What is the Marketing Treadmill?

Exactly what it sounds like … never ending tasks, social posts, blog posts, outreach, videos, webinars, podcasts, Adwords, etc. — that never seems to end and is impossible to keep up with. And whether you have a marketing team, or you are doing it all solo, it’s simply impossible to keep going at full speed day-after-day, on the marketing treadmill.

No matter how good someone’s advice is, if it’s not sustainable you only have a handful of choices:

• Get help so it is sustainable
• Choose another tactic that IS sustainable
• Or keep running on the treadmill until you collapse — this last one is not a joke. If you keep pushing yourself eventually you will break down and be good to nobody …

Let’s assume you don’t have the budget to hire help right now. What’s a small or medium sized business to do?

Choose sustainable initiatives that work for you long term. They include …

1. Improving the SEO on your website so you are getting found more easily. Yes, you’d expect to hear this advice from a web design firm that specializes in SEO — but it’s true. One of our clients, Lighthouse Healing Massage Therapy, doesn’t even blog, and yet they still acquire 4-8 NEW clients per month because of the SEO we’ve implemented into the site we built for them.
2. Get some citations using a tool like Bright Local. It’s inexpensive, and doesn’t take a lot of time to set up — and takes even less time to maintain (maybe 15 minutes a month after the initial setup). In case you’re not familiar, citations are directory listings — which are backlinks to your website … and backlinks are good for SEO!
3. Blog: this is often a tough one, as businesses and team members often feel strapped for time. Just one blog post a week can do wonders for your SEO and your organic ranking in Google search. In my book, A Holistic Guide to Online Marketing, I detail how to make blogging part of your work week so it’s more manageable and less stressful.
4. Be Visible: This one is going to look different for everyone depending on manny factors — so I will pose a question to you: what has been the most successful way of your being visible professionally? “Successful” being defined as — gaining something of value like customers, good relationships or referrals. Do you have some time each week to do some of that? HINT: this doesn’t necessarily mean more social media, and it doesn’t necessarily mean getting in front of hundreds of people. For me, successful ways of being visible include:
   • Keeping in touch/active with my professional relationships (Zooms, coffee, emails, etc.)
   • Speaking in public, online, and on podcasts
   • Commenting (when it’s relevant) on social media, and posting on social media

These are just a few suggestions — and that’s on purpose — as I want you to be able to succeed with them, not get stuck on the marketing treadmill sweating away the day …

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