Usually, when it comes to marketing, the biggest challenge most of us have isn’t a lack of ideas. In fact, ideas sometimes seem to come flying at us from all directions. The biggest challenge is selecting the most effective things to do based on what your customers want, what you like to do and what will help you achieve your objectives.
The list of marketing activities you can invest in is huge, and seems to get bigger everyday as new things like Twitter, video blogs, and I-don’t-even-know-what appear out of nowhere. The big thing right now seems to be Twitter and social media in general. What I want to help you do is to prioritize them. Not everyone needs to be on Twitter. Not everyone needs to write a book. Not everyone needs to deliver keynote speeches. You need to figure out what YOU need to be doing to 1) reach your target audience, 2) achieve your objectives, and 3) enjoy yourself while doing it.
Try this little exercise: List off the top of your head 5 things you would like to do to market your business that you are not doing today. It could be doing an Adwords campaign with Google, or setting up a Twitter or FaceBook account. It could be creating a video to describe your business and post it to YouTube and your website. Submitting articles to blogs, commenting on blogs in your field, the list can go on and on.
Now, ask yourself these questions:
1. Do your customers use these things – are they on FaceBook or LinkedIn? Do they even read blogs? If so, which ones?
2. Do you like doing these things? If you don’t like to write, then saying you’re going to write articles and submit them isn’t going to be very much fun for you, and consequently you probably won’t do it.
3. Do these things help you achieve your objectives? If most of your business comes from referrals and word of mouth, then investing in search engine optimization for your website, might not be the most important thing for you to do.
What you’re going to find is that not all of them work. Some might work for your customers, but you hate doing it. Others might help you achieve your objectives but your customers don’t like them. This is how you prioritize your marketing activities and get down to the critical few things you need to do to attract the right kind of customers. The things you need to do, you like to do and will move you towards your goal. Evaluate the different activities you COULD do and decide what you SHOULD do.