A Marketers in Demand company

The One Marketing Secret

Jacob Brain

Author

Are you looking for the greatest marketing secret for your online marketing efforts? Wait no longer – the answer to your quest lies below.

Put Down the Telescope, Magellan

The quest is over, and it’s not the kind of happy ending you’d expect. Here’s why: the problem with your quest is that it’s a search for something more than a marketing secret. What you are looking for is an advantage in the market place. What you are looking for is a shortcut to results that would put you above the others. What you are looking for is the fast track to dominating an online market place with seemingly unbound possibilities. You quest, although honorable, stops today.

I’m all for big wins. I love rooting for the team that is clearly dominant, like USA basketball in the 92 Olympics.

But that is not how online marketing works. Everyone seems to think Facebook was an ‘overnight success’, or that you can turn a 500 dollar investment into a million overnight online. But that’s not how the web works. There are no shortcuts to the top, and the ones that seem to soar put in the time and the energy to work the right angles.

What you really need to succeed on your quest is a redirection to the right target.

Marketing is Strategy, Advertising is the Investment

Your marketing plan needs to have a solid basis in the understanding of your customer and the buyer journey. The marketing plan is your grasp of the market, and how you plan to approach this market to sell your product or service. It may seem like guessing at most, and it does require a bit of experience and data to ensure that your plan has integrity, but overall this plan is your sail.

The wind in that sail is your advertising. Your advertising is a calculated investment into the strategies that will help you validate your marketing plan. Pushing forward requires investment into the strategies that will validate your understanding of the market. This is where your company really puts the big effort. And I get it – it makes sense to want to skip the effort and get right to the results.

Think about the culture we live in. Diet pills, microwave food, 5-minute workouts, on-demand everything. We make money by taking the effort out of things, so we are highly-tuned to search for the easy road.

Yet, the easy road is well-paved with good intentions and failed attempts. Companies that strive for the easy road do not capture any real advantage for their market position. It’s only through hard work and striving for a real, untapped advantage that companies truly succeed.

The Secret is Focus and Determination

If you really want to know the big marketing secret, here it is in five verses. The secret to good marketing is…

…having guts to spend. Stand behind your thinking and your view. If you don’t have the confidence, you didn’t do your homework. You missed a step along the way, and you’re second guessing yourself. Start over.

…having courage to try new things. Find what aligns to your customer, and find a great way to create demand from that channel. Don’t do Facebook just because it’s Facebook. Find a new way to interact on the channel – or maybe even find a new channel.

…having endurance to continue. Pushing takes lots of energy and capital to continue. Endurance means to push the right way and without stopping until you get it right. Every aspect of your business will need endurance, so keep it up.

…having the heart to love this work. A company is a vision come to life. If you lose the vision, you lose heart. Heart is what fuels the all-nighter. Heart is what has the difficult conversations. Heart is what celebrates success, and cries in failure. Heart is what everyone in your business needs to succeed.

Push On

There is no better time in the history of the world to be marketing a company. Digital media has revolutionized the ways you can reach your customers.

But be aware: technology is getting cheaper, the audience is more elusive, and your competition is growing. The victory is for the fighter. Make 2017 the year that you overcome. Part of that process might mean assembling a team to deliver the results that fit your company. Either way, focus and determination will be the weapons that help you succeed – not some mythical marketing secret.

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