Marketing can be a time-consuming activity for even the most organised business owner.
If you are struggling to keep up with your marketing activities, here are a few time-saving tips that can help you increase your marketing productivity, and enjoy the same results for less effort.
Maximise your marketing materials
Creating marketing materials and content such as blog posts can be a time-consuming process. Once you have created them, make sure you get the most use possible out of them by promoting them on social media, and distributing them in as many places as possible.
Blog posts can be rewritten and adjusted to become newsletter articles, or emailed to clients as updates.
Use effective time management techniques
There are a number of time management techniques that can help you increase your productivity. Forward-plan your marketing activities for the year, so you know what you are going to implement when, can save you time, and keep you on track.
It’s equally important to review your marketing activities on a monthly basis, to ensure you are getting the most out of your marketing efforts, and not sinking time and money into activities that aren’t working. You can also save time by not allowing regular tasks to pile up.
Setting aside blocks of time at various points during the day to check emails, for example, can help minimise distractions at other times, and let you get on with the rest of your work.
Get everyone involved
Get the rest of your staff members involved in creating and building relationships with clients and other contacts, both online and in person. Sharing the load means more time for you to spend on other parts of your business.
By encouraging collaboration, you can help keep everyone motivated and inspired, and pass on some of the responsibility to other staff members. You might be surprised where your next great marketing idea comes from.
Consider using a central social media platform
Social media updates can be time consuming and laborious. An automated social media platform such as HootSuite can take care of your social media posting, while you get on with other tasks.
Automated social media platforms are becoming more widespread, and once you get the hang of them, they are generally very straightforward to use and can save you a lot of time.
Keep meetings short – but productive
Regular team meetings are a notorious drain on time. Have a list of bullet points to be covered, and try holding meetings standing up. Standing up can help keep meetings to the point, and help people stay focused. You can also try taking regular time-outs, which may seem contradictory to saving time, but going for a quick walk or out to grab a coffee can actually help increase your productivity.
Solutions to difficult problems often come while you are thinking about something else, and getting out of the work mindset for even a short space of time can help you find ideas for blog posts, or solve marketing dilemmas.
Being more efficient with your marketing doesn’t mean working harder or for longer hours. With a few time saving tricks, you can hopefully enjoy the same or even improved results, with less time and effort on your part. Running a business is hard work; don’t spend any more time on your marketing than necessary.
