Expert Feature: Why Hope Marketing Won’t Get You New Clients
Hope Marketing is Hopeless
Recently, I was making homemade pulled pork for dinner, and because it had been cooking all day in the slow cooker, the house smelled wonderful.
As I was preparing the meat, my wife’s little dog, Cindy, stood patiently HOPING something yummy would fall her way. She stood quietly, not making a sound, not begging, but watching my every move very intently. She stood there for an hour as I worked on dinner.
So many of us can take this as a metaphor for our online marketing efforts. If we stand by patiently, we hope that new clients will fall out of the sky. If we can just get that one nibble, all the deliciousness that is due to us will show up.
This is what I’ve heard people like Jeff Walker call “Hope Marketing”. You throw a couple things out there on Facebook, or write a blog once in awhile, hoping that it will stick to the wall and catch the eye of the right person. If only the planets would line up just right.
Unfortunately, as you probably know, it doesn’t really work that way in the real world.
The online marketing world has changed a lot – have you read about the mobile changes Google has put in place just yesterday?
Online marketing has changed, and yet it hasn’t changed.
How It’s Changed
Google has made some long-overdue rule changes that cut out all the crap content and cheaters, and give those of us who are trying to to do things correctly a leg up. These changes are good for all of us, both online marketers, and consumers (because we get better search results).
How It’s Stayed the Same
The part that hasn’t changed is that we each have to have a consistent, reproducible marketing plan for attracting people to our business. There is no magic formula or secret sauce. It’s just a process that every has to do, and do it consistently. It’s not about keywords or links or meta tags anything else. It’s about telling your story and telling others’ stories, then putting that out for people to consume.
People get so worked up about SEO and what’s the right way to do it. You as a business owner probably don’t really care about keywords or links or meta tags, right? You just want to do what you love – which is your business. A photographer friend of mine, Anna, told me last week, “I don’t want to turn into an IT person. I just want to take awesome pictures!” That’s what she loves.
If you don’t have an editorial calendar for your business’ marketing – blog posts, press releases, e-mail newsletters, Facebook posts, etc. – then work with a business coach who can help you flesh that out.
Learn HOW to get found online with your website and other tools, and put those into practice. It’s not hard, it’s just a process that anyone can learn to do effectively, and just do it.
If you’d like to learn how, please join me at my upcoming online marketing workshops, in Dublin, CA.
They are located 2 blocks from the West Dublin BART station, so it’s easy to get to in the Bay Area:
- May 18-19 (2 days) – Hands On Workshop (HOW) – Learn the five easy steps you can take now to get your business found online.
- May 20 (1 day) – Internet Marketing Retreat – Put together the right plan for your business and walk away with your editorial calendar that you can implement right away.
And oh yes, Cindy’s patience finally paid off in the end when some delicious bites of pulled pork came her way.
