Digital Marketing is War!
Your Boy Matt
There are many important aspects of digital marketing. Playing this game at the highest level requires you to be a jack of all trades, and a master of almost all of them. Among other things, you must have:
- knowledge
- experience
- skills
- talent
- strategy
- logistics
And those seemingly small items, while looking very unthreatening, take years and years to fully develop.
And still, they are preceded by one even more important aspect.
You are probably already guessing what I am about to say.
Your mindset is key for your digital marketing success.
While all of the items above are critical, they are pretty much useless if you don’t have the right mindset already instilled within you.
What to know about digital marketing before you embark on this journey
No matter which area of digital marketing you choose to specialize in first, one thing will always be true: it will be hard, competitive, and it might even get bloody at times (metaphorically speaking… most of the time…).
Digital marketing is not for the faint of heart.
Only the strongest and most persistent ones will survive in the end, and emerge victorious, with all of their organic blogs and huge Instagram followings and crowns and jewels and trophies and mansions and Lambos etc. Obviously, I’m joking about the Lambos, and I recommend avoiding people that talk about Lambos in a serious manner.
But the fact remains – only a few will succeed, and usually it will be those that are prepared to sacrifice and invest the most.
The right mindset for digital marketing
Since digital marketing will almost certainly get frustrating at times, even disheartening probably, you will need to practice a growth mindset to get you through those times.
You must be willing and know how to learn, to sweat and bleed, to survive and thrive, to accept pain (and it kinda helps if you start loving pain a bit as well).
Make no mistake – failure, disappointment, and feeling like you’re wasting your time and your life, may be common occurrences, even daily at the start.
Also, be aware that digital marketing takes time. Patience is your biggest friend here.
It is very likely that success will take everything you got, and then some. You will have to dig deep and find the strength you didn’t know you had.
How to develop the right mindset?
The most important thing to keep in mind while learning and mastering digital marketing is to never quit.
The only few people that will make it to the other side will be the ones that stuck with this.
I’ve observed the following sequence for almost 10 years now, both in myself and in plenty of others:
- person finds about about blogging/dropshipping/Instagram/Youtube/latest thing…
- they immediatelly get excited about making it big there
- they start following the first half-decent plan or course they find online
- Day 1: they work like mad, and give their newly-found passion 120%
- Day 2: they feel a bit tired from yesterday as they’re not used to working that hard, but they’re still fired up, so they work like mad again, giving it 110%
- Day 3: there are absolutely no results from their previous two days of hard work, and they feel slightly demotivated and tired, but they decide to stick with this and give it 95%
- Day 4: still no results, plus they have to go to the dentist today, plus they’re tired, plus their back hurts, but they still don’t wanna quite, so they put in some work and give their 40%
- Day 5: still zero results, and they’re so busy thinking about this next thing that their friend mentioned, and this seems like a waste of time, but let’s stick with it and give it 20%
- Day 6: still absolutely not even a trace of any kind of result, so they conclude this will never work and quit
Trust me, I’ve seen similar patterns in tons of people, and I’ve been through this more times than I care to admit.
Success in digital marketing takes time. A lot of it.
And that’s even if you put in all the work, which is a crazy amount of work.
I’m talking at least 3 months of thankless work, and that’s the very best case scenario that only a small percentage of people will be lucky enough to experience. The reality is, for most of us, it will take at least 6 months, and probably closer to a year.
After you have invested enough time into learning, and then into putting in all the work, and then into waiting if needed, only then will you start seeing some success.
Before you even get a scent of success, your faith will be tested like never before.
So until then, you have to operate just on belief. You basically have no other choice but to make the decision to follow this thing through, do all the massive amounts of work, and just trust it will work.
Trust the process. Many have gone this road before you and succeeded.
Until you succeed, you will have to probably remind yourself to stay disciplined. Probably daily, and maybe even hourly in some days.
But also, remember that each step you complete takes you one step closer.
I’ve found that a goal here helps me a lot, and a simple calendar where I cross out the days I’ve completed a step is very motivating.
Your strategy and goal will depend on what you choose to do, but as I said, at least 3 months of hard work will be required on your part. That’s 90 days of publishing an article or posting a video on Youtube or creating engaging social media posts and participating in your communities etc.
Yes, 90 days does sound like a lot, but once you start taking the steps, just remind yourself – this is a finite process! Success takes work but it will almost certainly come to those that stick with the process and keep improving.
What to know and watch out for
For starters, keep your eyes open for people promising you unrealistic results.
Anyone telling you that digital marketing is easy, or a quick way to earn easy money, doesn’t have your best interest at heart. They are just probably trying to sell you their “secret course” or their “magic formula” for success, and no such thing exists.
You either have to invest your time, your money, or both. There’s no other way.
Related to the above, know that almost all the knowledge and information you need is free. This app is free, this blog is free, our Youtube channel is free, and there are tons of other great educators and mentors online that also constantly put out high-quality information on digital marketing online, also for free.
So, in practice, you don’t have to pay a dime for knowledge.
Now, I don’t want to say that you should never consider paying for information.
Of course, there are some good courses out there, and some of them can be seen as an investment. They might get you results quicker, and may show you a trick or two that works well but isn’t really well-known. So there might be a good justification for buying a course or a mentorship program.
But for the most part, this is an execution-first game. Information spreads fast today, and it’s not really about the person that knows that “one weird hack” that brings them immediate results while all the other donkeys are needlessly working like bozos. Even the successful people that claim to have that one strange trick up their sleeve are working 14 hours a day.
Naturally, the better your strategy is, the less you will have to work. But in most cases, the strategy is already there. We all know what we need to do – publish a lot of content, build as many links as you can, promote it as much as you can, experiment with as many parameters as you can. Plus, just because a plan has worked for a certain person in a certain industry and in a certain context, it doesn’t mean it will work for you as well. Replicating success is not as easy as it sounds.
Just look at the results out there. If you could just copy and paste someone’s process and have the same level of success, every single person that has tried digital marketing would be successful. How many people are successful? Exactly.
Finally, keep in mind that even though this takes a lot of time and work, it is possible that you find success sooner. There is maybe about a 7-8% chance that you start seeing great success after just 3 months. Not very good odds, but it’s still possible.
This means you may know someone that starts seeing success very soon, a lot sooner than you.
That shouldn’t discourage you.
It is very easy to lose heart when seeing someone make it in a seemingly easy way, while you seem to be struggling.
You must remember at this time that it’s different for everyone. Only a few people are that lucky anyway, and most of us have to invest both the time and the work. Almost everyone that has succeeded with digital marketing, has gone through a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.
So, if you’re not already a millionaire after three months, I don’t want you to lose sight of your goals and the big picture. If you learn properly and keep working at it, it is almost guaranteed that you will find success at some point.
Where to start?
If you’re completely new to this, and want to learn as much as possible about blogging, digital marketing, and build a passive income stream for yourself in the process, I recommend joining the Digital Marketing Empire.
This is the best program for beginners in the world right now, as you will not only receive free training, but you will also see how to build a business that generates money for you over time.
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