I've been on a Wendell Berry kick lately. If you aren't familiar with Wendell Berry, he's an agrarian poet and novelist who frequently writes about the benefits of sustainable agriculture, healthy communities, connection to place, good work, reverence, and the interconnectedness of life. I highly recommend checking out some of his work. Even if you aren't an agrarian, like I'm not, he'll connect with you.

Recently, I read his short essay, Contempt for Small Places, in which he talks about the immense value that small things have on the overall health of the larger things they're connected to.

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The health of the oceans depends on the health of rivers; the health of rivers depends on the health of small streams; the health of small streams depends on the health of their watersheds. The health of the water is exactly the same as the health of the land; the health of small places is exactly the same as the health of large places...

We cannot immunize the continents and the oceans against our contempt for small places and small streams. Small destructions add up, and finally they are understood as parts of large destructions.

- Wendell Berry, Contempt for Small Places

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You see, there's an interconnectedness between seemingly insignificant things and the efficacy of strategies used to attain a desired final product. Taking out the small things will render an inferior version of the end goal; so, by extension, grandiosity and fruitfulness are, often times, found in a series of small things which work together to accomplish the main objective.

All this can be summarized with three words: small things matter.

The same is true with your marketing strategies. 

In order to achieve your business goals, you can't bypass putting in time and effort or neglect marketing channels without first experimenting with them.

Sure, if your goal is to get a lot of likes on your Facebook page, you can buy them. If your goal is to maintain instead of grow, you can follow what everyone else is doing in your community. These practices aren't giving the small things room to thrive, though, so the end result will be crippled.

There are such things as quick wins, but if your whole marketing strategy is built around quick wins, it won't be sustainable.

My advice to you and your business: take the time to learn and implement. Build a foundation that's strong, that can withstand time. It may seem tedious at times, but your efforts will build upon each other and take solid roots. 

There are several ways I recommend doing this:

Seek education

In order to experiment with different strategies, first you need to know what they are and how to use them. Marketing trends are constantly changing, so if you aren't putting in the time to keep up with them, you're going to fall behind. The foundation that will keep you relevant is, often times, found in having the ability to accommodate changes.

Keyword research

What is your audience searching for? What pain points are they experiencing? Sit down with your team and have an open-table discussion about common phrases or words your ideal customers are searching for. 

Rank for keywords

Depending on what keywords you're trying to rank for, this step takes patience. Begin blogging, including keywords in the title, body, and meta description of your blog. Create offers around the keywords you're trying to rank for and support these offers with relevant blogs and other content.

Location services

If you aren't taking advantage of location services, you're missing out on a huge opportunity. You want to rank higher in search results, right? If you have a great product, but it doesn't seem to be showing up in searches, this is a great way to get found. To get started optimizing your location listings, just click below and we'll do a free scan for you.

So what exactly will our power-listing software do? It will register your location(s) with over 90 sites (Yelp, Google +, Whitepages, etc.), update all the sites instantly, monitor your reviews, and suppress any duplicate listings.

Rethink your website

Your website is working 24/7 for you. Why not optimize it using growth-driven design?

Growth-driven design is a new approach to web design aimed at creating a peak-performing website, with less waste, in half the time. Instead of trying to cram all the work required to create a new website into a few months and then crossing your fingers and praying it has the desired effect, growth-driven design projects are founded on the principle of continuous improvement. Why invest the big bucks up front and guess at what you think your visitors want when you can let them tell you themselves? 

The growth-driven design process focuses on many aspects of a website's performance, all with the objective of improving the user experience and driving more engagement. It minimizes the risks of traditional web design through a systematic approach that shortens the time to launch by focusing on real impact, and continuous learning and improvement.

Become proficient at every social media platform

Running contests is easy, Consistently reaching people organically takes strategy. Take the time to learn the nuances of each social platform.

Do you know what each ad objective is and which one to use to align with your goals? Do you know how to retarget? Do you know how to use the Facebook pixel? Do you know how to use advanced social search? Do you know how to create Instagram Stories ads? Can you use Ads Manager and Power Editor? Do you know how to make a Snapchat geofilter? Do you know how to A/B test? Do you know how Facebook's algorithm works? Do you know what dark posts are? Do you know how to target people who are similar to people who engage with your content? Do you have streams set up to monitor and listen? Do you know how to use hashtags to multiply your reach? Do you know how to use all these in correspondence with your website? 

These are just some of the small things that work together to help achieve the main objective. Remember, small things matter. I can promise you, the businesses that are taking shortcuts will experience a downfall, usually abruptly and unexpectedly. It takes patience and tenacity to withstand. So, invest time in the small things.

Leads are also the product of small things. Learn how to generate leads in our free ebook, The 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips, Tricks & Ideas. Already have that ebook? Try our other free ebook, How to Monitor Social Media is 10 Minutes a Day!