It’s Monday and you get an email indicating that
writing an ezine is THE way to get new clients. You drop everything and
start working on an email newsletter.
It’s Tuesday and your
friend calls and says that he heard the best way to get publicity is
pay-per-click. You drop everything and sign up for a Google Adwords
account.
It’s Wednesday and you heard that someone made a million
dollars selling info products. Everything else waits while you work on
your first million dollar product.
I once had a client who would
tell me he figured out how to "fix" his business and what he needed to
do to succeed. Unfortunately, he did this DAILY. Each day he had a new
marketing strategy that he would drop everything else to implement. It
was exhausting as well as counterproductive.
Does this sound
familiar? You have no real plan for your marketing strategy and so you
jump from one idea to another based on what you hear or read is the
best or quickest way to get more clients and increase sales.
It’s time to get off the merry-go-round.
There
are thousands of different things you could do to move your business
forward. And, most likely, any one of them will do the job.
The problem.
You start one thing, stop, start another, stop, start a third, stop. .
. . At the end of the day, you’re left with frustration and overwhelm.
And nothing done.
The solution. If you see a little of
yourself in this scenario, it’s time to create a marketing plan. One
that resonates with you and that you can stick with.
Step 1:
Create a marketing plan — make a list of the marketing activities you
are interested in doing and then select the three to five which click
most with you.
Step 2: Take action — start implementing the activities on your plan and stick with them until they are done.
Step 3:
Evaluate — review what you’ve been doing and what results you’re
getting. If the results aren’t what you were expecting, you may wish to
try another strategy, but only AFTER you’ve given the first time to
work.
It’s important to remember that good marketing is about two
things: 1/ educating your community (target audience) about what you do
and 2/ building a relationship with those in your community.
Do
these two things and do them consistently and you will reap the rewards
as your business success lies not in hyperactivity, but in
well-thought-out plans and implementation.
Your Coaching Challenge
I
challenge you to take a step back and think about which marketing
activities you’ve had the most success with or, if you’re a new
business owner, which ones appeal to you the most. Now jot them down
and add some dates by which you will complete them.
POOF! You have the beginnings of a marketing plan. Go forth and educate. . .
Sandra P. Martini, the
Automatic Business Coach ™, is creator of the “9 Simple Steps to Creating an
Automatic Business” system. To learn
more about this step-by-step program for small business success, and to receive
her FREE “5 Simple Steps to Putting Your Marketing on Autopilot” e-course/audio
mini-series and how-to articles and teleseminars, please visit www.SandraMartini.com.