In the world of marketing, whatever it is that you choose to do, unless you are doing it consistently, you can’t know whether or not it will work.
Many people I’ve spoken with over the years have said they have tried multiple marketing approaches – newsletters, advertising, social media, etc. – and that none of them produced the results they expected. Upon further digging, it is often the case something was tried once, or twice, without really considering:
- how they were doing it;
- if they were doing the right thing; or
- if they were doing it effectively and consistently.
Whether through social media, a newsletter, blog or RSS feed, when someone receives information that is valuable to them regularly from you, on a consistent basis, they start to wake up to your message and brand. This was the driving force behind the formation of the phoneBlogger.net service.
Even when people recognize they should be getting articles/content out there with a regularly-updated blog and/or consistent monthly newsletter, it seems like a lot of work. The reality is that it is…and it isn’t.
The first time anyone does anything like a newsletter, it is a lot of work. In today’s technology-driven environment there is a significant learning curve to “get something going.” This leads a lot of people, upon completing something for the first time, to look back and say, “This is way too much effort, there’s no way I could do that every week / month.”
The good news is that once you’ve done something, it is much faster and easier to do it again.
Case Study:
A business owner had taken 6 months to put together her first newsletter. It was overflowing with multiple physical pages of content. The amount of work she put on herself led her to believe that newsletters in general took too much time and effort. She produced only one edition because she didn’t get the results she expected – other than a few nice comments.
Takeaway:
The poor initial return was because she only did it once, and it was over-stuffed with content. We know from experience that she would have seen a substantially different result, if that content had been delivered to her audience in smaller chunks, consistently over time.
Fact is, producing large amounts of information at one time is not necessary; quality & frequency should trump quantity. For the maximum impression a blog post should be readable within 3-5 minutes, which translates to 300-500 words. Any longer and there is a risk that people will start losing interest. We live in a soundbyte world, and although we don’t want to only put out a few byte-sized sentences, we also don’t want information overload to set in on our readers.
The most important takeaway is to “do something.” And it’s not just “do something,” it’s “do something consistently.” Once we realize we don’t have to produce mass quantities of information – that we simply need to produce something valuable to our readers, that’s to the point and engaging – consistency becomes easier – and produces much better results.
Even if it’s not perfect, even if it’s a little too much, or too short, or not necessarily formatted the best way possible, it’s better to get something out there on a consistent basis than to do nothing.
We’ve written several articles about using blogging and social media to foster referrals.
Feel free to check them out at phoneBlogger.net/blog.
We’d love to hear your feedback –
Reply to send a comment or ask questions!
Mark Bullock
Telephone: (631) 754-0800
Email: Mark@phoneBlogger.net
Website:phoneBlogger.net
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