You may be familiar with the phrase, "throw enough against a wall and something is bound to stick." That might be true, but as you market your business (which is really just sharing solutions with people who are already looking for them) wouldn't you rather know what is going to stick before you start? This trial and error method will eventually become exhausting. You'll waste a lot of time and energy and end up with one ugly and messy "wall" in your business.
When it comes to increasing your profits, you want to focus your attention on the activities that will get you the best results in the shortest amount time possible. The only way you'll know which strategies work the best is if you track where your clients are coming from. By tracking your efforts and completing a quick and easy analysis you will see clearly:
• Who you worked with
• How you connected with them
• How much you earned
This isn't just an intellectual exercise. Now it's time to take this important data and use it to recreate those same results with LESS effort. For your business to reach it's true potential and for you to achieve your goals, you can't keep "throwing stuff against the wall" and praying that something sticks. Instead, stick with what works.
The next step is to get clear on the details regarding the strategies that you actually implemented in order to enroll new clients.
Take the information you gathered using a client tracking tool and make a list of EVERY marketing strategy that you've implemented.
Ask yourself more detailed questions about each strategy that attracted a new client, such as:
• Networking (in-person) - Where exactly did you network? What events produced the best results?
• Article marketing - Where did you submit your articles? Which sites/directories pushed the most traffic back to your website?
• Advertising - Which of your ads produced the most leads? When did they run?
• Email marketing - Which of your email campaigns got the best open rate? The most link clicks?
• Teleseminar / Webinar - Which events got the greatest registrations? The best attendance?
• Speaking - Which of your audiences was most engaged? Showed the greatest interest in your products and services?
• Driving traffic to your website - Which sites refer the most traffic to your site? Which pages did visitors stay on the longest?
Do you see how empowering tracking is? Knowing what's actually happening in your business allows you to operate from a place of clarity. And clarity is priceless. You eliminate the stress of not knowing, feeling unsure and being scared, all of which holds you back and keeps you from enjoying the success you deserve. More importantly, you can see clearly what is working and what's not, which allows you to do more of what's working and tweak (or eliminate) what isn't.
There are at least 93 different things you could do to market your business. However, just because you can doesn't mean you should. Smart Simple Marketing is about choosing 2-3 strategic activities to grow your business and doing them consistently. Staying focused and taking action week in and week out is what gets you RESULTS.