In 1895 an Italian economist by the name of Vilfredo Pareto made an interesting discovery. He found that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by just 20% of the population. Although his research was based on land acquisition, the theory behind his work remains intact today and is referred to as Pareto’s Principle or the 80/20 Rule.
Interestingly enough, the Pareto Principle can be applied to your marketing efforts as well. Basically, 80% of your marketing results come from 20% of your marketing efforts. If you can correctly identify the 20% of your marketing that works, you will save an incredible amount of time in your business. And as any good shoestring marketer knows, time is money.
However, how do you separate the marketing that is producing good results as opposed to the marketing that is zapping your precious time?
Here are a few clues that you are spending time on tasks that are NOT producing results for you:
• You spend hours “getting ready to market” as opposed to “marketing”
• Your marketing efforts are taking much longer than you anticipated
• You’re working on marketing platforms that are outside of your area of expertise.
• You are using dozens of marketing platforms, but still achieve poor results
• You are frustrated, burned-out and often feel that your marketing hasn’t accomplished anything.
Here are a few clues that you are spending time on marketing tasks that ARE producing results for you:
• You’re concentrating ONLY on the marketing platforms that help to boost your business and achieve your goals.
• You complete your marketing quickly and efficiently each day
• You feel that you focus on your areas of marketing expertise and outsource the tasks that you are not good or prefer not to do.
• You clearly understand what marketing platforms produce the best results for you and your business.
• You have mastered a few marketing platforms and ignored the rest.
If you find that you tend to fall in the first category, then there are three simple ways to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
First of all, pick five marketing platforms and become an expert on these. Unfortunately, in today’s society, small business owners are overwhelmed by their marketing choices.
As a result, small business owners often dapple with dozens of different marketing platforms with poor results.
You will never succeed if you are a “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” Instead, select just five platforms and become a dominating presence there. After you have mastered your five, then you can add additional platforms to your marketing portfolio.
The second way to increase the results of your marketing is to purchase a link-tracker that will track where your prospects are coming from. A link tracker will give you a clear idea which marketing efforts work and which don’t. One of my favorite link trackers is Linkcounter at http://www.linkcounter.com
Linkcounter allows you to set up an unlimited number of links which will keep track of who clicks on your URLs. This is information that every marketer must have.
Finally, focus on your marketing strengths. If you love to write, then market your business through blogs, ezines and articles. If you enjoy speaking, then host a radio show, teleseminar and podcast. And if you like online networking, then tap into the power of online business communities like LinkedIn, Ryze and eCademy.
If you use your own personal strengths to drive your marketing efforts, the results will be so much more effective.
Eventually, you want to increase time on the 20% of your platforms that are producing results for you and eliminate the 80% of your platforms that are not producing results.
If you follow this simple 3-step formula, your business and your time will skyrocket! You will find that you are spending less time on your business, yet making more profits.
About Jessica Swanson
