My Big Marketing Campaign Success Story

In the fall of 2016, I came to a realization. The main marketing campaign I had been focusing on for much of my entrepreneurial life wasn’t working the way I had intended.

This wasn’t a big surprise. For years, I had been watching the trends in the information Marketing/Internet Marketing industries and I could see we were headed for a reckoning.

And I had a feeling the reckoning would be sooner rather than later.

“Business as usual” (at least the way it had been defined in this wacky online world I had chosen to do business in) wasn’t going to be as effective as it once was.

It was time to change to a different marketing campaign.

And, that’s what I spent 2017 building from scratch—a new marketing campaign for my business that was based on a solid, long-term marketing strategy that, once I got it in place, would continue to bring ideal clients, customers, and buyers into my business organically … and I wouldn’t even have to spend advertising dollars to make it work. (Although advertising certainly would make speed up the process, it wasn’t a requirement.)

It took a year to finally start seeing results.

I’m going to say right now it wasn’t easy.

In fact, there were times it was downright frustrating. Mostly because I had to battle my secret fears and demons. There’s nothing like having all your inner doubts surface six months into a long-term marketing strategy, even though you KNOW it may take months and months to see results, and you’ve told yourself you’re good with it.

This isn’t going to work.

You’re wasting your time.

Every single successful business owner you know would tell you you’re being foolish. Maybe they are right.

Maybe it’s time to chuck in the towel and do something else.

And on and on.

Nevertheless, I kept going.

Even though my fear-based emotions kept trying to stop me.

Fear, worry, doubt, shame, anger, even grief.

I felt the emotions, let them move through me, and kept going.

So, yes, I will share precisely what I did, but before I do that, I want to set the stage a bit. Because what I did may not be the right strategy for you and your specific business, goals, and dreams.

And, what I DON’T want to happen is for you to read what I did, and then dismiss it. “Oh, that’s all?” Because if you do, I feel like you’d be missing the larger point, which is:

Now, more than EVER, you need to have a long-term marketing strategy in place if you want to have any hope in building a solid, successful, profitable business over the long haul.

HOWEVER, that does NOT mean it’s your ONLY marketing strategy. Long-term marketing strategies are NOT designed to bring in money right now. They’re designed to attract a steady stream of warm ideal clients, customers, and buyers to your business, which of course puts your business on a lot more solid footing than if you don’t have a warm audience of ideal prospects who love to hear from you. But they’re not designed to bring in cash NOW.

So, if you’re looking for an immediate cash infusion, you may need to modify my marketing campaign so it’s less aggressive. This way, you’ll have time to focus on short-term marketing strategies to keep income flowing in, at the same time.

Okay, let’s talk marketing campaign.

How I Decided on My New Marketing Campaign

1. One of my big missions is to get the love-based philosophy out into the world in a massive way. Therefore, for me, it was important that the marketing campaign I chose not only be scalable, but also built for the masses.

For you, that may not be the case. Maybe you just want to have a profitable coaching business and are happy if you have a dozen or so highly-invested coaching clients at any one time. Following my marketing campaign may be overkill for you.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What is my BIG vision for my business?
• How big do I really want to take it?
• Do I really want a seven-fugure business or a multi-seven-figure business (which requires hiring a big team)? Or is something smaller more my style?
• Is the marketing campaign I’ve chosen a match for my vision?

(Note: My “How to Start a Business You Love AND That Loves You Back” is full of questions like these to help you get very clear on what you want to invest your time, money, energy and life force building. It’s free and you can grab your copy at the below link.)

2. Next, I got very clear on my message and who I am here to serve. For me, this was a no-brainer, because my mission is to get the love-based philosophy out into the world. I knew whatever I chose had to focus around that message.

For you, the questions you need to be asking for yourself:

• Am I clear on my message?
• Do I HAVE a clear message that I can easily communicate in my marketing?

3. Lastly, I set a clear goal based on the different ways money would flow to me using the marketing campaign—everything from books and low-end products to sponsorships to one-on-one services. I was very clear on how I would fund the campaign not only while I was building it, but also what it would look like once it was built.

For you, ask yourself:

• Am I clear on my different offers?
• What type of business model do I want to build? (I.e. Are you just interested in one-on-one services, or do you want to sell more products and group programs, or a combination, or what exactly?)
• Will this marketing campaign fit into my business model?

Okay, are you wondering what my marketing campaign was, precisely?

Drum roll please …

I started a new blog from scratch.

(Yes, I can hear everyone saying, “Well, geez, is that all?”)

I started this blog, the LoveBasedBiz.com around December2016/January 2017.

Why?

Well, my first blog, which is on my MichelePW.com site, was actually a very old blog with some very old (and valuable) back links. I’m still getting organic traffic to that blog even now without any new posts for over a year.

But, I had made tons and tons of mistakes with it as well.

I felt like those mistakes were hindering my organic SEO reach—I had reached a ceiling because of them. (Another way to look at this of course is that, despite my mistakes, I still ended up with more organic traffic than that blog likely deserves.)

Plus, there was just so much old energy in that blog that I didn’t think a fresh approach would overcome.

I wanted to start fresh. Yes, even though I heard the same things many of you do … “It’s too difficult to start a new blog and get any organic traffic from it …. Blogs are dead … They’re too much work/take too long/not worth the return on investment.”

(Not to mention blogs are unsexy and not nearly as hot as complicated Facebook ad funnels. Right?)

The difference is, I didn’t really believe any of that.

I KNOW content marketing still works. And, it’s likely ALWAYS going to work (especially if you focus on crafting high-quality content and not just crap you throw up really fast).

I also know, since I can see it first-hand with my old blog, that once you’ve got a blog established, visitors continue to visit … EVEN if you stop posting.

Now, there’s no question a blog does require work and commitment. And, I knew it was a long-term strategy, so I knew it would likely take me a year (or longer) to get a fresh new one set up.

AND the past six months were still brutal. I doubted myself and this course of action, wondering if I was wasting precious time that I should have been focusing on something else.

But I kept going.

Other Things I Did to Set My New Blog up for Success:

1. I was very strategic about my posting.
2. I set up a schedule where I was posting three times a week—a podcast episode, a written blog post, and a video blog post. (Although, I must confess, there were a few months near the end of 2017 when I dropped down to only two posts a week, because it was difficult to keep up with the three posts a week when I wasn’t yet seeing results).
3. I was consistent and followed my schedule.

My Results

After only about one year, I’m finally getting some decent SEO/organic traffic momentum, plus my overall visitors are almost equal to my old blog’s heyday (when I was posting regularly) AND I have A LOT more page views (probably triple). While those are great wins, what’s even better is the FINANCIAL win—I wanted to more sell more of my love-based books, and that’s precisely what’s been happening.

If you’d like to learn more about what I did, check out this post where I walk you through the precise blog strategy I used to set up this blog for success, Clearly it’s a great resource for anyone who is interested in having their own successful blog, but I also included a few takeaways for everyone, no matter what you pick as your main long-term marketing strategy.

Main Takeaways

1. Stay the course. Don’t give up in the middle, even if you have a lot of doubts and fears come up. If you know what you’re doing is going to take some time to take off, then give it the time it needs. (And, quite honestly, most successful strategies in business OR in life need time to fully mature.)
2. Be wary of what you see in advertising and marketing messages. There’s one right now I see on Facebook that talks about how building an audience is a waste of time. (This one irks me so much I’m going to do a full post on it in the future.) Remember, marketing gurus need to make money, too, and as blogs DO take both time and work to get going, it’s an easy tactic to cut down in favor of whatever they’re trying to sell you. So, don’t believe the hype. Do you own research on what you think is the best marketing strategy for you, and give it the time and love it needs to succeed.
3. 3. No matter what marketing campaign you pick, being strategic—setting up a regular schedule and staying the course—WILL help you succeed.

And, if you want to learn more about how you can fall in love with your Internet marketing strategies, you may want to check out my “Love-Based Online Marketing” book available at most online retailers.