Continuity is the key…

I want to share with you a recent lesson I was reminded of. It is something I know, have berated friends and clients over and even famously uttered the words… “I will never let this happen again”

It is about continuity in your marketing communications.

Recently I have been quite sick, and as a result missed putting a few blog posts up, didn’t participate in my social networks, didn’t do anything but lay in bed and feel horrible.

Sometimes, as it was in this case, you just can’t avoid these things. My body needed the rest and it did whatever it had to do to ensure I was listening.

So effectively, apart from a few little ‘I am still alive’ type posts to twitter and facebook, I fell off the map for a lot of people.

Now if I was going away on holidays (which would be rare) or more likely, going away for work, I would still communicate and I would prepare some blog posts in advance, but this time off came out of nowhere so I had no time to plan and therefore, left a gap in my communications and conversations with both friends and colleagues for the best part of 5 weeks.

When coming back in to twitter/facebook and saying ‘Hi, I’m back, did you miss me?’ I got a sense of how fast this world moves. The only response I got to that was one saying ‘No’. Sure, there were some of my friends that were concerned for my health, but they had emailed me anyway.

This reiterated to me the importance of continuity. Imagine if twitter were a nightclub, and you went for a few weeks, made some new friends, then just didn’t show up for a month. Your new friends would still have a good time, and chances are there would be someone new they would meet. Because you haven’t added great Value to their life yet, you are just ‘that guy’ so when another ‘that guy’ shows up in your absence, you lose all the progress you ahd made. Don’t be sad, you didn’t show up, so they moved on.

Now let’s focus this lesson on marketing, because at the end of the day, that is the purpose of a lot of peoples communications.

Marketing is something you do ALL THE TIME. Not when you have the budget, certainly not when you are slowing down, and definately not when you are are desperate and out of money.

In tough times, people do get desperate and they market themselves like a 2 dollar shop, discounting and value adding till the cows come home to try and make the quick sale. However if you are consistent with your message and you have a long term measurable strategy in place, then when tough times strike, you know they are just that… tough times. Remember though, this too shall pass.

So what are you doing to continously communicate with your audience and potential customers?

Here are my top 5 strategies that EVERYONE should be doing if you are serious about continuously marketing your business.

1. Start building your database. Try adding a valuable offer to your website or a long sales letter to promote a product. You can see one that I have done here Product Offer Page
2. Communicate your offer through your social network. I don’t mean pimp yourself out here and do the hard sell! Just let everyone know, you will be amazed at the support and sharing that your network will do for you.
3. Setup your blog. Have you got a blog yet, have you started communicating with your audience and positioning yourself as the expert?
4. Email marketing. The most cost effective way to talk to people who already know you. It keeps you top of mind and allows you to understand your database better.
5. Reward your database. Give them a gift, and don’t make it a crappy gift. Give as much as you can to every person that has invested their time by listening or reading your information. Your generosity will be something they talk about.

How many are you doing? I am going to put my hand up at this point and share with you … this is the lesson I learned. We haven’t been focusing on this in our business. Plumbers always have leaky taps. We have multiple areas to our business and have been focusing on some and not all, that was a mistake because when I had to take time off to get better, the areas that don’t actually require my physical input had slowed right down, the areas where we continuously market were fine… but I wasn’t.

You need to make sure that your marketing plan looks like a bridge not a diving board. I’m sure you have seen this metaphor before but let me explain it for those that haven’t

If you have just one marketing strategy and you balance your whole business then things go up and down, kind of like a diving board…

However, if you have multiple strategies in place, you have a stable platform to work from, you could ven lose a few and you would still be fine, kind of like a bridge…

Now I will point out here that this is not my concept, but I have seen so many people use it and claim it and call it all different things, I cannot give credit where it is due… so to the originator of this concept… it rocks!

By writing this post and sharing this message with you, I have found a few areas that I am going to re-address and make sure I have all the supports in place, I hope you do to. Once again… I will famously say ‘I will never let this happen again’. Be on the look out for our new email newsletter

Have an awesome week

Rich.

PS: It is Small Business September here in NSW. To celebrate we are offerinf a full website and online strategy review for just $999. If you would like to know more please email kellie@redd.com.au.

PPS: I am holding my business website masterclasses in October. Dates and locations released soon, but if you would like to get us to come to your town, let us know

Tagged as: communications, social media