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2.23.10 Challenging Your Marketing Team To Succeed  By Mike Moran Recently, I wrote about the need to identify our Internet marketing personalities to help adapt to the fact that we're always stuck trying something new in this business. But do you actually challenge yourself to do new things on a regular basis? That is the only way to succeed in Internet marketing, because the situations change, your customers change, your competitors change, the technology changes, and you can't stand still. So, make a promise to yourself to try at least one new thing today. Your Internet marketing will thank you for it. Gee. What just happened here? I wrote my conclusion at the beginning of my article. It's something that I have never done before. I broke out of my mold! Did you like it? Did it work? Maybe not. Perhaps I should try something else the next time. But you get the idea. It's possible that this dopey device will actually get you to pay more attention to my point. Or maybe not. But only by experimenting am I likely to find out what does work better. And in the long run, that's more important than whether any one experiment works. And that's the point of experimentation in Internet marketing. You need to embrace new things (give them a big old hug) and break out of what you've always done, because that is the only way to succeed in Internet marketing. You may not want to accept this, because experimentation is difficult — it is certainly less taxing to repeat old patterns, especially if they seem successful. To prove it to you, let's just imagine that everything you are doing in marketing is absolutely perfect. It's flawless. There is no possible way that it could be improved. Now, that seems a touch unrealistic, but stay with me here. Even in that impossible situation, you'd still need to experiment in your marketing, because things don't stay the same:
• Your customers change. They might change slowly, but they do indeed change. Even if you are perfectly appealing to them at the moment, you must keep adapting to ensure that perfect fit continues.
• Your competitors change. In the old days, your competitors didn't change very rapidly, either, but the Internet has transformed things. Nowadays, competitors can watch your every move, right from the comfort of their own offices. Your competitors are probably adapting what they do every time you make a move. • The technology changes. This factor is probably the fastest-moving of all. A cottage industry exists just to explain every way that marketers must adapt to these changes. So, you can't adopt a set of even truly best practices and believe that your job is done. Instead, you have no choice but to conduct marketing experimentally. The best travel directions in the world can't account for all the mid-course corrections our marketing journeys must take. So, what are you doing? You don't need to twist yourself into a pretzel each day to do something dramatic. Instead, you can do something small — and it doesn't need to be every day, either. It could be simple, such as commenting on someone's blog, or signing up for Twitter. Or examining your Web analytics to see whether that new page update is working. We have to personally extend ourselves, just a bit, and to change how our marketing works, too. Commit yourself to continually adjusting your campaigns and seeing what works and what doesn't before deciding your next move. You've got a mold, too, whether you believe it or not. If you're having trouble getting motivated to break out, then re-read paragraph two. Comments About the Author: Copyright Mike Moran Mike Moran is an IBM Distinguished Engineer, expert on Internet marketing, and the author of Search Engine Marketing, Inc., the best-selling book on search marketing. Mike also writes the popular Biznology newsletter and blog. |
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