As a business owner, it’s important to stop periodically and review how things are going. As you near the end of the year, take advantage of the slower business demands many of us experience to ask yourself how this year was for you, marketing-wise.
Set aside a dedicated time — anywhere from an hour to an afternoon — and consider these questions.
Are the results you’re getting from your marketing not what you hoped for? Perhaps there is something else you should be doing. I don’t mean something more. You are probably working hard at marketing already. I’m suggesting something else.
It’s been my experience that many independent professionals just don’t market the way they should. Here are the five most common reasons, and how you can overcome them:
1. Missing information.
There’s a lot of misleading information out there about marketing.
Is your marketing plan producing the results you need? When was the last time you evaluated your plan to see if it is leading you toward success? Are you even using a marketing plan at all? Here are four questions to help you determine whether it’s time to reset your plan.
1. Are you getting in touch every month with at least three times as many new clients as you need? Not every prospective client will say yes. You need to have a marketing pipeline filled with prospects, contacts, leads, and referrals that you can draw from.
Effective marketing of your business requires commitment. No matter what marketing approach you choose, you must be consistent and persistent with it, if you want to see results. You’ve probably heard that advice. But this sort of commitment doesn’t always happen in practice.
Do any of these phrases sound like something you may have said about marketing at some point?
“I tried that a couple of times, but I didn’t see results right away, so I stopped.”
“I was using X to market my business, but then a friend suggested Y, so I started doing that instead.”
“I don’t know if this is the best way to market myself, so I don’t want to risk doing it.”
There you sit: you know you need to do something to get the word out about your business and get the clients flowing in, yet you’re not in the mood. In fact, you’re mostly never in the mood to do marketing. The problem is, no marketing = no clients = no money = no impact with the work you’re here to bring to the world, which is a sad state to be in.
“Even if you don’t feel like sitting down to write or working on that big proposal, or whatever it is, just show up anyhow and the rest will follow.”
– Ayana Mathis
Getting in the mood to market is a mind shift, one you can bring on yourself. Consider these tactics when you’re just not feelin’ it:
Isn’t that what every self-employed professional is really looking for — that one magic formula that will take the effort out of marketing and bring you all the clients you need, forever?
Searching for this marketing silver bullet, they read articles and books, take seminars and home-study courses, and hire consultants and coaches. And in the process they learn about many, many so-called marketing secrets.
These “secrets” to marketing consist of supposedly surefire approaches like search engine optimization for your website, social media marketing, joining a leads group, sending postcards, and running pay-per-click ads. There are of course many more, and each of them is being touted by someone as the ultimate solution for marketing your business.
When was the last time you put the amount of effort into marketing that you intended? For most self-employed professionals, getting marketing tasks accomplished is an ongoing challenge. You don’t have a boss looking over your shoulder ordering you to make those follow-up calls or write those blog posts. It’s easy to get distracted by client emergencies, family responsibilities, and technology issues. Then another week goes by without enough — or any — attention on marketing.
You may have put a considerable amount of energy into figuring out how to market your business, and coming up with smart plans for what you’ll do. But if you fall short on execution, even the best plan won’t help you get clients.
Here are four approaches to making sure the marketing activities you’ve chosen for yourself actually get done.
