Doesn´t marketing just drive you crazy sometimes?

It seems that every single week a new marketing program goes on sale promising us that, once bought and utilised, we´ll be able to attract more clients and earn more money than we ever dreamed possible and that this time, this one time, we´ll hit the jackpot and succeed where we´ve failed so many times before.

They all tell us that they have THE ANSWER and yet each and every marketing program has a different answer than the last.

Some tell us that 'the money´s in the list´ and urge us to put all of our time, money and effort into building the greatest list possible if we´re serious about becoming truly successful.

Others tell us that marketing is all about sales and closing techniques and that we need to become expert 'closers´ in order to become successful, whilst others still tell us that our ability to reap a bumper crop relies upon our copywriting skills, our free reports and downloads, our 'viral infections´, permission marketing or search engine optimisation.

Now, whilst each of these approaches can and do provide successful marketing approaches (in the short term at least), they´re not really a viable way to create long term business success.

In fact, each of these techniques in and of themselves is pretty useless when used indiscriminately as most people tend to do.

I´m sure you´re aware of people who´ve spent ages (along with a small fortune) on Search Engine Optimisation either to find that their web traffic didn´t increase or, even if it did, it didn´t convert into new business income?

Likewise, you probably know people who´ve created free download after free download and grown fairly decent sized lists only to find that whenever they tried to sell to them that half of them unsubscribed and the other half sent 'hate mail´ to the effect of "I didn´t sign up to be sold to. Do it again and I´ll unsubscribe" or simply not bothering to take action at all, right?

The net result is the same. No new sales, no increased revenue and no return on investment for all the time, money and effort it took to put these promotions together.

Yep, I´ve been there too and, although it´s rather embarrassing to admit, I still go there on rare occasions when a product or service I´m promoting flops.

It´s frustrating isn´t it?

After all, you bought the ebooks, listened to the audios and took all of the actions that the experts told you to take and yet... well... nothing!

No great marketing success, no return on investment and certainly not that ever elusive passive income we´re always promised on the marketing guru´s sales pages.

What gives?

Are we being sold a crock or is marketing success truly attainable for all of us or just the lucky few?

These are questions I used to ask myself a lot in the early days when most of my marketing attempts seemed to fail or, at least, not create the success I´d been hoping for.

In my search for an answer I read literally thousands of articles and books from some of the world´s most successful business and marketing experts and found that whilst they each had their own unique slant on what it took to create marketing success and whilst they each operated different proprietary systems, they all had at their core identical principles that drove them.

In effect, they all said that in order to attract people into doing business with you or your company they have to KNOW, LIKE AND TRUST you.

That´s all!

Sounds pretty simple right?

Yet when I analysed all of the marketing campaigns that I´d done that had been a flop, I noticed that despite having great copy, tons of bonuses and, seemingly, all of the right techniques in place, I had somehow violated the KNOW-Like-Trust 'rule´ and, in doing so, condemned my product launch to failure.

Conversely, every single success I´ve had has had KNOW-Like-Trust at its core.

Now, for all that KNOW-Like-Trust sounds pretty obvious, it´s clearly not. If it were then we´d all be using it and our marketing would be super-successful and, clearly, that´s not the case.

So, let´s look at KNOW-Like-Trust and try to learn how to use marketing´s 'secret weapon´ in your own marketing shall we?

We´ll start with KNOW.

It stands to reason that in order to do business with you and, ultimately, buy your products and services, that your prospects have to KNOW that you exist. Yet, despite this glaringly obvious fact, few fitness professionals dedicate any time at all to getting known, opting instead for the 'If I build it they will come´ method of marketing favoured by the unsuccessful masses.

So they build their websites, they write their free reports and they create their opt-in newsletters and... well... no-one comes or, if they do, in such small numbers that it barely matters.

This approach is 180 degrees out of phase with the methods of the super-successful marketers who put their efforts into first finding out who will come and then build their products and services to match the demand that´s already there.

A big difference right?

But how do they do find out?

Simple. They Get KNOWN!

They create articles in their area of expertise and post them to e-zine directories and blogs as well as on their own websites.

They find subject-specific forums and newsgroups and become active members who provide great information to red-hot prospects WITHOUT TRYING TO SELL ANYTHING.

They send out regular press releases to both the paper and e-press, positioning themselves as someone with something worth writing about.

They do public talks and seminars for members of the public interested in their field and load them with so much great information that people remember, use and share it with others to great effect.

They offer to write or interview for other professionals in the same field (or interview other pro´s themselves) in order to spread their name as far and wide as possible.

The long and the short of it is that the 'Get KNOWN´ phase is NOT about selling in any way, shape or form. Rather, as the title suggests, it´s about putting yourself on the map and, crucially, in front of an audience who will tell YOU what they want to buy rather than the other way around.

Now, before you dismiss the KNOW phase because of its simplicity, ask yourself how much of this you´re currently doing.

You may be surprised with just how little you´re actually doing to Get KNOWN!

Ok, we´ll assume that you´re now well on the road to getting KNOWN, but don´t think that you´re home and dry yet.

End of part 1