Anti-resolutions for a great New (marketing) Year

What not do do in 2013…

• Don’t do what you’ve always done. Try something new, and you might get new results. Forget the box – there is no box, so stop trying to think outside it. Instead, start with what you want (more sales, more customers, more recommendations, more likes) and work backwards from it.
• Don’t write like you write. Let go. No, really, let go. When you put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, write anything, everything, even nonsense. Loosen up, let your thoughts run wild. Like musicians doing scales, or artists doodling, or singers doing vocal exercises, let yourself have some fun. Then write like you talk, now that you’ve loosened up. If writing strikes fear into your heart, then do more of it, more often, and conquer that fear. Like speaking in public, it’s a knack you’ll soon get the hang of.
• Don’t aim for perfection in your marketing efforts. Copy is never 100% right. Promotions are never exactly what the customer is looking for. Blog posts can always be improved on, and newsletters are never ready to be put to bed. So you need to put a bit more work in, right? Wrong. You need to get them out the door, and tweak along the way. Perfection doesn’t exist, so go for ‘good enough’ and move on to something else.
• Don’t wait for the right time – because there isn’t one. Some swear by Friday as the best day to send out emails and newsletters. Don’t even think about Sunday, they say. No wait, say others – if you send on Sunday, you’re top of the list for Monday. And you know what? They’re both right, and wrong. Because there is no ‘right’ time. I know somebody who bucks the trend and does a ton of business in the ‘dead’ month of August. And another (who works in services, not retail) who cleans up over Christmas/New Year. And yet another who decided to pretend the downturn wasn’t happening (no, really). And you know what? It didn’t – for him, at least. The wrong time was the right time, as far as he was concerned.
• Don’t overcomplicate things. Offers with too many choices. Terms and conditions with too many terms and conditions. Sentences with too many words. Words with too many syllables. Pages with too much copy. Websites with too many pages. Virtually all Flash animation (you like it, they don’t). Go for easy, not complicated. Because your clients, prospects and readers are – wonder of wonders – just like you. They like easy.