Over the years, I have worked with or spoken to thousands of small business owners about marketing. One of the top concerns that comes up consistently is the fear that marketing will take a lot of time. Today, I wanted to address the top way to save time in your marketing, and it is a solution that can work in some way for most business owners.
I get it. You operate a small business, and you wear many hats. You are all things to all people when it comes to your business. You know you need to market – after all, that is how you generate sales – but the practical issue is finding the time to do it.
I hear you, and I have been there myself.
Before I share the simple thing you can do to save time in marketing, it is worth stating a more obvious first solution: Having a marketing strategy in place. You would be surprised how much time you can spend spinning your wheels if you haven’t formally documented a strategy. However much time it takes you to sit down and document the process, you will get that time back many times over by ensuring that what goes on your to do list each week is creating meaningful forward movement with your audience. If you want to start by reading more about the marketing strategy itself, click here!
You would be surprised how much time you can spend spinning your wheels if you haven’t formally documented a strategy. #business #smallbusiness #smallbiz #biztips #entrepreneur
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Once you know what tasks need to be done each day, week, month, or year, you have to execute them. And that part does take time.
So how do you save time in the process of getting your marketing work done?
The key is something we call “batching” your work.
Your marketing plan is ultimately made up of repeating the same types of tasks over and over. The specific tasks in your strategy may be different from the business next door, but you likely have go-to tactical approaches that come up daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.
Think about the categories of marketing you do. Are you social media marketing? Writing content or blogs? Networking? Email marketing? Speaking? Hosting a podcast? List building and doing cold calls or emails? These are only some of the things you could be doing, but start by identifying what types of tasks are in fact in your plan.
“Batching your work” involves doing a volume of one task in bulk at one time. Batching your work is your friend if you want to be more efficient.
Batching your work is your friend if you want to be more efficient. #business #smallbusiness #smallbiz #biztips #entrepreneur
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For example, if I know that I am going to do a certain type of social media post every week for a year, it will save time for me if I prep 52 weeks worth of that content today as opposed to doing that task 52 separate times throughout the year.
Why does this save time? I am still doing the work, yes. But, each time I come back to this task, I have to open up or get all the resources I need. I need to remember where I left off and familiarize myself with what I have already done. It takes my brain extra time to toggle from my prior task and focus on this new task at hand.
When you batch work, you save time simply by cutting out all of those elements. You may even find it easier to get into a groove when you have a bulk of work to do. Once you get into the flow of that particular project, you may find that the work itself speeds up, because you don’t need to think as much about it.
Can every task be batched? No. If you attend a weekly networking event, you can’t very well change the schedule of that event to accommodate your batching needs. However, if you network by setting one on one virtual or coffee meetings with new prospects or partners, you CAN batch it as far as scheduling them all on one day, so you are focused on that type of work for that time.
Certain types of marketing will need to be more timely and responsive to current events. That is okay. Not everything needs to be batched. But, if you take a good look at your marketing plan, you are likely to find several tasks that you can batch so all the heavy lifting is done well in advance.
If you appreciate efficiency in your work, this is an approach worth exploring.
So, think about your own marketing strategy. What tasks can you batch? Answering this question right now could save you a surprising amount of time throughout the year.
The post The #1 Way to Save Time in Your Marketing appeared first on Melissa Forziat Events and Marketing.