What do the following phrases have in common?
“I did a mass mailing once but never got any business from it?”
“I attended a networking event once but never got any business?”
They all have one word in common: once. Thing is, I’ve heard these phrases from other people before. I’ve heard Real Estate Agents say it about their mailing campaigns. I’ve heard friends say it about a BNI Networking Group that they attended once. The reality is, you don’t get anything out of trying things once! Doing something once is an event. Doing it over and over again, is a process. Winning clients and earning new business, is a process.
Turning Things Into A Process:
In basketball, if you want to increase your free-throw percentage, you practice shooting free-throws. In baseball, if you want to increase your batting average, you go to batting practice. In golf, if you you want to improve your golf swing, you go to the driving range and practice. If you want to improve your marketing to achieve results, it needs to become a process, something that you’ll do over and over again.
Touch Points:
Think about how many times you have to connect with someone before they actually remember your name (and what you do). Three, four, five times?
The beauty of social media is that it presents an opportunity to connect with people over time quickly, personally, and professionally. It fails when marketers apply the “In-Your-Face Marketing” philosophy (which is nothing more than spam and crude marketing tactics). It works well when you:
- Engage (think “Relationship Before the Sale”)
- Seek to be helpful first
- Follow up (do what you say)
Everything Is A Process:
Marketing is not something you do… It’s who you are. The next time you blog, Tweet, update your Facebook Status and connect online, ask yourself a couple of questions:
- How is this activity connecting me with my audience (my demographic)?
- How is this activity helpful to my network?
- Am I communicating who I am (my brand) and what I do (my service offering) effectively?
- What’s the response rate that I’m getting and how can I adjust it? (Subscribers, comments, inquiries, Fans, etc.)
Remember, everything is a process. Repetitive Awareness Marketing is helpful, engaging, connecting and following up. What are you doing to hit each of those points and how can you do it better?
Photo Credit: I woz ere
I've heard that “once” word many times from those doing marketing and have said it before myself. We want immediate results, but it just doesn't work that way. Patience and persistence, along with testing and tweaking, are the things that work best.
That's right, gotta put in the effort to build things over time. Patience and persistence are definitely good ingredients!
Great point Ricardo. Repetition, repetition, repetition and more repetion is the key to any lasting change. Whether we are changing our thinking or learning to become a marketer it is drip, drip drip – one thought at a time. The reward of repetition is cooperation from all depths of our mind which manifest outwardly into real results.
Sometimes I need to remind myself of that when I go running (repetition, repetition, repetition). Do something long enough and it becomes a good habit.
Thanks for the comment Rob!
Hi Ricardo
Nice distinction… event / process.
Most of us are prone to looking for immediate results, not many want to work hard at achieving results.
Reminds me of the saying…
“Everyone has the will to win; what is important is the will to prepare.”
Bobby Knight
Good news is that we can get ahead of the crowd by being prepared to put in the time and effort – process not event.
Keith: everyone wants the quick solution. The Staples “Easy Button” so-to-speak. Like the quote by the way!
I think the person that puts in the time & effort is definitely the one that ends up ahead!
As always, thanks for the comment Keith.
Hi Ricardo,
I enjoyed your sports analogies, especially after the Lakers/Celtics game last night 🙂
Everything is indeed a process and I like your simple, but effective points on building relationships. Doing what you say you're going to do is important to your integrity. Provide consistent value, and you'll experience positive results.
Go Lakers! (Heh).
I think that sometimes we make it harder than it should be. When really, if we put “seek to be helpful” at the core of everything with do, it's so much easier. From then on it's as you said: “Provide consistent value.”
Thanks for the visit and the comment Kim!
Ricardo, you and I both share a strong focus on Return on Investment of time spent marketing.
I'm glad I found your blog; I just put your feed in my reader.
John: pleasure to connect and thanks for the add and comment!
I try to tackle things by asking “how can I best be productive”? When I do it that way, I feel like I'm getting somewhere.
All good points, Ricardo. Communication is a process that moves through a path from awareness to interest to desire and only finally to action. Expecting action to come after one interaction is naive at best. That's why it's so important to set client expectations properly.
Suspect to > Prospect to > Client. Good communication definitely moves people down that path smoothly.
I think people expect social media to be a quick (silver bullet) solution to their sales problems and really it's far from that. Social media in and of itself isn't a lead generation tool. But it does help you amplify your relationships. What you do from there, is up to you.
Thanks for the comment Peter!
This is excellent, “once” indeed. You could practically be quoting me here.
I am definitely guilty of this!
I see some of the usual suspects hanging out in these comments… good.
I'm guilty too. At the end of the day, practice makes perfect. So I try to remind myself of that in all that I do.
Thanks for dropping in Dave!
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