Please don’t make marketing your New Year’s Resolution!

It’s that time of year. No doubt you’ve come over all worthy. As well as thinking about cutting out the alcohol or some such health related promise, you might have marketing on the list as a New Year’s Resolution for your business.

Stop. Please cross it off the New Year list now.

Yes, I am a marketing consultant. And yes, I am telling you not to make marketing a New Year’s Resolution for 2013, or any other year for that matter.

The problem with resolutions of this kind, is that much like reducing alcohol, giving up smoking and gym memberships – more often than not they don’t stick. For marketing to work for your business you need to do it. Not try to do it. Like looking after your health, looking after the sales pipeline for your business takes sustained effort rather than quick fixes. In fact, I’d argue that, like yo-yo dieting, boom and bust marketing is actually bad for your business health.

Marketing that means business is marketing that supports every step of the buying decision. It means that your company is positively represented everywhere a potential buyer turns – whenever this happens to be. The job of marketing is to support someone as they choose to move from one step to the next in their buying decision over a period of time. Marketing that does this necessarily takes time to deliver results. But, deliver them it will – and not just for January, but for the long term.

For most ambitious small businesses the process of getting a Watertight Marketing operation up and running takes at least six to 12 months when undertaken as an intensive strategic programme. Thereafter, it works best when embedded in every aspect of their business. It’s something that every person in a company takes on, and does a little every day. Essentially, it’s a lifestyle change not a short-lived burst of good intentions.

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

(taken from my previous post – Good marketing is like a fitness regime)

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.

So, yes, marketing is very much like fitness… but, that’s precisely why I’d caution against a New Year style resolution. Because, like fitness, if you don’t make it part of your life, it’s a promise that’s soon forgotten.

If you’re serious about getting your business in robust shape and you want a steady and predictable sales pipeline, then marketing is definitely on your list. Not for a month, or two – but forever.

As my Dad always says, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly”.