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Too Little, Too Late, Too Busy... how to avoid marketing stress

Written by: Stuart Ayling

Article Overview: You know what creates stress for most people? When it comes to marketing their business many people find they have to: * Make decisions without having the facts required. * Risk wasting money on tactics they don’t fully understand. * Find time to weigh up the best choices. ...all at very short notice. No wonder they find marketing stressful!

Too Little, Too Late, Too Busy... how to avoid marketing stress

You know what creates stress for most people? When it comes to marketing their business many people find they have to:

* Make decisions without having the facts required.
* Risk wasting money on tactics they don’t fully understand.
* Find time to weigh up the best choices.

...all at very short notice.

No wonder they find marketing stressful!

Many business owners never take the time to really understand the few essential marketing elements they need to have in place ALL THE TIME.

Instead, they make knee-jerk reactions when faced with ‘urgent’ situations like:
* Having a hole in their expected cash flow - the feast/famine cycle.
* Major clients who suddenly take their business elsewhere.
* Advertising reps who call with the ‘best deal ever’.

The answer is simple.

Identify the key marketing tactics that are your ‘must haves’ and make sure you create a system for putting them into place on a regular basis. Focus on the few. The 80/20 rule applies.

And we are coming up to that time of year again when everyone makes promises to themselves. The dreaded New Year Resolutions.

(Sidebar – it has always puzzled me why people wait until New Year to make these silly promises. If it was important to do it, why leave it to the middle of a holiday period when you probably wont do anything about much at all apart from socialising and relaxing.)

So rather than making a forgettable New Year resolution, why not create a structure to keep you on track with proactive marketing decisions.

Your marketing structure needs to be based on the following key factors:

1. Know who you want to attract. I call these target audiences your ‘Pockets of Revenue’.

2. Know what marketing tactics will be most effective for those people. Forget the rest of the world that maybe, someday, somewhere, will want what you offer. Focus on those prospects who will need your services.

3. Understand what is involved to implement those marketing tactics. Don’t guess. Don’t put it in the ‘too hard basket’. Make sure you find out. Now.

4. Create an easy-to-follow action plan for your chosen marketing tactics. Don’t cram in the second- or third-tier tactics that sound exciting but simply don’t work. Make a management decision to stick with what is most effective.

5. Work out your marketing budget so you know what to expect.

6. Make time during your working week to do what you have planned. Or find someone you can delegate the activities to. Otherwise opportunities will pass you by.

Whatever you do, don’t get caught in the situation of too little, too late, or too busy.

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