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During a seminar a few weeks ago, an audience member, Bill (not his real name), bravely volunteered to be on my “Marketing hot seat”. Actually, it was fairly painless. We just went over his website and other marketing activities and explored ways to get better results.
Within five minutes or so, we came up with more than a dozen ideas that just about everyone in the audience agreed would probably double – or even triple – the amount of leads and referrals he gets each week.
Bill appeared to be delighted with all the suggestions. But he also looked worried.
When I spoke to him afterwards, he said, “Steve, those ideas are terrific. But now I feel overwhelmed. How am I going to implement them all? Where do I find the time? Ahhh!”
That’s a common problem among business owners I meet these days: Marketing overwhelm.
There are just too many marketing “things” you could be doing to attract more clients and increase sales. Where the heck do you start?
Well, the answer is simple. You start by implementing just one idea at a time.
It’s been my experience that attempting to implement more than one marketing idea at a time leads to frustration and, worse, poor results. If you attempt to put too many ideas into action at once then, like spinning plates in the air, you’ll quickly become frazzled. And soon most of those plates will come down crashing.
The “one idea at a time” approach works best.
Think about it. When you focus on implementing not three, not two, but just one marketing idea, then you can put all your energy into making it work. You can get it done faster and start seeing results sooner.
Of course, this begs the question: How do you decide which marketing idea to run with first?
Here’s a simple strategy that I use with my clients and audiences:
- Clearly decide what you want to accomplish.
- Make a list of the best marketing ideas and strategies for accomplishing it.
- Pick one.
- Implement it. Get it working well.
- If appropriate, move on to the next idea.
Say, for example, you want to generate more leads with your website. The best ideas for achieving that might be:
- Start a blog and post regularly.
- Add a sign-up form for a free ezine or special report. (Or both.)
- Improve the copy on your key website pages.
- Add a video to your home page.
- Get your website completely redesigned.
- Work with an SEO expert to optimize your site for the search engines.
Which idea will get you the best results sooner? Probably adding the sign-up form to capture more leads. So focus on implementing that idea first. Watch the impact it has on your lead generation. Then, if necessary, move on to the next idea.
Unless you have a large marketing department or agency at your disposal, put one idea into action at a time. You’ll feel less overwhelmed, and you’ll probably get much better results.
