Now this is something that obviously, I’m learning as I go. I’ve experimented with multiple different forms of marketing, some clearly more effective than others… The biggest problem is often determining the if they are effective, and how long will it take before it’s effective. Let me explain more of what I mean.
This blog is probably one of the best examples. I’ve been plugging away at it for several years. And let me tell you, it isn’t always easy. I’m not a terrible writer, but I’m no Hemingway either :). And above all, coming up with things to talk about is often a challenge for me. Now, for at least the first year, I really got almost nothing from the blog. Some of my good friends would read it and post to it… but very little in terms of new readers. Then all of the sudden, I started going to new consulting assignments and I’d meet people that had been reading my stuff. Little did I know, that I had a small following of people learning from me. Now, it hasn’t generated me sales, but it has certainly increased my credibility. This has been a mixed blessing. My consulting career has never been better, but unfortunately, it hasn’t generated the sales I was hoping for in my software. The good thing is that it has been pretty much no cost, except for a ton of my time 🙂
Now the exact opposite has been my experience with Linked-in. Now, overall, LI has also been a good experience for me, but far more expensive. I worked with a firm for a while, did some videos, revamped my profile and got nearly 12,000 new connections. The problem was that it quickly become overwhelming with all the contacts that provided no value. So I spent quite a few hours (in fact, I’m still in the process) of cleaning out non-value add contacts. I have found some new connections and people that have graciously given me feedback… but again, no direct sales. I do believe it did directly help my blog increase in popularity.
Now due to the nature of my business, I’ve ignored things like Facebook, Twitter, etc… as these are more likely to be direct sales approaches, rather than B2B which is what I need. In addition, I’ve worked with Mailchimp, which has given me mixed results. Building the lists is always the challenge, and then finding the right mixture of content to advertising to keep people reading what you send… on top of it all, I slacked off for nearly a year focusing on LI. Which brings me to my biggest take-away of this post. Don’t just abandon ideas. It’s ok to scale back, but I’m in midst of getting in trouble from MailChimp because my list is so old, that there were a lot of bounces. Had I kept up with it at least monthly, I probably wouldn’t be in the same position…
For any of you out there marketing, I’d love to hear what is and isn’t working for you…
Thanks for reading,
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,Mike