In this short post, I am going to share 3 powerful, alternative ways to implement marketing ideas, based on what the world’s most successful business owners do.
I’m going to start with the most important one first!
1. You can be criticised or you can be ignored
This is huge – maybe the most important message in marketing today: If you want your message to be heard in 2013, it needs to be different from the masses.
It needs to cut through all the noise; the emails, tweets, social network updates and blog posts. To be heard, you need to express your opinions and share your thoughts – not simply agree with all the noise.
Of course, if you want to be noticed you must risk being criticised or judged. This is where most people find the biggest challenge.
Every leader, every extremely successful blog and every massively popular newsletter, risks being disagreed with or criticised. However, the alternative is to be invisible and ignored. Whilst this sounds like a crazy alternative, it’s what the vast majority of business owners do. They are more inclined to agree with whatever is popular, join whatever is popular and share whatever is popular – than do their own thing.
Sheep are seldom criticised, because we can’t see them from the safety of their flock. Sheep ARE judged though, which is why we never look to them for leadership or ask for their opinions.
If you want to be seen in 2013, be prepared to stand out. Leave the flock – become the shepherd.
2. You can be proactive or you can be reactive
If you work to your plans (proactive) you will find it easier to make measurable progress. You plot a course and follow it. The alternative is to be reactive, work according to other people’s plans and hope it will be OK. Hope is essential, but it is not a business strategy.
- Get proactive.
- Get strategic.
- Test and measure.
- Adjust.
- Then move forward.
3. You can have a story worth sharing or you can pester people to listen to you
Word of mouth referrals are powerful. Here’s what we know about word of mouth: People remark on (talk about) things that are remarkable. In 2013, craft a story about you, your business, your products or your services, which is worth sharing. Make your story easy to share and let the marketplace do the rest.
The alternative is to push an uninspiring message (at) people and hope to grind them down by brute force. This doesn’t work today. People filter those messages out.
I hope you found these ideas useful. More importantly, I hope you do something with them.