Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

I’ve quit and here’s why

i quitI’ve quit.

Yup - done, finished, over.

“Quit what?” you ask?

I’ve quit blogging.

OK, that’s not quite true...

But I’ve quit blogging daily.

It was an experiment.

And it worked.

And it didn’t.

Here’s the deal - for most of last year, this website averaged between 5,000-6,000 visits per month. Not great, but not terrible either.

At the beginning of this year, I committed to an experiment - namely blogging every weekday.

Yup, 5 posts a week. Week in and week out. I stuck to the schedule and didn’t miss a day in 26 weeks. 6 full months.

The result?

It worked great.

Almost immediately (OK, it took 8 weeks, but that’s close enough) my web traffic went from an average of 5,000-6,000 visits up to an average of 10,000-11,000 visits. One month, we even generated 15,000 visits - triple the old number. I'll explain that "we" later in this post...

My opt-in rate doubled (for everything - my free ebook, blog subscriptions, my free teleseminars.)

My SEO went up - I moved from page 2 and page 3 of Google results for certain keywords to page 1.

The second result?

I found out what really worked to drive more traffic, more leads, and more business.

And it wasn’t the blog...

It was three things:

1. My new book. Specifically, the marketing plan for my book, which turned out to also become the marketing plan for the website and the marketing plan for my speaking and mentoring programs. Woo hoo - who'd a thunk it?

Lesson: If you “lean in” and commit to the marketing for ONE flagship product, service, or program like I did with my book - you will start to generate momentum that carries over into everything else that you are doing.

2. Email marketing. Plain and simple, the more marketing emails I sent, the more web visits I got. Accident? No, of course not. Most of my emails contained links back to the website for the latest blog posts, the occasional teleseminar invitation or a new program announcement.

Lesson: The more email you send that contains high-value content, advice, insights, and recommendations (aka email that’s too good to delete), the more stickiness you’ll generate for your fans and followers. 

3. FLOP - Namely, “Featuring and Leveraging Other People.” I wrote about this concept in detail here and it has also been a tremendous driver of new traffic and new friendships, new clients, and new projects. Inbound FLOP is me shining the spotlight on others. And outbound FLOP is me participating in other people’s book launches, surveys, guest blogging, and so on.

Lesson: It’s not all about YOU. It IS all about how YOU can serve and promote other experts in your field who have a complementary skill set, message, or service offering. Welcome to the new collaborative economy. They win when you win. And you win when they win.

Sooooo... I’m still blogging.

But I’ve scaled down to once or twice a week.

And I’ve scaled UP the other activities listed above.

Because that’s what generates results.

What have YOU changed up in the last 3-6 months to STOP doing what doesn't matter and start DOING more of what matters most? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your specific changes and how they've freed up more time or made you more money... 

13 signs to fire your web design firm, doitmarketing, david newman, marketing coach, marketing speaker


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