With Christmas falling on a Wednesday this year, I’m guessing that today (Monday 6th January) is the first day back at work for many. Yes, a few (crazy) people (like me) were at desks last week. But, today is definitely the end of the festive period by almost everyone’s reckoning.

So, outstretched before you is an clean and sparkling blank sheet of a year. There are fresh new starts to be had. Are you one of the millions of ambitious business owners who make professional New Year’s Resolutions? And, is ‘do more marketing’ or some other similar promise on your list in 2014? Well, if so, pop back to read last week’s first two instalments of my list of 10 ways that marketing is like getting fit… I’m hoping it will spur you to turn that vague promise into a genuine lifestyle shift.

Take a look at the earlier posts in this series:

• 10 ways that marketing is like getting fit (Part One: 1 to 3)
• Marketing is like fitness – Part Two (4 to 6)

Three more ways that marketing is like getting fit…

7. It takes a little while to see the results

Have you ever been determined to lose weight? Maybe you’ve worked hard at it, and jumped on the scales each and every morning in the hope of seeing the needle settle somewhere new. It’s a bit demoralising, isn’t it. You see, weighing yourself every day necessarily means that the minuscule gains (or losses in this case) just don’t look like much. However, if you lock the scales away and look only once per month, your progress is visible and can help you to see that your hard work is actually paying off.

There’s a real parallel here with marketing. Especially the kind of ‘little and often’ marketing that I’m a proponent of. You have to give it time to have an effect. How much time will depend on three things:

• 1) Whether the work you’re doing now is foundation stuff, like rebranding or building a website… this is like core strength, it will never show up on the scales, but it will support you when you get going with the stuff that does;
• 2) What shape you were in to begin with (i.e. whether there’s any familiarity to build on, or whether you were a complete unknown); and,
• 3) How long the buying decision is for what you sell.

One of the fastest ways to kill your marketing motivation is to measure too soon and too often. You certainly need to have a robust measurement framework in place. But, checking every five minutes will completely ruin your focus.

8. To get the best all-over results you need to vary the techniques you use

If you want to get fit, and look good, you need a variety of exercise techniques (and a healthy diet of the right kind of work). Training for a marathon by doing press-ups won’t work. And, you’ll never lift weights by spending time on a running machine. And, none of this is much good if your heart and lungs aren’t in good shape. For all-over fitness you need a range to techniques to tone and strengthen the different parts of your body.

In marketing terms, this means mapping a tool or technique to every stage of a buying decision. Some tools are best for generating awareness, others are better for closing a sale, and there are different techniques again for encouraging loyalty from existing customers. Your marketing set-up needs to be clearly tied to the tasks at hand. It needs to support every step of the sales process if you want long-term (and sustainable) sales results.

9. You can go it alone, or work with an expert who can help

Getting and staying fit isn’t complicated to understand. You can grab some tins of beans from your cupboard to use as weights. You can run round the local park. You can cycle instead of using the car. You don’t need a fitness guru to do these things.

The same is true of marketing your business. You can grab a book, read some blogs and simply do this stuff yourself. It’s not brain surgery. With a bit of thought and plenty of elbow grease you can definitely see great sales results from marketing you do yourself. With Watertight Marketing, I’ve made a complete set of workbooks available FOR FREE. If you have the book and complete the worksheet each time there’s a spanner symbol, you will finish the book with a comprehensive marketing strategy and action plan.

However, as easy as getting fit is on paper, actually doing it and maintaining it is just so much harder. This exactly why people hire personal trainers, get a programme designed for them at the gym, or join an exercise class. A personal trainer will be up on nutrition. They will understand anatomy. They will know all sorts of exercises you may never have heard of. And, they will have seen and supported countless numbers of other people through the same process.

The marketing equivalent is a marketing consultant or marketing professional. Specialist experience and knowledge will almost always get you results faster. But, more importantly, it will help you keep the effort going. (And, yes, you can get exactly this support from Watertight Marketing – download PDF for more details.)

See you next week for the last in this series on how marketing is like fitness.

© Bryony Thomas – The Watertight Marketer