No Shortcuts to Success
Most of us recognize that success does not come without hard work, but hard work, even a whole lot of it, doesn’t always guarantee success. Marketing is no different.
You can tweet twenty thousand times a day, but unless you have a strategic reason behind your tweets, a meaningful purpose, then you won’t see the results for which you are hoping.
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know!
Too often I see small business owners struggle with this ill-fated strategy of either blindly posting everything hoping something will stick, or not doing anything because they feel paralyzed, not knowing where or how to begin.
I’ve even seen several of Orlando’s marketing agencies, the ones who are supposed to guide those small business owners through digital marketing, struggle. One agency rep told me, “We deliver two Facebook posts and five tweets a week as part of a complete online strategy.”
Um, what?
I actually don’t blame them for believing this is a satisfactory approach. Many agencies come from the old, traditional forms of marketing, which thrived on press releases, earned media, and media buys.
The idea of paid media, deftly utilizing online influencers, actively engaging in the current social media platforms, as well as effective content marketing can only be learned by digging in and doing it over several years. Oftentimes agency reps are so busy with the old traditional forms of advertising, they haven’t spent enough time utilizing the new forms to have developed best practices.
Take for example another acquaintance, who is in charge marketing for a global company, who told me recently, “We don’t use social media because the numbers show it just doesn’t work.” Instead, this particular company still spends a large percentage of its marketing budget on billboards. Tell me, how on earth would you truly measure the ROI of a billboard? Compared to very specific measurements of exactly how many people came to your website from a social media post, how many eye balls saw your online post, or how many people redeemed the online code you gave?
There is no short cut to marketing, but there are some very concrete steps you can take to achieve your goals cheaper and faster.
What Marketers in Mind Can Do for You
The speed at which social media marketing is moving is mind numbing. New platforms spring up daily while others die, like Vine’s recent closing. Nobody can keep on top of these marketing tools and the trends that are working best without having a large network that is constantly testing and learning through trial and error.
Fortunately this is exactly what I have spent the last seven years cultivating: an international network that is pushing new boundaries, crafting unique marketing campaigns, measuring their success, and then writing about the effectiveness of what is and what is not working. This is what I look forward to sharing in my new Marketers in Mind (MIM) Community.
So how can my new micro-community help you?
For the Small Business Owner
Step 1: Decide what action you would like to see your current/future customer take. (Buy my product, come in my store, visit my website, sign up for my service, etc.)
Step 2: Let me work with you one-on-one to craft a strategic, step-by-step plan to get this message of action to your current/future customers. We’ll then set up benchmarks to measure the success.
Step 3: Network and learn from others in the MIM Community to see how they are managing their time, balancing between daily business operations and marketing to grow their businesses. This time management is key to your long term success.
For the Marketing Agency
Step 1: Identify the marketing strategy or social media platforms you know least about.
Step 2: Tune in to the Weekly Workshops where we cover different marketing techniques and best uses of different platforms as well as case studies of successful campaigns. You will also learn from the best of the best content strategy experts during this time.
Step 3: Allow me to help you craft your latest campaign to leverage online influencers, effective content marketing, and these social media platforms to help you meet your clients’ goals.
For the Brand Rep
Step 1: Clarify both your key audience as well as the message you want deliver to them.
Step 2: Let me help you identify the best platforms, online influencers, as well as compelling content to drive your message home.
Step 3: Together we can set up specific measurements to be sure your message has delivered the results you want and expect.
This Micro-Community is Extremely Important to Me
But it should be important to you, too, as an investment in yourself. It is only by constantly learning from others that we continue to grow. As a reminder of what you will get by joining Marketers in Mind:
- Me as a member of your marketing team
- Immediate access to a private, online forum
- Alerts about the hottest marketing and social media trends and tools
- Weekly Workshops featuring leading content creation experts
- One-on-one strategy sessions
- Connection to over 1,800 powerful online influencers
- Exclusive content and more
- Lifetime discounts on all my future marketing and blogging conferences
Remember, for the next 6 months only 20 people will have complete access to me, my knowledge, and my extensive database of bloggers and online influencers.
Marketers in Mind launches tomorrow, November 1st, so I hope you will join me in this exciting new micro-community dedicated to trust, open sharing, strategizing, and transforming your business. Click here to see where to sign up.
Until tomorrow, may your marketing be meaningful and your time well-used.
