I’ve had a difficult task in front of my face for some time. I’ve been supremely good at finding ways to procrastinate getting this project done. There’s the really good excuse: lots of other client projects that pop up. There’s the wimp out excuse: doing dishes, laundry, cooking… And the pathetic, non-excuse: Oh, I must comment on that post in Facebook!

When a project seems insurmountable (even when we know that’s not true), it’s best to chip away at it, one little bit at a time. This has a way of convincing the brain finally to believe the project isn’t as insurmountable as it seemed.

One approach: In The simple power of one a day, Seth Godin provides a great little list of simple things you can do each day toward marketing your business. If you’re not getting progress made toward your big marketing projects, make efforts toward the small steps that will add up to progress.

What’s a BIG marketing project? Branding. You know what it is when you see it, right? Apple. Mercedes. Target. Coke. The Home Depot. Versace. You have a certain expectation of what to expect under each brand.

Do your customers and prospects know exactly what to expect under your brand? More importantly, do you deliver? This is where some companies stumble. Their brand promise doesn’t meet expectations.

Content Marketing goes a long way toward achieving the promise for customers. Cutting through all the clutter is this fine, short post from Copyblogger on Why Content Marketing is the New Branding. Best of all, it has a dynamite infographic explaining clear as a bell which forms of content marketing are more complex and/or more expensive. If you’ve been trying to figure out whether or not to produce a video for your website or a white paper, their infographic explains the differences in effort, cost and results.

If the whole “Content Marketing” still has you at a bit of a loss, let me help: It’s putting out pieces of your expertise for prospects to digest. Valuable information they can really use! Is what you offer what they want or need? They’ll decide for themselves. But if you don’t put anything out, they won’t truly understand what you have to offer in the first place. Here’s one approach: In Zen and the Art of Content Marketing, Copyblogger reminds us that focusing on doing one thing exceptionally well pays off.

Finally, on the topic of marketing, for a bit of fun Sonia Simone offers a few simple steps to improving your marketing and your business in 5 Marketing Secrets of the Master Sommeliers. Note: You don’t have to be in the wine business to see how these ideas can apply to your business!

How about you? What do you do to tackle the big, insurmountable projects? Do you have a magic key to project success? Comment, please!