There is No Shortcut

Let’s face it, in today’s world, we all want instant results. Especially when it comes to making money. We want to post the product on Monday and sell a 10,000 units by Wednesday. The hope is to post something on our social media profiles at 9:00 a.m. and be rich by 2:30. And, as always, there are the “experts” who have the perfect course, or book or video, which is going to help us do just that. Except, sadly, what the “experts” are selling generally doesn’t serve to make anyone rich but them.

The hard truth that no one really wants to tell you is that Marketing, like everything else takes time, effort and consistency. The best way to see results is to stick with your program, keep your messaging constant and on target and to be patient. That’s not the truth a lot of people want to sell though. It’s not sexy, and it isn’t likely to get you to buy their course or sign up for their webinar. What sells is easy, quick, no effort solutions and, once they have your money, no one who’s selling those solutions is much concerned if they work for you or not.

Does that mean everyone offering a class or a webinar or a book is a crook and a shyster? Of course not. It means it’s a case of caveat emptor, basically “buyer beware” which means it’s on you to vet who you’re buying from, the claims they’re making and whether or not what they’re selling is worth buying. You work hard to earn your money, so make sure you’re spending it wisely.

How To Speed Up Your Marketing Cycle

You should also remember that while patience, consistency and effort are your main weapons, there are a few things you can do to make your marketing more effective and perhaps speed up the market cycle a bit.

First, know your target. I talked about finding your target market in an earlier newsletter. You should not only know your target market, you should also know your target message and what the target goals are for your current marketing plan. Targeted messages aimed at the right audience and designed to achieve the right goals will get you to where you want to be much faster than scattershot messages with no defined plan.

Second, pay attention to your data. It’s easy to get busy and ignore analytics or feedback from existing and prospective customers. Things like social listening, analytics from social media profiles and just listeningto what your customers are saying can give you a lot of insight into what parts of your Marketing plan are working and what parts are not. The goal is to not waste time with the bits that are effective, and the best way to know what those bits are is to pay attention to your data.

Third, create good quality content. The days of blurry, out of focus pictures and the same old lackluster copy day after day are long gone. With the advent of better cellphone cameras, AI and platforms like Canva it’s now easier than ever to create eye catching and memorable graphics, photos and text. You can’t just throw things together and hope to compete. If you want to stand out, you have to put in the work to create the best content you can.

What Others Are Saying

The 2024 State of Marketing and Trends Report - Hubspot - With data collected from 1400 global markets, Hubspot calls out the trends, opportunities and challenges brands will face this year. There’s a free report so you can download the data as well.

6 Emerging Marketing Trends and Strategies Taking over 2024 - SCORE offers a brief look at some of the major trends of 2024 when it comes to marketing. Not sure that I agree that PPC is anything new, but some of the rest of what they mention has definitely become more impactful in the past year.

What’s In and Out in Marketing in 2024 - Forbes - I generally agree with this piece, particularly when it names greenwashing as something that’s out. I also agree that hyper-personalization is in, although I was beating that drum long before 2024.