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  • Are You Investing In Long Term Marketing?

    I know that you need the quick fix, you want result now, you need the hot new thing.

    Ask yourself this question – how long do you plan to be in business? If it’s more than a year, then I suggest that while you get out there and make the phone ring today, you also need to start planting seeds for your long-term growth by investing in foundational marketing practices that may take time to bare fruit, but ultimately produce the greatest returns.

    These seeds are content, connection, and community.

    Content is a blog, articles, information products, white papers, how to guides, workshops and podcasts.

    Connection is a way for prospects and clients to have a deeper level of experience with your firm. This may come from audio, video, your personal story, or an investment in sales training.

    Community can play out by bringing clients together for lunch, making your boardroom available to local non-profit groups, offering active online forums, holding training events, and creating formal referral networks.

    Some of the activities above overlap the 3Cs and may require an investment long before any actual payoff is returned. They all require a long-term commitment to produce results.

    The trick is to balance what needs to be done today with the investment it take to build up your retirement account of marketing momentum.

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    Posted by: John Jantsch on May 16, 07 | 8:08 pm
    Category: Marketing Plans | Tags:

    Comments
    • And the beauty of these things, John, is that most of them are free or very inexpensive. Most of it comes down to the amount of effort we want to expend to improve our long-term business prospects. It's an investment of time, not money. And that's why the little guy can compete with the big guy in ways he couldn't before.

      (The key is to just keep reminding yourself of that when you don't think you can sit at the keyboard for another minute and write one more thing.)
    • Long-term is the key, as you mention, and balancing what needs to be done today with what needs to happen is the future is tough to do. I find myself focusing to much on the long-term while having some day-to-day stuff being pushed back till tomorrow. It is hard to find that balance where everything is seemless and plans are easily followed.
    • This is a great post about a simple principle. Even before my working career started, I learned the benefit of having a long term plan for promoting a business as well as for the broader business goals. I try to realize these goals in the context of a five-year plan. However, as time has gone by, I've realized that I have to be very diligent about constantly modifying my plans and my expectations as I learn new things and see changes both in my life and in the marketplace. Without this adaptability in thinking about my long term goals, it is too easy to find myself either giving up because of failure to meet my own expectations, or rigidly pursuing long term efforts which are divergent from the goals that they were intended to achieve.
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