Patricia was paralyzed in her marketing efforts. After working in the corporate sector, she set up her own consulting firm three years ago but found it very difficult to attract new clients: “It’s not that she hasn’t done marketing,” she told me. “It’s just that I can’t get results, so I wonder if I’m doing things right.”
I explained that there are two major areas of marketing whose differences you need to understand and balance.
Those two areas are short-term marketing and long-term marketing.
Each of those areas consists of different activities.
Long-term activities serve to establish your visibility and credibility, while short-term activities serve to get interviews with qualified clients.
Marketing Efforts: 2 Areas Where To Focus Your Activity
Table of Contents
Long-Term Marketing Activities
I explained to Patricia that there are five activities that are very important to freelancers, long-term activities aimed at building a solid marketing foundation and then maintaining the structure of that foundation.
Those 5 long-term activities are as follows:
Create A Great Marketing Message
Essentially, you need a powerful marketing message that “touches a nerve” when someone asks what you do. Tell them who you work with and the main issues and challenges you address – “I work with emerging leaders who are frustrated at not progressing fast enough.” But make sure your message is relevant.
My marketing message went from “I’m a small business consultant” (in 1984) to “I help freelancers unlock their marketing and get into action. » (2015)
Build A Great Website
Your website or blog has to be something more than “good”. It must be very good, excellent. You need a design that stands out, messages that talk about the problems and challenges you help your clients overcome, detailed descriptions of your services, and case studies of your most successful clients. And remember that your home page only serves two purposes: To introduce you and your business in an impactful way and to get the names and email addresses of visitors (you can offer a report or ebook in exchange).
Focus On Building A List
When I launched my first website in 1997 and began to study what Internet experts were saying, I learned that the key to my business success was getting visitors’ names and emails in exchange for giving them something interesting and interesting. useful.
This has not changed in the 18 years since. Building a subscriber list allows you to promote your products and/or services directly to the members of the list. And this is one of the short-term activities that I will comment on below.
Stay Connected
Once you have a list of subscribers (I started with 50) start sending them valuable information in your area of expertise. For example, make a list of the top 12 problems your customers are facing and start writing articles on how to fix those problems.
Then publish those articles on your blog and in your newsletter (there you can put a brief summary). At least write one article per month, but if you find you can accept a higher pace, once a week would be ideal.
Use Social Media
Social media keeps your name in the limelight. But a lot of people rely on social media for the short term. In my experience that doesn’t work too well. Social networks are much more useful if you use them as a place to test ideas, share resources.
I told Patricia that putting all these long-term marketing activities together would take a lot of time and effort, but without that foundation, her marketing wouldn’t be as robust as it needed to be.
“Okay,” she said, “but once those foundations are in place, what else do I have to do?” “What makes them different,” I replied, “is that the long-term activities are more passive while the short-term ones are extremely proactive.”
Short-Term Marketing Activities
You can participate in the activities listed below as soon as possible, even while you are building your long-term marketing foundation; the more solid that base is, the better results you will see.
Networking In Person
Meeting someone in person produces a hundred times the impact of a connection via social media. Find the organizations that group your potential clients or that can connect you with them. Attend events regularly, get involved, practice your message, offer your report, and get subscribers to your list in return.
It’s not unusual for you to meet someone at a meeting, then follow up, and then in a week or two you land an interview. It has happened many times. And of course, the more you get to know people, the better results you’ll get.
Give Conferences, Webinars, Or Teleclasses
If you don’t have a list to start with, you won’t get much traction with webinars and teleclasses, however, there are more opportunities than ever to speak live.
Professional groups, business associations, chambers of commerce, etc., can be great places to position yourself as an expert.
Right now one of my clients has had a lot of success giving talks for local SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) groups. Collect attendee cards and then follow up. You have never had more leads.
Generate Referrals
Lots of people beg for referrals, but that doesn’t work. Instead, ask for referrals and train your clients so they know how to get you connected. Say something like: “If you come across someone who is facing the same challenges you were facing before working with me, would you please let me know? So then you tell me how to contact them.”
This simply works better than saying, “If you know someone I can offer my services to, tell them to call me”…
Promote Your E-List
If you’ve been on my list for a while, you know that I promote various programs to the people on my list. I try not to overdo it and send only one promotional email per week. And sometimes less. But direct mail promotion really does get results.
With just three or four emails, over the course of two to three weeks, I complete most of the programs I promote.
But, of course, for this, you need to have a list of 1,000 subscribers or more. My list has generated millions of dollars in training and program sales over the years. Building your list should be a priority if you want similar results.
Strike A Balance Between Short-Term And Long-Term Marketing
“Once you have a strong marketing message, go out there and start networking right away. As you receive responses, you will be able to refine your message. The best marketing training you can get is through face-to-face interactions with potential customers.”
Patricia had another question about balancing short-term and long-term marketing activities: “Do I have to get all the long-term pieces in place before I start my short-term marketing activities?” “Not at all,” I replied.
“Once you have a strong marketing message, go out there and start networking right away. As you receive responses, you will be able to refine your message.
The best marketing training you can get is through face-to-face interactions with potential customers.” I also pointed out to him that he should have his website up and running shortly so he could direct people to it, but that he doesn’t necessarily have to have every piece of his marketing finished before going live.
I also reminded him that I gave a lot of public talks and lectures years before I had a website. “Sounds like a lot of work,” Patricia said. “How do you control everything?” “It’s not that hard if you have a good organization system in place.
You may have a list of a dozen things to learn and put into action, but only so much work can be done in a day or a week. I divide things into two lists: short-term and long-term jobs. Before long, it’s all done without too much of a struggle.”
I then pointed out an article I had written on how to schedule marketing activities without feeling overburdened.
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