What’s your marketing plan look like?
Does it sort of resemble what would happen if you randomly spun a wheel full of marketing ideas?
Today, you spun and landed on “Facebook” so you spent a bit of time there.
Yesterday, you spun and landed on “media” so you started to look into how to write a press release but didn’t have time to really get a good one completed and out the door.
Tomorrow, you could land on “networking” or “article marketing” or maybe “list building” and you’ll spend a couple minutes trying to figure out how to make that work…
Stop it! No more spinning a wheel or throwing darts!
You’ll get better results from choosing just ONE strategic tactic and implementing it consistently than you’ll ever get from trying a hundred different strategies once each.
Why? Because there’s always a learning curve and consistency matters.
Let’s start with the learning curve. When you spend enough time learning about one tactic, you can get better at it (no argument there, right?). You test things, try new angles, and it starts to click.
The first time I hopped on Twitter, it didn’t send droves of traffic to my website. It took time to figure out how to use it well. I tried lots of things that didn’t work. And somewhere in there I tried a few things that did. The more you focus on a tactic and track your results, the better you get.
Too many times, we try a tactic once and when it doesn’t work we throw up our hands and spin the wheel again.
That’s not a marketing plan. At least not an effective one!
Pick something, stick with it, and fine tune it. Read blog posts and articles to help you get better at it. Enlist the help of a coach or teacher. Read a book, buy a DVD or video, whatever you need. But don’t give up on a tactic that can get great results if you’ve identified it as one that reaches who you want to reach.
You don’t need 50 marketing ideas in play all at once. Choose one, or two, and execute them well. You’ll get better results and marketing won’t feel so overwhelming or difficult. Focus.
No more wheel spinning, okay?
Your turn. Have you been playing the game show marketing game? What tactic are you going to focus on? Or, what’s been working well for you already and how can you turn that up and get even better results if you invested the time/energy to improve it?
-
13Shares
- 13
I think our firm in the past has used the flavor of the month game, rather than the Wheel of Fortune. The only benefit I saw from the flavor of the month approach is that we did develop KPI that could help us determine which technique did provide “immediate” benefits (within 60 days). Since then, we use the flavor of the week approach on the better processes (that’s two folks, full time), with one more person using the other three techniques which have worked for us on the other approaches. (That person also is responsible for detecting new flavors for us to sample.)
Flavor of the month. That sounds like a “tasty” game. If you’ve got a staff and/or enough time to implement a few tactics well, and then experiment with a few others, that’s a great plan.
I get what you’re saying here, we are taught not to put all our eggs in the one basket but playing you call the “wheel of fortune” can cause distractions, I see your point of concentrating on one strategic tactic and implementing it consistently, your focus and energy is then concentrated and not spinning all over the place and out of control. Good points in this post!
Yes, when we focus on one tactic until we’re successful with it, then it’s time to add a new tactic and so on. More than one tactic is great — but only if we stick with each long enough to make it work, instead of trying a dozen tactics very poorly so that none of them get us results, under the idea of diversifying into many “baskets.”
Great advice Michelle. It is so easy to become overwhelmed with all the platforms out there.
It really is. For me, even with some smart automation, I realize I can either be effective and do well with 2 or 3 social media platforms, or I can try to hit a dozen of them and do poorly on all of them… better to focus on a few and do well!
I have learned so much by reading your blog. It always amazes me how much there is to learn. It is also mind boggling how fast things change. For a newbie like me having a resource like your post.
I still remember wheel of fortune, it is really a good tv game show…
Thanks, I’m glad it’s been a helpful resource.
I’ve got a lot of memories of watching the game show with my Grandmother. :)
I almost feel like you’re calling me out because I tend to do this type of thing. Right now I’m trying to focus on one type of marketing but because it’s turning out to be way more of a struggle than I had expected I’ve started looking at other ways of getting the word out, which of course means I’m back to being all over the place again. Gotta stop that; good reminder.
I think Twitter is a great marketing tool, if you are an author like me… But also it is a great tool if you are facing a difficult time… There is always someone to hold your hand…