Marketing – Get Organized by Focusing on the ONE Thing

By Lori Dubois, CWCC Member

Do you ever get discouraged or frustrated by the amount of marketing you don’t do? Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed with hearing about all you should be doing, whether it’s building a Facebook page, updating your website, keeping in touch with customers, or countless other things? For some of us, marketing ideas are a dime a dozen, but we just don’t have time to actually do them because we’re too busy putting out all the other fires in our business. For some of us, a good idea would be like a good rain shower in the desert, we can’t seem to come up with one to save our life. Add to this the all-or-nothing syndrome, “I can’t start this because I don’t have the entire campaign figured out yet,” and we can manage to find a way to survive yet another week with absolutely no marketing.

We all know marketing is essential on a continual basis. The end of the year is touted as a good time for planning: planning for next year, planning to do all the things you didn’t get done this year, planning to stay in better touch with our customers, and planning to reach more new prospects. Marketing can take the form of thanking your clients, providing great customer service, asking for referrals, teaching a class, advertising, reaching out through social media, or any means of telling your story.

In the face of overwhelming to-do lists and competing priorities, I find it’s effective to stop and ask yourself “What’s the ONE thing? What is ONE thing I can do now that is the highest and best use of my time related to my marketing goals?”

Use this tactic to get un-stuck with your marketing. Pick any ONE of the following questions on which to focus, whether you have a block of time open up unexpectedly (as little as 15 minutes) or whether you just feel frustrated by your lack of action. The amount of clarity you receive from focusing on only ONE thing is amazing, and can be the impetus to building marketing success.

• If I had to narrow my core values down to ONE, what is the most important core value of my business?
• What is the ONE biggest barrier to developing a systematized process of staying in touch with my customers?
• What is the ONE main reason people do business with my company?
• What is the ONE thing we do better/different than our competition?
• When I look at my marketing materials, what is the ONE main message that jumps out at me? Is it the right one?
• What is the ONE most important conversation I could have right now to move me forward in my marketing?
• What is ONE source of inspiration to help get me moving?
• Continue on with your own ONE thing list…

What is the ONE thing you could do now? Is it taking 30 minutes to clean up your mailing list? Is it taking a quiet hour to work on your mission statement? Maybe it’s getting away from the office for a few hours to really focus on your target market and build an ideal client profile. Maybe it’s making a phone call to get professional marketing help.

You know the BEST thing about the ONE thing approach? We all know ONE thing leads to another…

Lori Dubois owns Dubois Information, a marketing communications company helping small to medium sized businesses define their target market, develop their marketing message, and determine the best methods for communicating their message. Dubois Information works with business owners to communicate better with their clients and prospects through email marketing, newsletters, surveys, web content, and social media strategies.   www.DuboisInformation.com/303-221-1129