Well, it’s Groundhog Day… again and Punxsutawney Phil has spoken: Six more weeks of winter await us.

Groundhog Day comes from a German legend that if a furry rodent sees its shadow on February 2, winter would stretch on and on.

The Bill Murray movie with the same name has a similar premise where he relives the same day over and over until he sees a way of turning the situation to his advantage.

Sometimes it feels like our marketing efforts also feel like Groundhog Day.

We do the same things each week, month and year – posting on LinkedIn, writing articles, taking clients to dinner, speaking at conferences, hosting webinars – but we aren’t seeing these actions result in actual new business.

It’s frustrating and time consuming.

So let’s talk about how you can see some actual results!

1 – Do what you like to do. When we do what we like to do we do it better. So, if you don’t like to speak publicly, don’t, and if writing articles seems like a huge chore, don’t.

2 – Do less to have an impact. A lot of people do the equivalent of throwing spaghetti at the wall when it comes to marketing, which is never a good idea. They do a bunch of things, they spend a lot of money on marketing, but they don’t have a strategy or measure the return on investment of these efforts. Here’s the thing – you don’t have to do everything all at once to be successful at marketing. Focus on one or two areas and you will do them better. You will also feel better and not stretched thin.

3 – Track and measure results. Look at your email marketing statistics and make sure that you’re tracking the results of each email you send out. Also look at your social media statistics as well because there is a treasure trove of information that you can find in those reports that will tell you what is resonating with your audience and what is not. Without this information, you’re essentially doing what I said, throwing spaghetti at the wall, which is not strategic.

Also, before you make a financial and time commitment on any marketing initiative, look at whether what you want to do has actually brought in business in the past. Don’t keep doing things just because you’ve done them! That’s just not a good enough reason to keep doing them.

If you’ve never done something but you are interested in trying it, make sure you have people who will really commit to it and will go the extra mile. That means maximizing the time they spend in a different city when they’re at a conference (seeing clients and prospects) and committing to write an article with key takeaways from the event.

4 – Look at what your competitors are doing. Look for gaps in the market and look for where you can do things better. Competitor analysis should be part of every marketing effort you undertake. I always research my clients’ competitors before I do anything!

5 – Do something different. Maybe you’ve spoken in person at the same conference for 20 years where you see industry colleagues and clients in person once a year, and that’s great, but why not also do something new too? If you’ve never tried short-form video before, now is the time to get on camera. If you’ve been invited to speak on a podcast but have been reluctant to say yes, why not try it? If you’ve never done a webinar before, now is the time to do it. If you set up a LinkedIn profile years ago but never actually used LinkedIn, now is the time to get more active on it.

It’s time to try something different, particularly those that involve technology because the clients of today are online and you need to be online as well.

6 – Say YES. Speaking of saying yes, now is the time to say yes to things that you may not have the time for or may feel a little unprepared or nervous about doing. These are often the things that help us grow the most. And if you do it once and you don’t like it, you never have to do it again. So, try it you might actually find it helps you get out of a rut, and it turns into something great.

7 – Network more. We are all a little rusty when it comes to networking since the pandemic. I’ve been less inclined to go to in person events too. But there is no substitution for in-person networking. So, commit to going to events and more importantly, introducing yourself to new people at those events – they are opportunities for referrals, new hires, friends and clients. Strike up conversations and then connect with those you meet on LinkedIn to extend the relationship. It’s time to get back to expanding our networks in earnest.

8 – Leverage what you have. So many people do what I call “one and done,” which means that they post an article or something on their website or on LinkedIn, and then never do anything else with it. This is a huge waste of time and effort.

You can get much more mileage from each piece of content that you have. So, if you speak on a podcast, you can then turn that appearance into not only a website item where you summarize what you spoke about, but also a LinkedIn post, an article summarizing the key points, an email blast, a video clip or an audio clip – the possibilities are endless if you take the time to repurpose what you have.

You want to maximize the time and effort that you spend doing these kinds of things. And just because you posted something once doesn’t mean that anybody will actually see it or remember what you posted. This is why you need to post it again. Maximizing your content is smarter marketing.

While winter may be dragging on for six more weeks according to our friend Phil, your lackluster marketing efforts don’t have to.

Start today and lay the groundwork for new initiatives and you can see results by spring!