There is no neutral in marketing. You must apply positive energy to build an audience. Otherwise, your audience will eventually dwindle to nothing.
In our physical world, fundamental laws are at work which cause moving objects to eventually stop unless force is applied to that object. For example, if you put your car in neutral and coast down the road, it will come to a stop if you don’t put it in gear and press the accelerator. Likewise, if you roll a ball across your yard, it will come to a standstill.
A similar dynamic occurs in marketing. For example, I met an author who wrote a bestselling book five years ago. He conducted an effective marketing campaign and sold over 100,000 copies. However, instead of capitalizing on his success and continuing to grow his author platform, he stopped putting energy into promotional activities and ignored his audience. Today, this author has virtually no website traffic, few social media followers, a stagnant newsletter list, and a fraction of his former book sales. His failure to apply continued force to his marketing plan caused his audience to wither away.
Worse, this author now has a new book to promote. In order to drive sales, though, he will have to start over from ground zero and rebuild his audience. In addition, he’ll have to spend a lot of extra time and money that could have been avoided. If he had maintained consistent marketing energy over time, he could have built a huge platform to promote his new title.
This doesn’t mean you have to spend all of your time marketing. Apply a little energy each week to grow your audience. For example, offer a free resource that attracts more newsletter subscribers, write a contrarian article that your social media followers would share, form alliances with other people who can help spread word of mouth.
There is no neutral in marketing. It’s a constant process whereby you must actively promote your message. It only takes a little fuel to keep a fire burning. Likewise, it only takes a little effort to keep your marketing wildfire burning red hot.
Is your audience shrinking? Does your marketing feel stuck in a rut? Maybe you need a new plan, such as Rob Eagar’s Marketing Plan Template for Authors. Get a copy and put your marketing into high gear!
