Market Like You Mean It

What’s on the iPod: Bright Lanterns by The Tallest Man on Earth

Don’t you love when a project seems to fall into place? One I’m working on this week is doing just that. It’s a complex topic, but the people I’m interviewing and the huge amount of resources readily available is making it easy to knock this thing down to manageable size.

I’m working on another project that came from my telling someone I’m more than just an article writer. I love when that happens, too. What seems like a given to me comes as a surprise to others, so it’s apparent that even when I think everyone knows all the writing I do, I can’t assume they do.

That’s the way it is with marketing, isn’t it? Too many times, there’s this rush to mediocrity. It’s the “I’ll do this because I read a blog post once that said…” mentality that gets us nowhere in particular and not committed to a single action that we’ll repeat often enough for it to make a damn bit of difference.

And that pisses me off.

Why? Because I see good writers — hell, I see even mediocre writers — who could be doing so much better if they’d stop taking the easy way. What astounds me is that the easy way is actually harder because now you’ve doubled, if not tripled your efforts. Why wouldn’t you take a little extra time to land on a sound marketing approach that you can repeat rather than flit from trend to fad to guru-garble always chasing your tail?

Market like you mean it. For crying out loud, please. Don’t keep tossing darts at a random target and expecting to ward off the landlord for one more month. Why not do it better and become your own damn landlord?

Some suggestions on getting to that point:

Sh*t or get off the pot. Either you’re going to act on your own or you’re going to continue to ask for advice, chase the easy answers, or just plain run around in circles doing nothing. Do something. There’s really no other place to start than at the beginning. Suck it up and stick your neck out. Inertia isn’t your friend.

Trust yourself. I’m more than a little tired of seeing writers chasing the latest guru’s advice. Have you tested that person’s abilities? Are you sure the results presented to you are factual? I know at least one guru whom I suspect skews the numbers to appear more successful. Do one better — stop listening to yet another voice other than your own. You know instinctively what to do. Once you connect with that, you can find out how to execute your own plan your way.

Whatever you do, do it regularly. There’s a saying in hockey: if you keep shooting at the net, eventually you’ll get a goal. Even the worst players will score. The same goes for marketing. You don’t have to have stellar copy (though you should try, always, to have stellar copy). If you keep trying and perfecting and trying again and again and again….you’re going to get the gig. If you send one email and never get back in touch, how do you know they can’t use you?

Stop chasing someone else’s tail. When it becomes a race to follow everything your particular guru is saying, you’re no longer running a business. You’re playing the part of lemming, placing your faith, and your entire business, in the hands of someone else’s advice. This is advice (or actions) you’ve not researched or vetted for accuracy. What if you’re following the individual version of Enron — slick on the surface, but a hot mess underneath? What becomes of your writing business when your guru sinks like a stone?

How did you get to the point of marketing like you mean it?