Your Marketing Mantra for 2003

There's a 15-word marketing mantra that's covered in Marketing 101, that you need to know. It's: By the time you're sick of it, the public is just beginning to get it.

HOW THIS WORKS

I was in marketing for years before becoming a coach, and went through this process many times.

At a church I marketed, we started a campaign to educate the congregation about the concept of stewardship, as a way to raise donations, but also stewardship in terms of oceans, forests, intelligence, and other "free" gifts.

Every week for 104 weeks I wrote a lead article about stewardship. It was a challenge to make it new. Some mornings I would put my head down on the computer in desperation, I was so bored with the whole topic myself.

After about 9 months, donations began to increase, and continued to climb steadily. Nine months, you'll find, is a "magic timeframe" in bringing ideas to birth, as it is in human life!

This is one reason why you have to trust your own marketing, and/or your marketing coach, and stay on-task. Things germinate for months and then "suddenly " happen, like the C&W singer who becomes an "overnight sensation" after waiting tables and knocking on doors for 15 years. Most stars have a story to tell like that.

There's always hard work and determination behind the "instant successes."

With marketing, you come up with one clear concept you want to get across - branding if you will - and then you hammer away at it, over and over.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE

When I was the Fundraiser for a homeless shelter, the message we wanted to get across was that when you volunteered or gave money, there were great benefits to you as well.

Over and over the same message went out. Taglines, slogans, articles, demonstrative photos, testimonials.

After that same period, things began to happen. Volunteerism went up, donations went up. The message had come across.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Now as a coach, I set out to brand myself as The EQ Coach. After writing articles about it for over a year, "suddenly" it's popped. People are emailing me to find about it, to license products, and to get coaching.

At the same time, the field is becoming known to the general public. 18 months ago, I sent a press release about EQ and the reporter wrote back and wanted to know what on earth that meant. He'd never heard of it. Since then, there have been new books released, new research, a noted movie producer started an educational foundation based on EQ, and it appears regularly on the Internet, radio, etc.

Part of emotional intelligence is Optimism, and you'll recall a recent segment on the national news about the health benefits of Optimism from lead researcher, Martin Seligman, Ph.D.

THIS WAY, THAT WAY

Here's how I worked it for branding. I've written hundreds of
Internet articles about EQ from every conceivable standpoint, and there will be more coming. I'm not sick of the field, it's too exciting, too important and too helpful, but I constantly have to wrack my brain to come up with new "slants."

Here are some examples of articles I've written about emotional
intelligence.

1. Writing for the Internet with Emotional Intelligence
2. Use Your Emotional Intelligence for a Better Valentine's
Day
3. How to Market Using Your Emotional Intelligence
4. Get Promotions By Using Your EQ, Not Your IQ
5. Is EQ 7 Times More Important to Your Success and Happiness Than IQ?
6. Emotional Intelligence - the Key to Personal and Professional Development
7. Use Your EQ to Make More Money
8. Have an Emotionally Intelligent Christmas This Year
9. Make Your Resolutions Using Your EQ and Watch Them Work for a Change
10. What Makes a Good Manager? Emotional Intelligence.
11. Are You an Early-Adopter? Then EQ is For You.

ANGLES

Whatever it is you're promoting consider it from as many angles as you can, and keep hammering away at it. Remember to look ahead; if it's January now, you should be thinking of upcoming events like Valentine's Day, tax time, spring, and Easter. Here are some ideas:

*Holidays - if you run a plant nursery, feature a heart-shaped topiary for Valentine's Day; if you're a relationship coach, tell people how to get along at the family Christmas dinner
*Current events - Bring a national news event into your hometown, and into your field. If there's an announcement about a major movie star going into rehab again, and you're a therapist, alert the press you're available to comment locally, write some articles on the problem on the Internet, post something on your website
*Important times - Tax time is an example. If you're a business coach, for instance, start in January to promote your services by writing about what's on everyone's mind.
*Applications - Make what you sell or provide apply to common problems. Say you sell perfume. Everyone's unemployed now, so write an article about perfume in general at work, or for job interviews - what's appropriate, what isn't.

Your job in marketing is never over, and it's your job to take "the same old thing" and make it new and fresh.

"By the time you're sick of it, the public is just beginning to get it," and what a happy day it is when they "get it" and it's you, your services and products!