Marketing is a habit. Plain and simple. It is not one and done. Nor is any business owner ever really satisfied with their marketing. You want more, and you want it to work better.
However, most small business owners get so wrapped up in doing the thing they sell, they fail to stay up to speed with their marketing.
It’s the “staying up to speed” that matters. There is a phenomenon known as the Red Queen Hypothesis. The idea is there is no such thing as standing still. Imagine a group of deer and a group of wolves. The wolves tend to eat the slowest deer. However, this means the fastest ones are left and they breed, meaning the population of deer gets faster overall. In turn, only the fastest wolves will be able to catch them, and only the fastest wolves survive. Each group keeps speeding up.
In business, the Red Queen represents the fact that you can’t stay still. Your competitors are always looking to take your place in the market. If you stay still, you don’t actually stay in place. You start to fall back.
The best way to not get “Red Queened” is to maintain a daily marketing habit.
Do something every day to bring in new business.
This idea was first taught to me by the legendary marketer Dan Kennedy. He talks about “sending out a ship a day.” It refers to his own efforts to always have some vessel going out that could come back with money. This could be sending out a contract to a client, mailing a gift to someone already working with him, or sending a direct marketing/sales missive to one or many people.
Your daily marketing habit doesn’t have to be extraordinary. The fact you do it every day will make you far stronger as business than at least 90% of your competitors.
To help you out, here are 8 of the smartest and most effective daily marketing habits you can maintain:
(BIG NOTE: You don’t have to do the same one every day. Mix and match! But if you find a few of them click with you and your audience the most, make them your priority.)
#1: Shoot a New Video
Video is all the rage! Hilariously, nearly every year for the past decade has been declared “the year of video” by some marketing group or another.
You know what that tells me? Video isn’t a fad. It shouldn’t be treated like one. You don’t go into video thinking you will suddenly strike it rich… because that’s how a fad works. Instead, video is one of the core multimedia components for content marketing. You shouldn’t do video because it’s suddenly popular. Video has been popular ever since television because part of our daily lives. So, you know, for nearly a decade.
There’s no need to get a fancy camera for your videos, by the way.
An iPhone can be fantastic for shooting video! I learned a lot from this video about iPhone videos, and it can definitely be applied to other phone cameras as well.
For what it’s worth, I shoot videos used in high-end marketing campaigns on my iPhone with the front-facing camera (i.e. selfie camera) with a basic gimbal. For my purposes, a little bit of moving around coupled with natural light makes for a great video.
#2: Write an Article
I mean, that’s what I’m doing here. So obviously I’ll advocate for it.
All sarcasm aside, written content reigns supreme. Video is fantastic. Images are nice. But human beings love text. (Also, text is just lots of images… 🤯 Did I just blow your mind?) Text is consumed at your preferred pace. You can bounce around, skimming the headlines, picking up key points, and moving past what you already know.
Video, on the other hand, asks the participant to follow along with the creator’s vision for the information. Sure, you can skip ahead, but you won’t know what you missed. Not so with text.
The ability to scan is beneficial. Sure, you wish people would read every word, but the more words you have, the more opportunities for someone to latch on to an idea and say to themselves, “Oh, that part interests me, so I’ll read more.” With video, if you don’t hook the audience in the first 30 seconds, they may never see more of your content.
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#3: Send a Broadcast Email
Don’t be bashful! Send those emails!
Most marketers play small with email. They emphasize silly ideas like only emailing your audience once a month. I’ve even seen some advocate for once a quarter. That’s crazy!
If you have something worth sharing, then you need to share it. You do a disservice to your customers and prospects when you don’t communicate, not the other way around. Plus, you better believe other marketers in your space are playing with greater aggression here. Are you going to let them steal all the attention and interest? I hope not.
There are plenty of email service providers (ESPs). I use several across a few different businesses, including ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Keap, and MailChimp. All of them prioritize sending broadcast emails, because they know email works.
At one company, we send daily emails to unconverted prospects. Yes, an email every single day. At least, actually. Now, for my leatherworking store, the emails are less frequent. Each business has different needs.
#4: Post and Comment on Social Media
Do you see the word “comment” up there? That’s your priority.
It’s easy to post on social media, for sure. However, creating relationships and interactions on social media is even more important. Boosting others is powerful. It delights and bonds them to you – even if it’s just as small as a comment.
Of course, posting helps as well. Some formats naturally lend to regular posting, such as Instagram Stories. You can hit those nonstop – multiple times per day.
Posting regularly may even help your placement within the algorithm. Here are stats drawn from Hootsuite:
On Instagram, post between 3-7 times per week.
On Facebook, post between 1 and 2 times a day.
On Twitter, post between 1 and 5 Tweets a day.
On LinkedIn, post between 1 and 5 times a day.
“How Often to Post on Social Media in 2022” (Hootsuite)
The hardest part of social media is the early part when engagement rates are low. You will need to stick with it and constantly up your game. Posting regularly helps get some love from the algorithm, but you will end up in neutral if you aren’t trying to put out better content as well.
#5: Give a Gift to a Current Customer
Ah, existing customers… how we take thee for granted.
It is always harder to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an existing customer. However, I think every business owner is guilty of chasing down the new buyer rather than getting new business from old buyers.
One way to keep the dollars flowing from past buyers is to delight them with a gift.
Everyone loves getting a present. And sending nice things creates reciprocity. I’m not saying your gifts are Trojan horses to invade the minds of recipients with thoughts of spending more money with you. But they aren’t not that, either.
Look, giving gifts is good business. It just is.
Gifts are also enjoyed a lot by those who receive them. The recipients want to do more business with you if they see you are a generous person who actually cares.
#6: Text Message (Personal or Broadcast)
Here’s another easy one. Text messaging is so valuable and cost effective, I even wrote a whole article on 10 easy ways to use texting in your marketing.
I think the biggest hang-up marketers have with texting is the “invasive” nature.
Like with email, this is just a mindset issue. If you have something valuable to say or even want brighten someone’s day, send the message. You may not want to be another one of the “pests” sending messages; however, this is your chance to be the welcome guest instead. And after a day of unwanted messages, yours will stick out positively. See, it has nothing to do with how often you send the messages or what time of day. It has to do with the impact you can have on the person receiving it.
What about a message with an inspirational quote? Sure, not everyone will dig it, but those who do now connect you with the quote. Positivity by association is a nice bonus considering you just borrowed someone else’s words!
Send a quick notice to a customer about a restock on his or her favorite product.
Give your best group of buyers early access to a sale.
Check in with folks after a bad storm if you’re a local business (or you have customers in an affected region).
Don’t limit yourself to the common tactics you see others use. That’s where you will usually get hung up with concerns about being a pest.
#7: Create an Infographic
Infographic is now just shorthand for visual representation of information. You probably have a lot of information you could share, ranging from industry stats to favorite quotes to details about the products and/or services you offer.
Websites like Canva make it easy to publish infographics.
The simple piece earlier on video versus written content was created on Canva using one of their templates. It is sized to be social-friendly, as well, meaning it fits neatly on social media platforms. I also like having infographics in my pocket to put on a website as well. Just remember you created them and use them more than once! Never let a piece of creative be “one and done.” Reuse and recycle.
Delivering information in multiple modalities (writing, video, image, short-form, long-form) helps you attract different groups of people.
Here’s an example of another infographic I did for an article on 10 tips for setting prices for your products and/or services:
#8: Reach Out to a Referral Source
Chet Holmes, author of Ultimate Sales Machine, created the concept of the “Dream 100.” In his case, you are picking out the 100 people who are your ideal clients. I like to change the script a little bit and focus on people who can refer buyers to you.
If you spent every day for a year focused on building and nurturing referral relationships, you would be far ahead of your competition with a prosperous future set up.
Don’t be shy about building relationships.
You can even be direct about it. “You are a leader among the people I want to connect with. Of course, that doesn’t happen without making you the relationship I build first. Can I bring you lunch and pick your brain? I’m not going to ask about a business opportunity. I want to talk shop with you.”
Recently, a web vendor reached out to a business I run and asked us if he could build out a website for us. His language was direct: he explicitly stated he had long wanted a chance to get into our ecosystem. We knew him previously and actually referred a couple people to his company. However, it was a small trickle, and he wants us to open the flood gates. The whole team appreciated his candor. Brute force won’t always work, but you also don’t know until you try.
Keeping Your Daily Commitment
It’s not easy to do some form of high-value marketing every day.
The temptation is to just post another Instagram Story and call it done. Of course, that’s not a high-value decision every day. Mix it up. Most of all, do it every. single. day.
There is only one “hack” to keeping your commitment. You need your WHY to be bigger than the resistance you feel. If your why is small, then you will give up in the first two weeks. On the other hand, if your why is huge, you could go for 10 years without a problem. My personal why has to do with my family and our freedom. It is BIG. This makes it easy for me to work on multiple projects at once, supporting multiple marketing ecosystems. The daily work puts a smile on my face. And, as they say, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. (I mean, that’s kind of BS though, right? Sometimes I still have to drag my butt to the computer to handle the work. That’s just reality.)
Charley
I help small business owners, freelancers, and marketing DIY'ers get an edge up against the 800-pound gorillas in their markets. Like your business, this site is a DIY project showing you how to do what I've done in other businesses, including a law firm and a major coaching group for law firm owners.
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