Saturday, May 09, 2009

I Tried That - It Didn't Work

I'm just finishing up the Promotion Monkey newsletter (www.promotionmonkey.com and an article on Google AdWords.

Whenever you take on a new project, there's an unspoken wish that this one will just work and not need constant coaxing and tweaking and fine-tuning.

Sometimes people say I Tried That - It Didn't Work. But before you give up and say, "Well, if it didn't work for her then it won't work for me," you need to dig a little deeper.

When someone says they tried something, what exactly did they do?

After all, if someone comes to you and says "I tried Remote Web Workplace and it didn't work for me" what would you say? I imagine you'd probe a bit and ask exactly what they did and didn't try.

I'll use the Google AdWords example since it's on the top of my mind.

With any advertising you can do, the easiest thing is to just burn the money in your front yard. And that's what most people do. There are two pieces to this event.

First, the default, out-of-the-box options for any kind of advertising are Lazy and ineffective. For example, Let's say you start a Google Ad campaign, add every keywork remotely related to your business, create ten different ads, and set a budget. Poof. Money will disappear but clients will not appear.

You don't have a target, you haven't focused your advertising, you're trying to scatter-shot the internet with ads. Someone will see your ad and click on it. Cha-ching: The money is gone. But if that person spends .07 seconds on your site and then leaves, what good has it done you?

Second, there are plenty of people whose job is to help you spend your advertising budget. Their job is NOT to help you get business or be successful. Yellow pages ads are great for this. So are ads in the back of the Business Journal. The people who help you are highly motivated to get you to sign a deal. After that, they don't care.

They will mangle your ad with abbreviations and crap so it fits in the small space you can afford. They don't know anything about testing ads, appealing to a focused audience, or simple calls to action. I'm not kidding. Go read those ads. What percentage lead with a great headline, include a benefit, and have a call to action?

Well-written ads don't happen by accident. That's true in Google AdWords, yellow pages, and the business journal.

Oops. Now we have to do some work.

At the top of this post I mentioned our tendency to wish that this project will just work and not need constant coaxing and tweaking and fine-tuning. Well, that never works. What works is to really focus on something, work at doing it right, and give it a fair chance before you conclude that it doesn't work.

This rule applies to everything and not just advertising. It applies to training, scheduling, documentation, motivation, finances, etc.

Here's a starter list.

Slap yourself whenever you find yourself saying these things:

I tried Google AdWords.

I tried MSPU.

I tried managing my cash flow.

I tried getting clients to prepay.

I tried using a remote monitoring tool.

I tried managing my techs at Zenith Infotech.

I tried Robin Robins' program.

I sent out postcards.

I went to a chamber meeting.

I tried giving my employees quarterly evaluations.

I tried documenting everything I touch.

I tried creating a fresh web site.

I tried managed services.

I tried selling VOIP.

I tried Hardware as a Service.

I tried getting certified.
It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

It didn't work for me.

(You get the message.)

:-)



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