Owning a business or being the only person in a small businesses marketing department will likely mean that you have a never-ending to-do list and are battling to complete many tasks, alone!
From producing social media content to writing email campaign copy or analysing your web statistics, there just isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done, not least to the standard you’d like.
How would you like to change all that? In this blog, we share five tips to help you keep on top of marketing related tasks while maintaining your sanity!
1 – What is your most significant objective?
A goal without a plan is just a wish, as they say. Defining what it is that want to achieve from your marketing efforts will help you decide what marketing tactics to use, how best to implement them and importantly, how to measure them.
Say, for example, you want to generate more traffic to your website, think about how you can do this and what benchmarks you can put in place to measure the success of your efforts. Will you use social media marketing to increase visits to your site by 10% each month? How about a Google AdWords campaign to generate five enquiries per month? There are a host of tactics you can use to reach your primary goal.
2 – Keep an eye on what’s working for you and what’s not
This is hugely important from a budget, time and resource perspective. As a one-man marketing team, your time is incredibly valuable, and the last thing you want to be doing is spending it on marketing campaigns that aren’t getting you where you want to be.
Knowing how to monitor your efforts and identify areas that should be expanded upon and tactics that should be removed is crucial to the success of any marketing strategy. There is a range of online courses available through Google, ECornell and more that offer certificates in a variety of analytical and reporting methods.
3 – Don’t overstretch yourself
Be realistic about what you can achieve and ensure that you have the time, the correct skill set and the finances to back up what you’re looking to do. Think about the hours you’ll need to complete specific tasks and then plan what you can do within that timeframe.
If you’re managing all of your marketing efforts on your own, it’s doubtful that you’ll have time to create content for four social platforms a week, produce an email marketing campaign every fortnight and a blog or whitepaper each day. Create a plan to implement a consistent amount of marketing activity that works for you and your business.
4 – Make a plan
Possibly the most significant piece of advice we could give. If you’re going to stay afloat, you need to be organised. Creating a marketing strategy document using Google docs, or using project management tools like Asana and Trello (which has a free plan), will help hugely and assist with keeping your projects and tasks in check.
You can create different calendars for social content, blog content and more, and schedule content to go out across your social platforms for the week using a tool like Sprout Social (our fave!), Hootsuite or Buffer.
5 – Outsource when you can
Asking for help isn’t admitting defeat; it’s called being sensible! If you’re struggling to keep on top of all of the marketing tasks you know you need to carry out, take a look at working alongside an agency or marketing consultant to help relieve some of the pressure. They’ll have fantastic skills and experience, become an invaluable source of support and will help you achieve your ambitions.
Our outsourced marketing management support service is designed with busy business owners and one-person marketing teams in mind! You can find out more about the service here, or if you fancy a more in-depth chat about your requirements, get in touch!