Recently, I spent seven days at a mastermind and conference in San Diego.
The resort was stunning and the people I met – all entrepreneurs with online businesses – were unbelievably inspiring.
It was a privilege to meet so many ‘regular’ people doing extraordinary things, from helping people overcome bereavement or lead healthier lives to helping other business owners run their companies more efficiently, to starting their own sell my house fast business, or transforming healthcare.
And it was fascinating to learn how they were gradually all moving their businesses online, so that they could take their good work to the masses – and make money faster.
Over the course of the week, I learned many useful strategies and tips, many of which I’m sure I’ll share with you over the coming months.
Many of the conference delegates were discussing new ideas to develop their online presence and new projects they were eager to launch.
One comment that particularly resonated came from one of the speakers at the conference.
“Instead of looking for the next big thing, look at what’s the last thing you did that worked somewhat – and do it again, better.”
It’s such good advice.
One of the biggest mistakes companies make with their online marketing is to abandon good initiatives too early.
Does this sound familiar? You and your team work very hard to develop a marvellous campaign.
Then you launch it – and it doesn’t deliver the exact results you need. Maybe it has some limited success, but it doesn’t revolutionise your business or have the massive impact you’re looking for.
So you drop it – or simply move onto something else, letting the ‘old’ project continue to run in the background.
You believe it’s “failed” and kick yourself for putting so much work (and so much hope…) into it.
Well, it didn’t necessarily fail. You’ve just cut it off before it had the chance to blossom.
You see, getting online marketing to work well is a process of constant iteration.
That great campaign you see everywhere lately? That’s probably version 12.3 – and counting….
You need to launch version 1.0, then work like crazy to test how to get it working even better. Will people prefer a different headline? Could you get better results if you tweaked a certain aspect? What if you completely changed the way you targeted your audience?
Some of these experiments will fail. Incrementally, your changes will make a massive difference.
The secret is to keep on going as long as you can see a way forward.
Going through this process isn’t a luxury. And it isn’t for ‘losers’ who can’t come up with a winning campaign straight off the bat.
It’s what online marketing is all about. The ability to get instant data about what’s working in your campaign and then tweak accordingly is one of the great advantages of digital platforms.
Ultimately, it’s so much more efficient to take something that is working “OK” and perfect it than to constantly launch new initiatives.
So take a look at the online marketing you already have in place. Which efforts show promise? What experiments could you run, to see whether your audience responds even better?
And if you would like some help testing and optimising your online marketing, hit ‘reply’ and let’s talk. We’d be delighted to help you turn a so-so campaign into a brilliant one.
