While marketing is an essential part of business, it can also be one of the first areas we put on hold when we get busy. Sure it saves us time in the short term, but with consistent marketing being the key to consistent business, it can cost our cash flow in the long term.
To help you streamline your marketing efforts and stay consistent even when you are short on time, here are three marketing time-savers you can implement without impacting your results.
One of the fastest ways to waste time (and money for that matter) in marketing is to not have clarity. By mapping out your promotions for the next three to six months, you take the last minute panic out of your communications and ensure your social media, newsletter and promotional content are aligned for greater results.
To do this, firstly identify possible themes for each month. Your theme could be around the different products or services you provide or want to sell more of, the time of year it is (seasons, Father’s Day, Christmas etc.), or trending products, services or topics.
Once you have a theme in mind look at the products, services or packages you want to promote (or need to sell) and the promotions, calls to action and incentive you need to use to get people to act.
Whenever you write content, whether it is for your website or a brochure, a blog or social media post you should be thinking of how else you could use the content.
Could a social media post be expanded into a blog post? Could your blog post or speaking presentations be broken down into several social media tip updates or an image/infographic? Could you expand your blog post for a longer feature article to submit? Could your newly revised social media profile also form part of your About Us page and speaker introduction?
What about the past blog posts you have written could you provide an update, follow up or a ‘top blogs/tips on [topic]’ post to get more out of your existing content?
One of the biggest hurdles for many business owners to get over is to realise you don’t have to do it all. If you don’t enjoy a particular area of marketing, aren’t good at it or are wasting too much time in it outsource it to another team member or professional.
If you do enjoy it, and you are good at it look to simplify, streamline and leverage your time through technology. Chances are someone has had the foresight to develop a tool, website, app, program or process to help. Search around, get recommendations and experiment until you find your match.
How do you minimise your time in marketing? Do you have any favourite marketing tools you use?
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Amanda is the founder of Velocity Media and Communications.
