What if you took the time to create a marketing plan, but now you're so busy servicing your current clients that you're having a hard time staying on track? Is it okay to set the plan aside for a while? After all, you have enough business to keep you busy. Besides, you're not sure if you could handle additional clients right now anyway.
Marketing may not seem necessary when your business is booming, but your lack of marketing will eventually impact your business.
Staying on top of your marketing plan ensures you always have a pipeline full of prospects and clients, even when you're busy.
You may be busy right now, but if you stop marketing for three months, you may find yourself without clients because you've stopped the flow.
As an independent professional, I can relate to being too busy to market. The days never seem long enough to get everything on my to-do list done. However, as a marketing professional, I know I can't afford to neglect my marketing.
So, what's a busy person to do? Here are five suggestions.
1. Create a marketing calendar, if you haven't already.
Schedule all your marketing activities in the calendar according to your marketing plan.
For example, if you planned to do something monthly, enter it on the calendar once each month. Weekly? Enter it four times per month. Do this for every planned activity.
2. Hang your marketing calendar on a bulletin board or on the wall over your desk.
Make a habit of looking at it every morning. This way, you won't experience the "out of sight, out of mind" problem.
I can't tell you how many businesspeople end up storing their marketing plans in a folder in a drawer. That's certainly not a way to grow your business!
3. Incorporate your marketing activities into your weekly and daily to-do lists.
Add them to your calendar or PDA as tasks, just like appointments and other business activities.
I do this with all my marketing activities. I use Microsoft Outlook, and this is the only way I know I'll stay on track. If something is on my calendar, I treat it like any other meeting or appointment, and I complete the task.
For example, on the first of every month, a reminder pops up prompting me to write a blog post for one of my sites. This forces me to set aside time on that day to write and publish the blog post. It's a task like any other, and it's high priority.
4. Pick one day per month to review your marketing calendar in detail and look three months ahead.
What is coming up that you need to prepare for now? What do you need to transfer to your to-do list or PDA to ensure you don't forget?
I usually do this at the end of the month when I'm doing my month-end tasks, such as running sales reports, doing billing, and updating my marketing tracking reports.
Make it a habit to review your marketing when you complete these tasks. After a few months, it will become a habit, and you won't even have to think about it anymore.
5. Consider hiring an assistant or support person to help.
If they can take on tasks that don't require your expertise, you'll have more time to focus on revenue-producing activities. That's where your business grows. That's your job as a self-employed person.
This includes working with clients, developing products and services, and marketing them. I was amazed by the difference it made when I hired help. Nowadays, freelancers are very cheap because the market is saturated, so prices decrease with each new participant.
I didn't think I could afford it, but now I don't see how I lasted so long without help!
Once you find a way to get back on track with your marketing and do it on a regular basis, it becomes part of the way you do business. Suddenly, marketing doesn't seem like a separate task. It's just what you do to run your business. That's when it becomes effortless.
That's when you know your business will continue to be busy and profitable in the long term.
