn how to market their business, Eli tuned in to every expert workshop about sales funnels, email campaigns, webinars, and growth strategies that she could find.
But when she followed the advice of some of the biggest names in marketing, the results were hit or miss. "Maybe 20% of our campaigns would work, 80% were just a complete bust," she says.
So she changed her approach. Instead of studying what top marketers taught, she studied what they actually did.
"I pulled apart hundreds of funnels, opted in to everything to see what kind of messages they were sending, really listened and watched and read every single word just to try to figure out what are the connecting dots here," Eli explains.
"And what I realized is that there’s psychology at play. There are certain words they're using, certain ways they're approaching it, certain ways they're persuading the buying decision, but more importantly, each of them had a unique point of view that they weren’t afraid to share."
That research led Eli to a belief that now shapes everything she teaches.
Buying decisions are human, not just logical or emotional
Eli realized that people don't decide who to buy from purely with logic, and they don't decide purely with emotion either. They decide by scanning for proof, and at the same time, scanning for who they resonate with.
"We're checking for the person's values, beliefs, personalities, viewpoints," Eli says. "Their convictions, their integrity. So many different things, and it just happens so fast, we're not even aware of it."
For example, when you ask someone why they bought a course from one expert over another, they rarely mention credentials.
"People don't say it was because this sales page had ten more testimonials, or because that person had more awards," Eli says. "They say things like, I just trusted this person more, or something about their approach really resonated with me."
To create that resonance with your readers and followers, you need a clear and authentic point of view.
The three-layer process behind a genuine point of view
Eli takes her clients through a process to help them find and articulate what she calls their "why you," the honest answer to why someone should choose them over anyone else offering something similar.
It happens in three layers.
- First, understanding yourself. What are your convictions, your approach, the things you actually care about most? What is your background and experience with your subject area that only you have?
- Second, understanding your audience. This means understanding their pain points but also going deeper to answer why they haven’t gotten results yet. What have they tried in the past and why didn’t it work? Why do they care about getting a certain outcome?
- Third, looking at the market itself. What advice is already out there, and where does it fall short?
To help people get clear on their unique point of view, Eli also asks questions like:
- How do you see the solution to this problem?
- Why do you approach it this way?
- What do you care about the most?
- How do you see the people that you work with?
The answers to these questions give you a collection of real perspectives, ones nobody else in your industry is saying the same way you are, that you can use across your social posts, emails, webinars, and sales pages.
For instance, Eli once worked with two financial advisors at the same time, and on the surface, both of them were offering the same kind of wealth management and retirement planning.
But one had grown up watching his immigrant parents navigate financial scarcity, which shaped a very different approach to spending and saving. The other came from wealth and built his philosophy around traditional investing.
Neither approach was wrong, and once each of them got clear on their own "why you" point of view, it became obvious they weren't actually competing. Their businesses were built for two completely different audiences.
If you don’t know what to post, it’s time to do this exercise
A lot of Eli’s clients run into the same issue. They don’t know what to say, or they struggle to come up with fresh post ideas, or they feel like they have nothing new to add to the conversation.
To fix this problem, you have to fix your foundation. And you can do this by going through the three-step process of finding your unique point of view.
"If you truly had something that you wanted to share, and you were convinced that this is something your ideal buyers want to hear, believe me, you would be consistent," Eli says. "You can't wait to share it."
In fact, once you've done the work of finding your own perspective, the opposite problem shows up. Many people find they have too many ideas, not too few.
"I have an idea bank of thousands of ideas that I haven't even created posts on yet," Eli says. "Every single one of them is from my own unique perspective."
That's why she's cautious about jumping straight to tactical fixes like copywriting frameworks or switching platforms.
"It's sort of like, you don't have the right foundation, and it doesn't matter how amazing you become at copywriting or what platform you use," she says. “You have to get clear on who you are first.”
Eli’s advice for people just starting out
Eli has been building online businesses since 2010, long before the market got as crowded as it is today. Her advice for anyone who feels like they're doing everything right but still not seeing traction:
"Experts are plenty right now. But people with unique points of view and the willingness to step up and talk about what they do that is uniquely theirs, there are not that many," she says.
"Authority is when you are positioned correctly in your market for the specific problems or solutions that you touch on and talk about," she says. "When you lead with your unique point of view, it’s easy to gain traction because almost no one’s doing it."
If you're building a business around what makes your approach yours, Podia can help you bring it to life, from your website to your email list to the products you sell. Start your free trial today.
Eli Natoli is a Podia Pro and best-selling author, speaker, coach, and marketing strategist. You can learn more about her work on her website.
