What do the following phrases have in common?

“I did a mass mailing once but never got any business from it?”

“I attended a networking event once but never got any business?”

They all have one word in common: once. Thing is, I’ve heard these phrases from other people before. I’ve heard Real Estate Agents say it about their mailing campaigns. I’ve heard friends say it about a BNI Networking Group that they attended once. The reality is, you don’t get anything out of trying things once! Doing something once is an event. Doing it over and over again, is a process. Winning clients and earning new business, is a process.

Turning Things Into A Process:

In basketball, if you want to increase your free-throw percentage, you practice shooting free-throws. In baseball, if you want to increase your batting average, you go to batting practice. In golf, if you you want to improve your golf swing, you go to the driving range and practice. If you want to improve your marketing to achieve results, it needs to become a process, something that you’ll do over and over again.

Touch Points:

Think about how many times you have to connect with someone before they actually remember your name (and what you do). Three, four, five times?

The beauty of social media is that it presents an opportunity to connect with people over time quickly, personally, and professionally. It fails when marketers apply the “In-Your-Face Marketing” philosophy (which is nothing more than spam and crude marketing tactics). It works well when you:

• Engage (think “Relationship Before the Sale”)
• Seek to be helpful first
• Follow up (do what you say)

Everything Is A Process:

Marketing is not something you do… It’s who you are. The next time you blog, Tweet, update your Facebook Status and connect online, ask yourself a couple of questions:

• How is this activity connecting me with my audience (my demographic)?
• How is this activity helpful to my network?
• Am I communicating who I am (my brand) and what I do (my service offering) effectively?
• What’s the response rate that I’m getting and how can I adjust it? (Subscribers, comments, inquiries, Fans, etc.)

Remember, everything is a process. Repetitive Awareness Marketing is helpful, engaging, connecting and following up. What are you doing to hit each of those points and how can you do it better?

Photo Credit: I woz ere