Over the weekend, college football saw an awesome and unlikely comeback where the University of Oklahoma, led by Jalen Hurts at quarterback, overcame a 25-point deficit to defeat undefeated Baylor University, 34-31.
The outcome for the Oklahoma Sooners, on the road against a conference foe with something to prove, reminded me of how it feels when you embark on the challenge of marketing a new venture online. Their response to stay in the game, keep working their gameplan, and make the adjustments necessary to overcome a situation that would paralyze many other teams looks like what many side hustlers who use internet marketing to build their business face.
At the beginning of your internet marketing journey, you’re starting from scratch. You have no content and no community, the two things you need to be effective in marketing your business or venture. In addition to starting at zero, you see your industry peers, prolific marketers, and the latest internet-famous meme zooming ahead with their established brand and content. It can be discouraging to see them share their successes, their engagement online increase, and the results from their past efforts as you create the “starter” content in the pre-launch days and early in your marketing calendar.
Build Your Community
As you build your community and add to your initial content, you don’t feel glamorous because you don’t even get the satisfaction of seeing small wins or momentum. Like in Saturday’s game, the competition seems to be unstoppable and out of reach, going up by 25. Everything they do is golden, while you dwell in the inertia of the pre-launch activities.
Those early weeks and months feel like an eternity as you don’t see visible progress in the metrics of contacts added to your CRM, follower counts, or engagement online. Content and social media marketing isn’t something to expect an immediate gain from or to be an instant answer for your business. It should be a part of building the community that supports it, and communities take time and care to build to reach the sustainable and engaging direct access to what your customers think about you.
In business, we don’t play a finite game with a singular opponent, but our lives are filled with wins, losses, and the payoff of success. Sticking to your content and social media marketing strategy, even when you don’t see immediate results, leads you to build an authentic, caring, and long-lasting community. That community will be there to support you and to keep you in business long after you’ve hit “Enter.”
Hard Work and Resolve
As those who watched Saturday’s game witnessed, when hard work and resolve to stick to the plan meet, momentum builds. As it does, you see results in the “little things,” and eventually, you prevail.
Even when you feel like you’re down 28-3 as Oklahoma was early in the game, they persisted. As should you.