“Why do you say that?” I asked – not that I was dissatisfied in any way with the captain or with the sea bass that we caught that day, but I was intrigued by this fisherman’s observation about our captain and wanted to learn more. “Some captains will take you to just one fishing spot and stay there the whole time whether the fish are biting or not, others will move on to another spot only after nobody has caught anything for over an hour. This captain kept a close watch and on what people were catching and when the fish stopped biting, he moved on to another spot quickly.” As I reflected on the success of this trip I recognized that three things that made this fishing trip so successful are also essential to marketing successfully on the Internet.
What’s in your marketing tackle box?
You need more than one fishing spot
The fishing trip wouldn’t have been nearly as successful if the captain only had one fishing spot to go to. By having multiple locations from which to fish, the chances for a great trip were greatly increased. The same lesson holds true for long-term marketing success – make sure you have more than one place to obtain leads or customers for your business. This means that instead of relying on only Google organic search placement, or Google AdWords, or an online magazine advertisement, or Facebook advertising, or article marketing, etc., you are using more than one of these “fishing spots” to reach your customers. This way if leads stop coming in temporarily from one of your “fishing spots,” you will have others that you can rely on to successfully carry your business forward.
You need to fish in high fish density areas
Although in theory we could have caught fish anywhere in the ocean, the captain used a fish finder to locate areas of high fish density. The parallel point for marketing is simple: use indicators to place your message in areas where there is a high density of your ideal customers. For you this may mean targeting key search phrases that have significant search volume and purchase intent. It may also mean using Facebook advertising to reach your ideal clients, if your clients are on FB in large numbers and are easily identifiable by their “likes” or affiliations.
You need more than one kind of lure
Going fishing with more than one lure is important because sometimes fish have a preference for what you’re not using right now. If you only have one kind of lure, fishing becomes catching only if the fish have the taste for what you’re using right now. If you know the fish are there, but they’re not biting, then changing lures is often the key to success. In marketing this means that you need to have more than one ad to attract the interest of prospective customers. This may be as simple as using multiple ads with different headlines but the same body.
Just as there are common denominators between successful fishing trips; there are common principles at the core of any long-term successful marketing effort online or offline. What’s in your marketing tackle box?
