Let me sow this seed ahead of Christmas so that it might take root into your consciousness and pop out in January as a promise to get truly marketing fit in 2013…

I don’t imagine that anyone reading this blog hasn’t at some point thought about, started, or even already done some of what’s talked about in Watertight Marketing. It’s stepping up your marketing activity and keeping at it that that separates the best companies from the rest.

Suggested to-do list!

When talking to small business owners and managing directors about marketing, I often hear:

• They start a new marketing activity with real vigour, but then lose interest.
• The results of their marketing are never quite as good or as fast as they’d hoped.
• Marketing is an area of the business that they get time for sporadically, in between all their other commitments.
• They live in hope, albeit vain hope, that one day someone will show them ‘the answer’ to sustainable sales results.

To my ears, this sounds an awful lot like talking to many people I know about fitness. Perhaps some of this rings a bell?

• Starting many a year with the determination to go for a run every day, but slipping back into sloth-like habits within weeks.
• Abject disappointment that it’s not actually possible to drop a dress size in the week before a beach holiday.
• Exercise always slipping down the list after work and family commitments.
• Thinking that getting fit is just a matter of finding the right diet, or the right exercise class.
• Wishing it was possible to feel and look great without having to try.

The thing about dipping in and out of a fitness regime is that it doesn’t work. To get fit, the ‘little and often’ approach is far more effective than big bursts followed by extended periods of inactivity.

The same is true in marketing – I’d often actually prefer businesses to spend less overall on marketing if they did so in a sustained way, than see huge peaks and troughs in activity. I’m sure a GP would prefer it if every patient did a little exercise every day, rather than the boom and bust of un-sustained good resolutions.

10 ways in which achieving Watertight Marketing is like getting, and staying, fit:

1. It is hard to change the habits of a lifetime.
2. If things have gone to seed, you’ll need to put in some groundwork.
3. A regular, structured, approach is best.
4. It’s even better if you integrate a little into everything you do.
5. Some people are absolute fanatics, but most do fine with smaller changes.
6. There are lots of people out there promising quick fixes that don’t really work.
7. It takes a little while to see the results.
8. To get the best all-over results you need to vary the techniques you use.
9. There are people who can help.
10. Your company will look great, feel great and, it’s fun.

Can you think of any more ways in which marketing is like fitness?