One of the first questions new clients ask about marketing is ‘Where should I start?’.

There are so many marketing tools, it can be a daunting challenge. Once the brand is established, do you:

• build your website?
• create a trade show booth?
• send direct mail?
• refine your presentation materials?
• produce a series of print ads?
• rely on social media?

The answer is…whatever will bring you cash in the door fastest.

Clients sometimes forget that marketing shouldn’t cost them money, it should make them money. There will always be some low hanging fruit, and that should be picked first, it will:

• help with cash-flow
• have the highest immediate ROI
• have ‘legs’…and can be re-used again
• set the foundation for future marketing efforts

The old saying about eating an elephant one bite at a time is true with marketing, too. We just like to start with the tastiest bite first.

1. They are easy to write
   We don’t need to worry about things like facts, paragraphs or writing style. Just bang out a point and a sentence or two to convince the reader.
2. Content is king
   Or so I’ve been told. In the interactive world, impressions to your site matter. An easy way to do that is through blog post or articles. When you lack inspiration, just come up with another top 10 list.
3. They don’t require tricky things… like facts
   Research is tough, why bother, just make broad generalizations and people will believe them anyway (e.g. “Impressions to your site matter”). Besides, they are reading your post, you are the expert.
4. You are busy
   We are all busy, so why waste your time reading something that requires concentration. If you wanted to do that you’d buy a book or a magazine.
5. Twitter only allows 140 characters
   So people must not like to read anymore. One of the great things about not having editors and facts is that logical failures (like the one in previous sentence) go unnoticed.
6. People search for them on the internet
   See the chart below. I’ll leave the interpretation of the data to your imagination. But believe me search engines are important.
   
7. People retweet top 10 lists
   They really do. Honest. Heck here is a picture of a top 10 search results on twitter. Some of these have been retweeted.



8. It makes the reader feel smart
   Readers may think to themselves, “This is easy, I could have written this” (note, they are probably correct). So instead of a smug journalist, you come off as smart, but not-too-smart-for-his/her-own-good blogger.
9. Counting is fun
   We learned to do it as children, and unlike Calculus and Algebra, it’s something we actually use every day. People usually put a weak point in #9, to reinforce the strength of their 10th point. For proof, watch David Letterman’s top 10 countdown.
10. Top 10 lists can drive comments to your site
    People can think of one you forgot to include and say “Hey Brian, great list, but you forgot to talk about engagement. Social media is all about engagement these days”.
    If I missed any reasons, please do this below and prove me right. If there are no comments, I’ll just assume my list was perfect and you found no flaws in it.