Think about this for a 2022 Marketing Mantra
It’s better to get one prospect generation tactic working reasonably well than to run off chasing the next trending tool of the month.
I’m guilty, I know most small business owners are, of chasing the next new thing. The truth is that most well-thought-out marketing strategies will pay off given your complete attention and patience to take hold.
My advice as you are making plans for 2022 is to find one or two good strategies and tactics at the most and COMMIT to them.
You must have COMMITMENT to your marketing
I hate admitting this but mediocre #marketing with commitment works better than smart marketing without commitment.
- What makes a marriage work?
- What makes a business work?
- How do you finish running a marathon?
- How do you get a degree or diploma?
The answer is commitment.
If you’re not committed to your marketing, it’s probably not going to work.
Commitment means you evolve your marketing, you revise your marketing, and you revisit it. You put in the work and you stay with it, no matter what.
Notice I didn’t talk about specific tactics such as the yellow pages, newspaper classifieds, Myspace, social media, etc. but the overall process of marketing must have a commitment.
Story time 📖: I was referred to the owner of a pet cremation company here in #Virginia and went to his location to talk about marketing. We discussed the idea of commitment to a marketing process. He admitted that he knew nothing about marketing and turned it over to my firm. We developed a marketing strategy plan, secured his approval and then reiterated the importance of his commitment to the strategy plan.
The marketing strategy was implemented. 6 weeks later this owner called me to tell me although he was still committed to the process he hadn’t seen much proof it was for him. After 12 weeks, he called to tell me he was seeing the results of the marketing process take effect. By the end of the year he had paid off his crematory and was thinking about how to scale and serve more customers.
I doubt this client would have progressed to the point where he could have justified paying off his crematory and hiring employees if he hadn’t stayed with the plan. He could have wavered and veered from the plan. But it was a plan that was tailored to his company’s needs.
Commitment is what you need.
If you find something that shows promise, focus on making it even more powerful
The statement you just read sounds like common sense: It’s easier to amplify what’s working than to explore something new.
The problem is that most business owners and CEOs of small businesses don’t know what’s working, and even when they do, they may not think of it as marketing.
Referrals are a good example. Most small businesses get a lot of referrals, but they have no strategy to increase the number and quality of referrals.
Consequently, they don’t employ”cross-channel amplification” — for instance, using demonstrations or speaking engagements to enhance referrals.
In this article <https://lnkd.in/ewyqDXE>, I lay out more details.
Conclusion
Don’t fall prey to the new shiny web 3.0 application that promises to make your life marginally better (or not)
Create one strategy, finish it, test it, improve it and use it without regret.
