Daily Marketing Calendar
August 18, 2008
Many internet business owners aren’t business owners at all. They’re knowledge collectors.
You’ve probably heard people say, “Just take action.”
I’ve given this advice also at times.
But there is one major problem with this advice. It’s not just taking action that brings success. It’s taking the correct consistant daily actions that bring success.
A lot of internet business beginners jump from system to system every week without digging in with consistent actions even in the face of adversity.
You can’t “try” Google Adwords this week, ezine advertising next week, and then joint ventures the week after.
The keyword I use there was “try.”
Currently I have two clients I would consider absolute masters at Adwords. Both of them have said to me privately they feel it takes a year of experience and practice to really become excellent with Adwords.
What does that mean to the person who tries it for a week?
It means they get in, waste some money, and decide it doesn’t work for them.
The majority of people trying out Adwords for the first do lose some money. The good news of course is because of the budgets you can set, you’re the one who chooses how much you risk. Plus with all the conversion tracking features you can see exactly where results are being produced from your account.
Tip: No one should be using Adwords if they’re not also using the conversion tracking to see which keywords and ads are producing their sales.
All the other forms of advertising may not be quite that intense, but every single one does come with a learning curve. You won’t master it in a week.
Let’s say you want to move into online videos to generate traffic. The first thing you do is pick up a couple of information products to study. Then you start practicing their system.
The first video you produce won’t be even close to your best.
Your keyword selection won’t be perfect and it won’t drive 100% of the possible visitors you could have produced.
In other words, you will improve with experience.
Beginners get stuck in a vicious cycle when they give up on a system too quick because they’re always trying to learn something new without really mastering the skills they’re working on.
That’s where dedication and commitment come in.
Create a daily marketing calendar. How will you promote your business every day?
What activites will you do today and tomorrow to increase your exposure?
If you haven’t seen the free intern program, it’s all about giving you a daily plan to building an online business.
While someone is in the program, they promote my business. When they graduate, they begin using the same strategies to promote their own business.
For example, see the comment Carole Massey-Reyner made recently on this blog post.
“I am a proud graduate of your intern course, Terry, and I can say unequivocally that the Lifestyle Retirement System and the Intern Course gave me every single thing I needed to know about internet marketing.”
I’m not using this an example to just demonstrate how wonderful the intern program is. I want you to see just how important it is to have daily planned actions. People in the program get an assignment each day to follow and promote.
You can create the same strategy for yourself. Monday might be your blog writing day so you write all your blog posts for the week. Tuesday is your video creation day. Wednesday you upload videos to the video sharing sites and work on networking.
Create your own marketing calendar.
Another addition you can make it to add checklists for each of your activities. If producing a good video for promotion requires 7 elements, make sure you put all 7 of those elements into a checklist you can check off. Or if requires a total of 12 steps, give yourself that checklist to follow through.
While I have given steps throughout my intern program, I will be adding more checklists to the programs in my next update through the series. I’m finding they’re essential to having the best production from any of my workers…and even from myself.
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Terry,
I just wanted to comment that not only did your intern program teach me a ton about how to drive traffic to my sites…
but it also gave me numerous ideas and content that I put in a membership site to teach internet marketing to other doctors.
Terry,
Thanks for your reminders in this post.
When I first started out, I was given a whole long list of things, strategies and systems to apply. I guess normal for a human being to want to know everything.
I was the same. I noticed that I spent more time trying to find out everything rather than putting into action what I already knew.
That would translate into hours of wasted time, and not forgetting, money.
Then I came across this phrase (can’t remember where I got it from), and it changed my way of doing this all together.
It’s Not What & How Much You Know. It’s About Putting Into Action What You Know That Makes The Difference.
Yep, consistent action and check lists! That’s my life when the door to the office is closed… In fact, it also my life outside of the office — systems are the only way to get stuff done and still have free time… plus to help the mind relax and not worry about what has to be done next.
My calendar is…
Every weekday: Administration work for an hour: accounting, emails, customer service templates, office stuff
Everyday: Write/publish blogs for 45 minutes on my sites.
Then the rest of the time…
Mon: Lead generation - Adwords, direct mail and offline ads — focus right now
Tue: Copywriting - sales copy, optin copy, new stuff, and split-testing old stuff
Wed: Networking/JV programs:
Thur: More Conversion/Copywriting (I love writing copy)
Fri: Product development
it’s no get-rich-scheme, but it works! Thanks for the confirmation Terry.
John
Terry,
Thank you for this message - it was the very one I needed. I have knocked away at Internet marketing two years, plugging away at skills necessary to grow my business. I have your intern program (from the internet lifestyles course) and I noticed I found myself hopping around trying this and trying that method of traffic generation. Some things I enjoy doing more some things I try to ignore.
One thing I have learned, though, in these two years is not to give up when the going gets tough. I may have started out in IM hoping to make it “big” but I soon found out that this is no lottery. It takes work and not much of it very fun. but I have an opportunity like no other to not only earn a living but ultimately to help others to do the same. that’s one of the “whys” for me.
Now, let’s see. What was it? learning to produce a video today…
Oh, I totally forgot to mention… I only have 4 hours a day so I have to budget it. so, I do email first thing each morning. Skim for importance and file or deal with it appropriately. Then I blog or create pages for my sites for an hour. Then I have daily family matters that take me away for most of the day.
Then I get the evening to write my Squidoo lenses, ezine articles, Hub pages, on each key word in my niches.
Not much time to learn new things like creating videos or testing ads so I have to sneak those tasks in on weekends.
But I am doing it and making it regular habit to produce something that may generate traffic on a daily basis.
The internet is getting to be a crowded place. But like Seth Godin mentioned not long ago on his blog, make it a 10 year goal. Look at this as a long term time and money investment and your business will survive and thrive. Too many folks “try” internet marketing but will never make it real.
Thanks Terry for being a sensible voice in the crowd!
Terry, good post as usual.
Imho, you’ve identified half the problem, the student.
It’s surely completely true that many of us aren’t serious enough, expect overnight results, give up too soon etc. A major factor for sure.
What’s usually left out of this classic conversation is that the weaknesses of students isn’t the whole story by a long shot.
1) Since 1995 a dizzying array of net business models have come and gone.
By the time one has fully mastered a marketing strategy, one can pretty easily wake up to discover the fad is over. Hesitation and doubt in this environment is quite understandable, especially for students who often arrive at the end of a cycle, after more experienced folks have talked it up to the breaking point.
2) Quite frankly, most of the teachers of marketing strategies simply are not credible.
Even those who do truly know what they’re doing usually introduce themselves in sales copy seemingly written for emotional fifth graders, and so that is the kind of students they tend to attract.
When we combine rapidly changing business models, with sales copy scientifically crafted to attract people making business decisions with their emotions, we get an environment where many students will be unable to develop the faith necessary to keep going past the inevitable obstacles.
The bottom line perhaps is that this is a selling environment, not a professional educational setting, and many students will intuitively sense they aren’t being led to success, but to the next product launch.
They have my empathy.
Terry -
This post proves again why I consistently read your blog and only a couple others. Your insight is always just right.
The hamster wheel pattern you describe is the most common killer of my very own productivity.
Frankly, sometimes I’m surprised I’m successful in SPITE of myself - although I could be 10X better if I consistently did what you describe on your blog for a more disciplined approach to marketing.
It has honestly never occurred to me to write 5 blog posts in one day - and call that day good - to focus the other days on the specific parts of marketing to obtain the momentum of focus - but I’m darn sure gonna do it!
Thanks for this important article - it is going to have a huge impact on me and my business.
Rick Butts
What you are saying is right, one needs to be consistent in one field to get success.
Again spot on, Terry.
I have been online about 18 months after ten years away and have been on what some people call “a steep learning curve”. Not a single contact from 2500 vsitors. I break your rules all the time. For example: what am I doing right here, right now? Except that I am featured on your picture gallery above John Manley; I wrote him today for his lovely comment above this one, and his generous help in it - online. Meanwhile I waste time that I haven’t got at 69 and counting. Some of us are addicted to this sort pain, it seems.
Hi Terry,
I think you just woke me up. When I first started to market my website, I went from one marketing method to another in a week. I did not even bother to master one technique before going into another. I just “hope” that one of these methods can drive tons of traffic to my website and make me rich.
I guess I read so much hype about getting fast and massive traffic that I ignore this fundamental. You are one of the honest guy and I enjoy reading your posts. Look forward to your next post.
Great advice, Terry.
I’ve fallen prey to the “bright-shiny-new-thing” syndrome many times … and still do on occasions ;-). But when I focus on one thing at a time and practice, get the feedback, and learn … and then repeat the cycle … my momentum and results go through the roof.
Thanks for this timely reminder, Terry
Simon
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I agree. Everything that you will be doing online is well worth the trial and error. I have personally have known people who have got excited about something, tried it out, and when it didn’t bring them results, they quit.
It is not about taking action once and then quitting because something did not work for you. You have got to test and test and test until you get the desired results.
There are other people who test something and it does not work out for them. So they keep doing the same thing over and over again thinking that things will work out better next time. This is not true. A person must change the way they do things if they want things to happen for them.
If you aren’t consistent and persistent then things are not going to go the way you want them to go.
Thanks Terry for this article.
Tal Fighel
Thanks for reminding me yet again to always stay focused on what you are doing.
And nice idea for doing a specific task each day. I really need to put that into action!
I heard that many times. “Follow the schedule” “take action” “be disipline” “be focus”. however it seem not much people able to follow the advice you give. I think the biggest issues is they have read too many information.
I still remember every kungfu master will tell :” Your cup is full, how can you fill the tea”.
Instead of keep it simple strategy, I will always ask to Keep it simple steady. From step to the next step with a condition. Throw away all the knowledge that you have and start with only one that you will you can mastery well first.
If you choose social networking, select one of the social networking site and master it. If you choose twitter, master the twitter. I told everythings about twitter in my blog.