Researching the latest and greatest ways to implement effective marketing strategies is usually not the problem when it comes to failed marketing campaigns. The actual implementation itself is generally what holds people up.

Many small business owners take the time to do their research, but then when it comes time to try out a new marketing strategy, all of a sudden there are a million more important things to do. Then they whine when their marketing efforts are working.
Many marketers and small business owners are just scared of the effort and pain associated with trying something new. Of course, you've heard the saying "No pain, no gain," which applies to marketing too.

You can search for kooky marketing ideas that will get your business noticed, but until you actually do one of those ideas, you won't get any results. This may seem like common sense, but it seems as though some marketers think that knowledge is power - knowing how to do something is not the same as executing it.

Jay Levinson, the pioneer of guerrilla marketing, suggests people do three to five things related to marketing per day. Studies show it takes 3 weeks to develop a habit. So if you can incorporate a marketing action into your life for 3 weeks, you'll make it a habit to implement marketing every day, and it won't be so hard to try something new.

How to get started implementing
First, you need to manage your marketing activities. Write down what you want to do and when. Make a chart to keep track of your initiatives. You can also use your marketing plan as a reviewing tool to see how many marketing projects you've implemented. You could also use a checklist to keep track of what you need to do and by when to implement an activity.

For instance, if you plan on mailing out product catalogs every quarter to update your selection, plan on calling the catalog printing company to make sure they'll be ready to print when you are.

Set up an accountability system. This can be part of your chart where you keep track of initiatives. Or you can set up a simple Excel spreadsheet that lists the date, action, cost, personnel used, target completion date, date completed and results.

By managing your activities and being accountable for them, you're well on your way to actually putting the marketing strategies in motion.

It's important to note that the planning isn't actual implementation; it's what happens before implementation. You can't say "Well I wrote down my plan for next month, so I'm already implementing my strategy." That's not how it works! Nice try, though.

Successfully implementing a marketing activity requires:
-       Focus - on the task at hand and the end results
-       Attention to detail - you need to make sure you do everything that is planned and leave nothing out
-       Managing - make sure everyone who has a task is working on that task
-       Delegating - do what you know how to do best and outsource the rest

Implementation is key to your success. If you can implement some kind of marketing effort every day, no matter how small, you'll be that much closer than your competitor to getting that new customer.