Drinking from a firehose

This is how most people start marketing:

I need to be on social media.

I need to set up my Instagram and start posting once a week.

I need to follow the right people.

A Facebook page too.

Be consistent.

Boost some posts.

I should do some text, photos, and video?

I can join some groups!

Or something like this:

Google “learn digital marketing”.

Here’s some articles on the first page.

It says learn SEO first.

Or was it content?

I need a domain.

I thought that was a web page.

Squarespace?

How do I get my own URL?

What does URL stand for anyway?

Oh, and I need a Google My Business.

Why can’t I see my page?

Or maybe this one:

I posted and wasted $500 on ads.

They didn’t work.

I got 2 enquiries and they were spam.

Can’t I just pay someone to do it?

This guy wants $1,500 and he’s telling me I need to do what?

What am I even paying him for?

This is crap.

I feel you.

Starting marketing is hard.

Jumping online is a quick way to learn, and ever easier to waste time, money, and energy on.

Its the fastest way to learn marketing because the feedback comes thick and fast.

The challenge is you start with almost anything and it gets overwhelming instantly.

When you jump online and try and learn this stuff, it’s like drinking from a firehose.

You can spray months of energy learning about social, SEO, ads, video, email, analytics, LinkedIn, community, web design, software, and go nowhere fast.

It’s frustrating.

I have worked with a huge amount of tools and I’m blown away by how hard it is to get started.

You will be be directed and misdirected into many learning paths that don’t serve you.

Google, Facebook, Amazon, Salesforce (and others) all have a heavy commercial incentive to teach you their flavour of marketing and show you why its the best.

These companies build learning ecosystems. They have conferences and champions and experts. A lot are informative and helpful.

They teach you to see value in spending with them.

The challenge is a very fast way to misspend money too.

To start marketing from scratch, you will learn:

• How to understand more about your customers and find where they are
• Communicate to them and make offers in a way that’s compelling and looks good
• How to measure and gauge what’s working best for you so you can sell things and get paid
• To embrace an ethos of continuous improvement so your marketing skills continue to improve and get better

So let’s get started.