From chatting to both peers and clients it seems that this is often one of the biggest challenges for small businesses, which don’t normally have the resources for a dedicated marketing person let alone a marketing team! We all know that marketing in one guise or another is vital to building and maintaining a successful business, so why do we all find it so easy to put off those important ‘things to do’?

One of the biggest reasons for things not getting done is procrastination! Some of us are just very good at it, but I also think that the nature of many marketing tasks may not help some of us. What I mean is that it’s great that many marketing activities can be broken down into a number of smaller tasks. 

Just think about social media posts or writing those emails for stakeholder marketing and targeted campaigns. It means that tasks can be diarised across the day or week. 

But is this a double-edged sword for some? Does it mean that it can be easier to feel able to just bump something to tomorrow or the next day? And then the next day!

How about just being too busy? There are loads of reasons this might be the case, not least for small businesses. As a business owner, you wear many, many hats so is it any wonder that sometimes something has to give?!. Or the hugely positive reason for being busy is that your business is booming. 

In this case, a simple hurrah is required in the first instance! Followed by a planning meeting to decide on a marketing strategy that might help you to take advantage of the boom and maintain your growth! 

But ‘too busy’ can also indicate a couple of other things that you can do something about.

#2 easy ways for small businesses to deliver their marketing 

• Share the load – if there is more than one of you in your business, and especially if you have a team, consider if your marketing effort should be just your job. Do you need to look at training others, or perhaps you need to learn to trust others to help? It could be great for you to have help, great for your business to have more consistent marketing, and great for your team to be given the opportunity to learn new skills. Someone in your team might have some fantastic ideas that they haven’t yet felt able to share. Someone may discover that they have a great gift for content marketing, engaging customers, or any number of things that could help you develop and deliver your marketing plans.

• Have a clear marketing plan, a list of tasks, and a time allocated in your diary, and provide focus. Clear actions are far easier to work through than trying to undertake marketing tasks in an ad hoc way. Trying to ‘do’ marketing without a plan can feel chaotic and is certainly reactive, not proactive and ultimately won’t achieve as many positive outcomes. Planning ensures that everything you do has been thought through, has purpose and has been put in as it’s something that will benefit your business. 

Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that being proactive, consistent, and accessible all help to create positive relationships with your customers. Ultimately those positive relationships will help to increase your sales. But for many, certainly small businesses, to achieve this help is needed, and having a plan and a number of people to take on relevant tasks will go some way to do so.  

Top tips to get your marketing plans done! 

 

1: Have a plan

Activity that is supported by well thought out marketing plans, with clear actions will always have a greater impact than not having one. By planning, you’ll ensure you are focussing on the right things, and allow you to more easily identify ‘owners’ of each task, to diarise and to  implement deadlines. Include how you are going to measure ‘success’ in your planning. 

2: Include your team

Bring your team along with you. Share your vision and goals. Discuss what everyone can do to help. Ask for ideas and input.

Upskill colleagues so they can undertake different tasks. Share the load. 

3: Focus 

Revisit marketing plans and action lists so you know what needs doing. Finish what you start before going onto the next thing.

4: Schedule tasks realistically 

When planning and diarising tasks, be realistic about what you can get done in your day. If for any reason something doesn’t get done then reschedule it, or ask for help from members of your team. If things are ‘bumped’ informally they often remain that way. 

5: Schedule time to review your activity and plans 

When you sit down to  create a marketing plan you should always include tracking impact of activity so that you can work out what’s working and what needs revisiting. Not everything will work for every company and marketing plans need to evolve to reflect that. It’s easy to just keep doing things the same way, but identify ways that you can use feedback and data to direct your ongoing marketing which will keep it being activity with purpose!