A common conversation I have with clients is around the ‘too busy’ excuse. Often as a business owner, you spend much of your time doing the work you get paid to do for your clients that marketing often gets put on the back burner for when you have time. And of course, when you have time, you need to win new client’s as soon as possible, so it becomes this rollercoaster cycle with no real solution.

But there is a better way for busy business owners to get consistent marketing and here are some tips to make it happen and stop with the ‘too busy’ excuses. There are some great free and low-cost tools and technology that can help you get consistent marketing without breaking the bank. You still need a process so follow these steps to consistent marketing success.

Plan or strategy
What you need to do is create a solid digital foundation and this starts with a plan or strategy. I’m not talking airy-fairy, pie in the sky stuff. You need a practical, relevant roadmap that will get you from where you are now to where you want to be. It should clearly outline what channels you are going to use, your target markets & positioning, the specific tactics you are going to execute and also how you are going to measure it all to review and refine results.

Should V Could
Once you have your plan you need to separate the ‘should be doing’ from the ‘could be doing’ to declutter, simplify and streamline plus stop wasting time on the wrong tactics. You can’t be everything to everyone and trying to do too many of the wrong marketing tactics means you lose focus on where you should be spending your time. You need to start with where your audience is and focus your resources and attention on those areas. For eg: you might want to set up a podcast but your audience prefers to watch video so you’d be better to put your time into creating video content.

Execute
You only get results with execution. If you don’t do what is needed, then you won’t make any progress. Execution is key to results with anything in life including your digital marketing efforts. This doesn’t need to take you hours each week. You need to execute based on priorities & set deadlines. Continued execution will keep the momentum going, stop procrastination and get results faster. There are lots of things you can do in 5-10 minute blocks.

Automate
Automate your marketing where possible to minimise your “I don’t have time” excuses. Many businesses don’t realise they can set up automated emails and social media to get consistent messaging to clients, especially when you are busy doing the work you need to pay the bills. Automating your email marketing is a great place to start to provide consistent messages to your ideal clients. You can automate social media using tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to preschedule your content once a week. You can automated email marketing using something like Mailchimp

Use free tools
There is an abundance of free & low-cost tools, apps and software that specialists like me use to execute your digital tactics. These will save you more time, money & resources. My favourite go-to tools are: Canva (for creating content), BigVu (for Video), Hootsuite (to schedule social media), Mailchimp (for email marketing), Pocket (to save articles), Trello (project management), Zoom (meetings) and Typeform (surveys). Use tools like these to make life easier for you.

Be consistent
Consistency is the key to growth. Let’s use the example of fitness. To lose weight you need to consistently exercise and eat a calorie controlled diet over a certain period of time to see results. The same applies to your marketing. You ap of marketing tactics in one week then not do anything for 3 months. You will very soon be forgotten.
You need to have consistent marketing messages going to your audience to educate them and stay top of mind. You want them to come to you in their time of need and staying top of mind will help them do that.

So, the next time you go to use the “I’m too busy” excuse, think again. It is possible to have consistent marketing messages to your target clients without spending a huge amount of your valuable time each week on it. Now go forth and action!

Tanya Williams – Chief of Everything

Under Renovation