We get it, as a small business owner, you're busy, and you might find that you aren't able to spend the time on marketing that you know you need to or should.
However, in today’s fast-paced marketplace, if your company doesn’t spend time and resources to market your brand and services, your competition will take advantage of the void you’ve left.
Ask yourself (or business) some tough questions, “Am I leaving a void for my competition to take or am I going to fall behind my competition in attracting potential business?” You don't want to be in a position where you're behind the competition and have to invest in your digital strategy to catch up or compete when the market turns, especially if money is tight and the economy isn’t as great.
When times get rough and managing time seems like a daunting task, you’re going to need to be more creative and tactical to generate quality business, so you are able to make a digital marketing strategy that impacts your business.
In the small and mid-size business community, company leaders are responsible for multiple functions, from CEO to Sales to Marketing (and many more). Most people who are running a business wear numerous hats, which means juggling time for marketing is often daunting and sometimes non-existent. Marketing though is a much-needed part of a company to keep things moving forward, and it’s genuinely an engine that propels a business by assisting leads through the buying process into becoming customers.
So, when days consist of meetings and the other priorities of a business, how do you find time for marketing? We’ve got some tips to help make the most of the time you have!
While business operations are essential, keep the perspective that marketing drives leads to your business. Operations will come to a grinding halt if you have no leads coming in from marketing efforts. Without marketing, you won’t have clients to serve your customers to purchase your goods!
Another critical component that keeps leaders from marketing is that some people don’t like to market. If you’re one of these business owners, who doesn’t enjoy marketing, it’s often difficult to prioritize it, despite knowing its crucial role in growing your business. The more you delay marketing activities, the more guilt and anxiety accumulates. By making a little time for marketing on a regular basis, you won’t be facing a mountain of work later or playing catch-up with your competitors.
To get started, stop wasting time. While that phrase is simple to say and even easier to read, it’s quite a bit harder to grasp and fulfill. How do you stop wasting time and work more effectively?
Focus on things that move the needle. Take a look at your current marketing efforts: are there activities that you keep doing despite never seeing measurable results? Quit doing those things. When you focus on putting energy into the things that help your business grow, you'll see a vast change in the impact of your marketing. Your mentality toward it will follow.
To maximize time and marketing efforts, sometimes all you need are a few improvements to your process. Here are three steps that help your marketing and ultimately, your time management:
How much time should you spend? That question is asked continuously by marketers, strategist—you name it—it’s probably wondered at least once a quarter. In short, always be thinking about your marketing efforts, especially if you’re running a small business, because you are the marketing department!
Before jumping into finding the time to spend on marketing collateral, you’ll want to know how much time is required to ensure you get everything done without wasting hours or days. In the business world, the Pareto Principle is a crucial component to getting things done. Coined by Joseph M. Juran, in 1941, the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) utilizes information collected by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, which states that:
While the 80/20 rule is good for businesses (and frankly, life in general), if you want to invest in the growth of your company, we suggest dividing your time by 60/30/10. Spend 10% of your time devoted to business management, 30% to providing quality products and services, and finally, 60% of your time for marketing and sales:
It’s no use spending time on production or management if you have no incoming orders! 60% sounds like A LOT, but you'd be surprised at how much you are already doing without an established plan that actually fits into this category. We call this bucket of time “marketing,” but really, it includes any activity that contributes to attracting and engaging your customers. Most likely, you are already spending at least half of your time drumming up new business. We’re suggesting that you spend just a little bit of that time dedicated to marketing efforts!
Sometimes when goals are broad, and there are small teams to complete said goals, organization and time management might not align with objectives to get projects done. If the time isn’t there for marketing, you’re not going to use the skills and expertise to grow your business effectively. At this point, the 60/30/10 rule or even the 80/20 rule is null and void. How do companies accomplish these tasks when there is no time to spare? Simple, they either hire internally, or they choose to outsource with a company which helps their marketing effort (so owners focus on growth).
You bet! Let’s take a look at Denamico as a handy example: 60% of our time is spent on marketing (including sales/outbound promotion/inbound efforts). These activities include blogging, content offers, strategy, social media, building workflows, landing pages for our Denamico offers, Blueprint work, as well as all of our outgoing sales and networking efforts. We spend 30% of our time actually "making" the client deliverables (workflows, blogs, offers, CRM builds, SEO improvements). Our final 10% of time is spent managing the business, which includes all of our internal meetings (L10, Leadership, etc.) and operations work that is just focused on running Denamico—not client based.
In a growth agency like Denamico, our employees have specialized roles which means not every person will spend 60% of their time “marketing,” (some more, some less depending on the position). What’s more important is that Denamico follows the 60/30/10 rule as a whole.
If you’re a small business with a one-man-band-type operation, your personal daily/weekly breakdown should follow this 60/30/10 rule as you ARE the whole business.
Make sure you have your schedule planned (do this with a project management tool like Jira, Trello, or Basecamp) to accommodate marketing into your day-to-day activities. It’s also important to think about your budgetary needs, the scale of the project, and any other objectives. You should be able to work around deadlines and time allowances when you know how long a task takes. It’s also excellent to establish limits so that marketing seems less overwhelming!
One thing to note is that this fantastic 60/30/10 rule is also perfect for budgeting your marketing spend. As an example, Logically following the "Budget" chart, if you have $200 to spend: Spend 1 hour of your time (paying yourself $20/hr) coming up with a strategy (10%), pay a writer to spend 3 hours writing an article at $20/hr (30%), and spend $120 on digital advertising.
When thinking about the rule set from above, how does it apply to your weekly outlook and new content? We’ve compiled an easy Monday through Friday schedule to ease you into marketing!
Monday: Schedule three social media posts throughout the day at different intervals.
Tuesday: Write and post one blog to your site.
Wednesday: Add fresh, new content to your social accounts.
Thursday: Respond to comments on blogs and social posts.
Friday: Check analytics and metrics for traffic on your social channels, website, and blogs.
Weekly: Find influencers in your industry and build relationships through networking, think of ways to repurpose content, and connect with clients at the beginning and end of a project.
Making time for marketing in your busy schedule is possible. Combine a positive mindset, prioritization, organization, and scheduling to get your marketing in tip-top shape! Stop working on things that aren’t benefiting your company and reinvest that time into new, measurable strategies. Once you achieve time management, your marketing is sure to be more effective and creative.
Still not finding the time for marketing? Denamico is a Twin Cities growth agency specializing in marketing. We’re ready to get your projects moving so that you can see value, growth, and unique content to generate leads. Schedule a meeting today to consult on what we can do for your team or take a look at our marketing checklist to get you started on finding time for marketing!