Consistency is important. Will you hit the mark weekly?

January 11, 2021 / in Blogging, Content Marketing, General Information, LinkedIn, Social Media, Video / by Jason Terry

Hello, friends, thanks for tuning in again to another story from Blue Gurus this week. I wanted to talk about a marketing related topic: consistency in your marketing efforts.

We all know that consistency is critically important in anything that we’re trying to do to be effective. I think it’s good to take a step back and consider the reasons you’re doing marketing in the first place. Ask yourself the question… Why?

Why am I spending time and energy on sales activity or marketing activity?

My definition of marketing would be making sure that the people that you’ve done business with in the past, that you’re networking with, and people in your community know about you. And about your company. You are trying to help them understand what you do and what your company does. It’s not just the 30 second elevator pitch, I think it’s more important that.

When you give them your elevator pitch, they intellectually understand what your business does or what you do for your company. But they don’t really know at a deeper level. And often, that understanding is fleeting.  I think they don’t really grasp what you do until they’ve heard more stories or seen situations of what you’ve been involved in… real world stories. And the only way to accomplish that is to tell them stories on a regular basis.

If you think back on how things used to work in sales and marketing, we would go to networking events, we’d go to breakfasts and lunches and meetings at people’s offices to get to know each other. And it would be months between seeing each other. It’s really hard to stay top of mind with that person if you only see them a few times a year, and even that took effort.

Shocker: It was amazing when they would call out of the blue and say they have a referral for you. But that’s rare.

Companies say that most of their business comes from word of mouth referrals.

And that’s why marketing is so important for companies. That’s the way you stay top of mind with people, especially the ones that are going to give you referrals. If you’re goal is to stay top of mind with people, you’ve got to tell them stories.  A blog post every week. Status updates on social media platforms. An email newsletter. That’s the way you stay top of mind with a lot of people.

Telling stories on a regular basis is really hard for a lot of people.

The only way that you’re going to get there, and the only way a company is going to get there, is to commit to it. And it’s like anything else you’re trying to master… you have to put time on your calendar to remind you to do it because it’s not a habit yet.

My encouragement for companies is to have some kind of a process. A weekly meeting where they’re getting together and talking about stories they should be sharing. Or a reminder you’re putting on your calendar to go into LinkedIn and do status updates on a regular basis until it’s a habit. Do that until you start breathing that way and it’s built into the way you do your work. Once you get the process in place, it becomes second nature, and you can start enjoying the process of telling stories.

It also helps when people start giving you feedback about the stories that you’re telling. When you get the feedback from your peers, it really reinforces why you’re doing this work.

Definition of marketing success: When people talk about what you’re talking about.

That’s the whole point of marketing. When other people in your community, your customer base, your prospects and your peers talk about the things that you’re talking about. That’s the goal we’re all trying to get to. And the only way that you can get there is consistent sharing of news. Tell them what you’re working on and what you’re involved in.

I’ve got a process each week to create my stories as blog posts and YouTube videos. And they go live Tuesday or Wednesday each week. If you don’t have some kind of consistent storytelling process or consistent status update process on LinkedIn, 2021 might be a great year for you to get that figured out. I think it will make a big difference for you personally and for your company professionally.

Thanks again for reading and watching. I hope you enjoyed the story this week! If you have any questions, please be sure to leave those in the comments. Have a great week!