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Posted by
Ian Brodie on August 11th, 2019.
Last week I talked about how important it was to establish marketing habits: something you do every day or every week on the marketing front.
It's less important what you do than the fact you do something consistently.
But how do you establish those habits?
I'm sure you've tried in the past to get into the habit of doing regular marketing. But it's just not that easy to keep something up that doesn't necessarily feel natural early on.
One of the best ways to establish a new habit is to use what BJ Fogg of Stanford University calls “habit stacking”. In essence, you stack a new habit you want to do on top of one you already have.
For example, I recently found I needed to wear a heated eye mask for 10 minutes a couple of times a day to deal with a little eye problem I had.
The problem was, I always seemed to have something more important or urgent to do than heat up an eye mask then lie down for 10 minutes with it on.
I went for days where I just wouldn't wear the mask at all. And that wasn't doing my eyes any good.
In the end, I cracked the eye mask habit by stacking it on top of my coffee-drinking habit.
I made a resolution that whenever I had my morning coffee or my first coffee of the afternoon, I would use the mask.
And it worked.
I didn't have to think about anything. I just made my coffee, drank it, bunged the eye mask in the microwave for 30 seconds to heat it up, then lay down in the living room with it on.
The two habits kind of merged. I did it without thinking.
You can do exactly the same with your marketing habits.
Write down the habits you already have that you do in a similar place or time to the new habit you want to establish.
For example, if you want to write a blog post every week, what else do you do every week at a consistent time that involves sitting at your computer?
Frankly, for most of us, it should be pretty easy to find a regular slot at our desk. But you also want one when you're fresh and ready to write and be creative, not worn out.
So “5pm on Friday after I've just processed all the remaining emails for the week” is probably not the best habit to piggyback on.
But if you have a habit like I do of planning your week first thing on a Monday morning, then that can be a great habit to build on.
Turn that habit into “First thing on Monday morning I go to a coffee shop with my laptop and plan my week. Then I spend an hour writing a blog post.”
Work on one habit at a time.
Once you have your new habit established you can add others stacking on the back of other regular activities.
Or you can stack on to your new habit. So Monday morning becomes “First thing on Monday morning I go to a coffee shop with my laptop and plan my week. Then I spend an hour writing a blog post. Then I spend 30 minutes emailing and calling my top clients and prospects in rotation to keep in touch.”
Keep doing this and you'll become an incredibly effective marketer without it ever being hard work.
Ian Brodie on September 1st, 2019.