Archives for October 2007

Fear of failure is perhaps the biggest threat you’ll face when launching a marketing/advertising campaign.

See, promoting your product or services (marketing) is all about making mistakes.  As a matter of fact, failure in marketing and advertising – to a degree –  is to be EXPECTED!

Many business owners fear blogging for their business because they fear that they will “make a mistake”.

When it comes to traditional media campaigns, only after running a campaign and then going back, fixing mistakes and launching a subsequent campaign can you expect to achieve advertising and marketing success.

The same is true of business blogging.  Write a post and see how it lands with your target audience.  Then, try – try again.

The cycle for both marketing and blogging is simple – “TEST-LAUNCH-TEST-FIX”…. just like the cycle for washing your hair is to “lather, rinse and repeat.”

Anyone who enters into a marketing or advertising campaign expecting perfection should probably reconsider playing the game because, by it’s nature, marketing communication is ALL about improving the performance of your last campaign.

A perfect example of obsessively measuring performance of advertising messages is Nutri-System.   Nutri-System carefully tracks each and every marketing message they create.  They experiment with different testimonials in different media, seeing with customer story performs the best.  In the hyper-competitive and lucrative market of weight loss,  it’s essential that you keep improving on your latest success.

The key to overcoming fear as a factor in your marketing – whether it’s business blogging or traditional advertising –  is to bite the bullet and put that marketing message it out there…. then measure the results.

Marketing your business is a JOURNEY and you have to choose to begin somewhere.

One of the most common frustrations I have with clients are the ones who insist upon tweaking and tuning their marketing messages in a vacuum.  They will change the the colors of their theme – the font – and the images repeatedly – without creating a single blog post.  It’s almost as if they’re afraid to actually take their message to their target audience to see whether this marketing message ‘connects” with their target audience.

Trying to create the “perfect” marketing message before you launch means you’ll tweaking and waiting forever.  It’s infinitely better to post a poorly written marketing message to your business blog than to spend years crafting the perfect one in a vacuum.

Over the past decade, I have worked with some truly brilliant marketing experts on marketing their products and services.

That statement may seem odd to someone who is not a "marketing guru" but it makes sense if you think about it.  (There’s a reason you rarely see ads advertising an advertising agency’s services!) 

See, it’s easy for me to listen to you describe your product or service and pull from those conversations essential elements that need to be communicated to your potential clients or customers.  Even someone who is not particularly gifted in the "marketing craft" can still provide VALUABLE assistance by merely offering a fresh and objective eye on your business.

Looking at my own business with a fresh and objective eye is almost impossible … a phenomenon my high profile marketing clients have also experienced. One of those clients frequently says to me after I’ve helped to give her direction, "Why can’t I do for myself what I do for my clients?" 

Why indeed!  A better question to ask is, why when I have so much experience guiding other brilliant marketing minds would I try to market my own product without outside help? 

I guess the answer would have to be for kicks and giggles.  

Maybe I’m doing this because I’m in need of blog fodder or perhaps I just don’t have enough stress in my life (NOT).  What ever the reason, I’m going to embark on this, my own marketing campaign, solo and the "official" reason of record  is that I’m doing so in the interest of education and edification. 

That’s my story and I’m sticking with it! 

Next up… overcoming fear!