Why Marketing Is Like Exercise
I often use exercise as an analogy for marketing because there are so many parallels. The main one being that if you want results, you have to put the work in.
But first, you need to decide what results you want - what are your goals?
With exercise your goal might be to get stronger, to improve your muscle tone, to increase your fitness levels, to lose weight or something else.
With marketing, the end goal is usually to generate more enquiries or sales, but you might have different goals to help you get there. For example, build a social media audience, build an email list, get traffic to your website, become known as an expert in your industry, generate a stream of referrals and so on.
Once you have your goals, you can work out the best way to achieve them.
Choose the right activity
Fortunately, you have loads of choices for which activities to do.
With exercise, you can do yoga, weights, boxing, running, cycling, swimming, dancing, climbing, team sports - the list is endless.
Marketing is the same. You can do social media, content marketing, blogs, videos, podcasts, networking, direct mail, events, paid ads, TV radio - the list goes on.
So the good news is you can usually find an activity you feel comfortable with (and might even enjoy).
Measure your progress
The other part of achieving your goals is measuring your progress.
The measuring part is important, but you need to measure the right things.
If your exercise goal was to get faster at running then you'd track speed because tracking your weight wouldn't tell you whether you were getting faster.
It's the same in marketing. If your goal is to generate leads, you need to track the amount of leads you are getting. Post impressions on LinkedIn won't tell you whether you are getting leads or not.
Maintain your progress
Once you've hit your initial goal, you might set new goals or you might decide you just want to maintain your progress.
So it might be that you get to a point where you are happy with your muscle tone, fitness level, or weight and you just want to maintain it. You still have to exercise, but you don't necessarily have to push yourself as hard as when you were working toward your original goal.
Marketing can be like that too. You can get to a point where you have built a good audience, are getting regular referrals, and are generating a good amount of enquiries. If you have no intention of growing your business further, then you might decide to just maintain your current state. You still have to put the work in - you still have to do some marketing - but it probably won't be as intense as when you're starting out.
But don't stop completely. Because if you stop you'll start to lose the progress you've made and you could end up back at square one.
Consistency is key
That's the thing about marketing and exercise - it requires consistency. It requires you to put in the work even when you can't be bothered.
Skipping legs day every now or then or taking a week off running won't hurt your results too much over the long term, just as taking a few days away from social media won't put you out of business.
But the longer you stop for, the more you'll lose the gains you've made and the harder it will be to build back up.
That's why it's important to choose activities you'll stick with and be realistic about what you can commit to.
You wouldn't go from never running at all to deciding to run ten miles every day.
It wouldn't be realistic or sustainable.
Instead, you might start with five miles a week over one or two runs. When you're ready, you can build up frequency or distance.
The same applies to marketing.
Going from doing absolutely nothing to posting on three social platforms every day, writing daily emails, blogging every week, making ten videos a month, and attending sixteen different networking events is not realistic or sustainable.
So you'd start with smaller goals - for example, three social media posts a week and one blog post or video per month. When you're consistently hitting those goals, you can increase your activity gradually.
Building up slowly makes it less daunting and because it's manageable, you're more likely to stick with it.
Posting with purpose
If you're looking to build up your social media content but are struggling to get any consistency, check out my 30-minute video - Posting with Purpose.
And if you'd like a bit of extra help, support and accountability, join my monthly co-working events and member chat for only £20 per month.
Lisa
