Playing the internet marketing game to win
Here’s the thing.
I love sports. I am both a player and a coach in several different sports. On top of that I am also the programs director for my town’s rec. center. I love sports. I watch it. Play it. Coach it.
And I always play to win.
So when I am working with someone and their internet marketing campaign, the goal is to win. Yet, there are times when I just get the feeling that the person I’m working with really doesn’t want to win. Their desire isn’t in the winning atmosphere. It’s more like, “Ehhh.” That drives me absolutely crazy.
I am currently coaching a middle school boys basketball team. We are in the middle of our season and have the opportunity to win our last remaining nine games. I know we can. In fact, I can see it. I dream about it. I breathe it. Everyone I talk to, I always mention how great these boys are and that we can win the last remaining games. But…
There are some on the team who just don’t… well…. want to win. Drives me absolutely crazy.
Online advertising is a sport that requires constant practice.
The only way to get good at anything, no matter your skills, is to practice. I am a very firm believer that anyone can be good at anything. Maybe not the best, or elite, but good. I have seen very out of shape, un-athletic, un-coordinated people become pretty good athletes because they had desire and determination coupled with visionary guidance.
Online marketing is not something that you can succeed at right off the bat. Sure, there are those times when everything clicks and things seem to work brilliantly. But, for every time that happens there are countless thousands of times when you have to sweat, bleed, and throw-up (sorry for the graphic) for every bit of traffic you receive.
Practice is essential in online marketing. Most would call it “testing”, but I like practice better. Over and over again there is tweaking of landing pages, ads, ppc campaigns, blog templates, ad positions, affiliate pages and other advertising projects that you’re never done.
That’s probably why I love it so much. I love to practice!
Online advertising is a sport that requires the right equipment.
One thing I always tell all the athletes I coach is to make sure they have the right (best) equipment they can afford. The benefits outweigh the cost everytime. For instance, in basketball I want my kids with the best sneakers they can get. Not street shoes, but honest to goodness basketball shoes.
The ones who do that always thank me for telling them to get them.
When working on an advertising campaign I will always instruct clients to use each piece of advertising material they can, even if it will cost some money to use it effectively.
For instance, some clients just want to use article marketing because it is free. I can understand that, but you’re limiting your exposure to just that medium. When you could use email ads, PPC ads, and paid placement on websites. It may cost a little more, but the benefits outweigh the investment.
Online advertising is a sport that requires a winning attitude.
I touched on this a little at the beginning of this post. If you’re not going to believe in yourself, your services, the products you’re selling, or your capacity to learn new things, you are eventually going to fold up and fade away.
Attitude is everything. In sports, in life, and especially within internet marketing. You must go forward, even when it feel like everything is stacked up against you, and believe and win. That’s hard to do when you are losing money, losing sleep, and losing confidence.
My basketball team had a game this year where we were down by 16 points at halftime. The team we were playing were faster, taller, and had two really good ball handlers and outside shooters. The boys were feeling down and had already resigned themselves to losing. I would have none of it. I told them I knew they could win. I knew that they were a good team and that the individual skills they had were far better than our opponent. They saw that I really did believe it. Their attitude changed. They went out and put on a dazzling display of basketball and won the game by 10.
Your attitude is going to determine whether your advertising campaign will be a big win or a devastating loss. A winning attitude is not an option. It is required. You must have it. There is no such thing as passive advertising. Sure, you can set up a ppc campaign and pretty much leave it when it is working good, but there will come a time when it begins to falter. That’s the point when you need to work on it. But, in the meantime you should be keeping up with the trends so you’ll know how to fix it when it begins to lose momentum. That’s where you attitude comes in.
If your attitude sucks then you won’t spend any time checking your stats, looking into buying trends for that niche, looking at your conversions, and how people are responding to your product or service. You won’t know how to fix anything. You’ll just get frustrated. But, a winning attitude will help you keep on top of all that.
Play to win this marketing game and you’ll see tremendous benefits instead of tragic losses.
Granted, I realize that a winning attitude doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes work and it takes determination. But, if you work at it, little by little you’ll begin seeing that attitude take shape. I believe anyone can succeed. Anyone can win. You can win!
The obvious question now is, “How do I get that winning attitude?” Well, that sounds like another post. You’re gonna have to check back to see how you can do that. I promise it won’t be long, but just to be sure you don’t miss it, why don’t you subscribe to the RSS feed for this site.
Remember, play to win and never… never give up.
