Are You Stuck On The Marketing Hamster Wheel?

Most people, when they start their business, do whatever they think will get them  in front of prospective clients the quickest.

That’s why they typically choose things like cold calling, networking or direct mail.

And there’s nothing wrong with this, at least to start out with – after all, that stuff often works.

But what happens next is that you get busy, stop doing those things, and then the flow of prospective clients dries up.

So you need to get going with the marketing again, working hard to stay in the same place, just like a hamster on his wheel.

With a bit of luck, things get moving, and you get more clients. Which means the marketing falls by the wayside once more.

You can guess what happens then.  You have to hop on the wheel and start running frantically to try and get things going again.  And so on, until you feel totally exhausted.

Creating assets: how to get off the wheel

Approaches like cold calling and networking to find clients all have one thing in common:  they require you to consistently devote your time and money to them. When you stop spending, they stop working.

Worse, the return you get is usually fairly linear.  Let’s say you spend £2000 on telemarketing and get 4 clients.  Great.  But if you want 8 clients in a months time, you’d better find another £4000.

That’s ok, but personally, I like to build (or buy) stuff once, then have it keep working for me again and again. I’m lazy like that.

Which is why I think it’s better to focus on building ‘marketing assets’, rather than  keeping going on that hamster wheel.

What’s a marketing asset?

Marketing assets are things that you invest in once, that will then keep attracting clients over the long term, without you constantly having to put loads of work in.

An example is setting up an email course, to start building a list of people who are interested in what you have to say.  (These are usually delivered via something called an autoresponder, which is piece of software that automatically sends your content out to anyone who signs up.  Aweber is the system I use and recommend for this)

Other example of great assets are:

• Writing blog posts and articles, so long as they are of sufficient quality to be of interest to people a year or two later on.
• Focussing your networking on getting to know “influencers” who can put you in touch with dozens of potential clients. For example, if you were selling to scientists, get to know people who organise conferences for them or publish journals, rather than trying to sell to individuals.
• Making a series of videos that you could send to prospective clients to explain the benefits of what you do, so you don’t have to keep answering the same questions over and over again!
• Creating digital products like ebooks out of your expertise, that you can sell as low-risk introduction to your services

Does your marketing get better over time?

The best thing about this approach to marketing is that once it’s been created, the returns just keeps getting better over time.

For example, let’s say you invest some effort in putting together an email course one month.  You load it into your autoresponder, and you start getting some people signing up.

Next month, you decide to focus on writing some articles to get more visitors to your website instead.  And once those additional visitors go to your website, and see the email course you built last month, what do you think they’ll do?

That’s right – they’ll sign up to the course you wrote last month!

Now, this doesn’t mean that you can just ‘set it and forget it’ when you do this.  Even the best investments need some attention to keep them ticking over.  You’ll need to check back once in  a while to keep it ticking over.

But it’s a lot less effort than having to get up twice a week at 5AM to go to networking breakfasts for the next 5 years!

Does that mean I should stop focussing on ‘short term’ marketing completely?

Not right away.  The one drawback of this approach is it takes time to bear fruit.  So unless you already have a really strong base of clients, you’ll probably need to balance it with some good old fashioned client-chasing for now.

But, if you invest wisely in creating marketing assets, you’ll end up having to spend a lot less time on the hamster wheel in future.

How to put this into practice

Here are some ways to start adding some ‘asset building’ to your marketing activities:

1. Create evergreen content.  What could you spend a few hours creating this week, that you could keep using in your marketing over the next 12 months?  Could you write a series of articles for your website that shows off your expertise in a particular area?
2. Focus on ‘high leverage’ relationships. Who are the big influencers with the people you want to work with?  People who, once you earn their trust, can introduce you to clients again and again? What steps could you take today to get to know them better?
3. Build a following of dedicated fans. I’m not just talking about Twitter followers here (although it can be a powerful tool when used correctly). I mean giving out really high quality content to as many people as possible, to create a group of people who love what you do, and talk about it to others.
4. Systemise your marketing. Spend some time thinking through all the steps you take to get a client on board, from first point of contact to starting work with them.  Are there steps that you could automate?  Are there any “frequently asked questions” that you could write up the answers to, to avoid having to go through them every time?

What action could you take today to build marketing assets for your business?