Have you ever done this?

You get excited about blogging. So you create a blog and start writing content for your posts. You write the first month because you are excited. By the second month it’s getting a bit tedious, but you do it anyway. By the third month you are really questioning why you’re writing and you begin limiting your posts. You slip from every day to three times per week. No results. Month four is cancelled.

Or maybe you’ve decided to send postcards to certain zip codes to try and drum up business. You spend time creating a postcard and figuring out how to make it a powerful campaign. You’re excited about its potential and you ship the first month issue out enthusiastically. With no bites on the first go around, you’re a little more hesitant about month two, but you’re still dedicated to the concept. Month two’s postcards head out your door and into the mail. By month three, you’re very unsure about the whole thing. You may have had a call or two, but really no clients yet. Do you really want to do this and incur this expense? Maybe one more month; postcard three heads out the door. Month four – no sales, no great leads – it’s over.

This is what I call the 1-2-3 Marketing Mistake.

No matter what marketing tool you try, online or off, nothing will work spectacularly on its first go. (Okay, I’m sure you can find some case studies that show instant phenomenal results, but they are the case studies, not reality.)

People today want instant results. We can solve cases in one hour, thanks to television. We can see an entire generation move from birth to death, thanks to Hollywood movies. We know everyone can get rich overnight thanks to many of today’s marketing tools – just look through your email or watch an infomercial.

So why shouldn’t our marketing methods work just as quick?

We are exposed to so much content, so many ideas, so many messages, its almost impossible for the average person to understand your offer with one contact, especially if they don’t know they have a need yet.

Lets go back to our two examples.

If you’ve decided to set up a blog, there is only one thing you should be doing on a regular basis. Blog. [Read more…]