If you are marketing your services, and find that it’s not going as well as you had hoped, perhaps you are making some of the same mistakes that I have made over the years. Oh, if only I had known then what I know now! We humans do have a tendency to learn our lessons “the hard way”, but at least we learn them. When you are marketing your services, here are a few things for you to consider at the outset.
1. Marketing is a long-range project.
It’s unrealistic to think that you will get immediate results. That could happen, but as much as we reject the notion, marketing does take time. We need to build an awareness of our business with our target market, and a familiarity with our brand. Prospects must take the time they need to feel trust and comfort with you and your business. It’s rare when you can put together an offering that sparks immediate sales. Put together a marketing plan that is long-range, and recognize that it could take months or even a year or two to get the momentum that your business needs to survive.
2. Create a marketing plan based on activities that you enjoy and would want to continue to do long-term.
It’s a mis-calculation to put together a marketing plan based on activities that you dread and will avoid or only be able to barely endure. If you are not the type who enjoys public speaking, don’t base your marketing on that. If you hate spending time networking, don’t imagine that you will be able to follow through on an intense networking plan.
3. You’ll be surprised how prospects find you and how long a time lapse occurs after your marketing efforts were done.
Make a habit of asking new potential clients how they found you and listen to what they say. Often, you will discover that some marketing effort you did long ago is paying off now. Perhaps they read and saved an article. Maybe they heard you speak at a group. It’s impossible to predict what will pay off and when it will pay off.
4. Consistency is the key to marketing.
Don’t think that you can do a bit of marketing occasionally and expect to have great results. You need to put together a marketing plan that works on auto-pilot for you. During slow times, or in the startup phase, do what it takes to get marketing campaigns in place that will work for you over the long term. This might be writing articles and setting them up to publish on a regular basis without any additional work on your part. Perhaps you prepare numerous blog posts and set them up to post automatically throughout the year. Maybe you get a years’ worth of newsletters put together so that it is easy to get them out to your clients.
5. Take the time to clarify all the details of your business before you get started.
If you don’t do this, you will find that your business changes frequently and this will necessitate revising your marketing materials and marketing plan. The result will be that it is harder to achieve any marketing momentum. If prospects cannot determine what your business is about or what you do because it keeps changing, they will shy away from buying from you. You’re better off to put in the time up front, get crystal clear and stick to that.
When you are working on selling your services, take advantage of these lessons I learned the hard way. Your effort can be a lot more satisfying and less frustrating if you do.
Suzi Elton provides business writing that attracts targeted prospects to your service business and converts them into clients for you. She is a Robert Middleton Certified Action Plan Marketing Coach, as well as a professional writer. Her website offers a free series of 8 assessments you can use to analyze your own site.
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