Using time management tools for marketing your business can have a dramatic impact on your bottom line.
“It is the time you’ve wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
Finding time on a weekly basis to market your business can be a difficult task. 38% of bloggers and marketers say it’s hard to plan consistent content that hits their goals, and 22% say they can’t find the time to create. We understand an hour a week, or marketing automation software, is not an easy investment to make. This led the dream team to sharing these four free, low-cost, or high-reward time management tools for marketing your business today (or definitely next week if you’re a procrastinator).
Facebook Scheduler
Many of our clients were under the impression they had to log on every day to post something witty, informative and interesting to their company Facebook profile. That was 2012, welcome to 2015. The Facebook scheduling function allows you to create posts that can be set to publish at a later date. Users receive a notification when a post has been published, serving as a reminder to copy and paste to other social media channels. This process takes three minutes now, instead of ten or more. If you plan on using multiple channels with high frequency, automating this process with a tool like Hootsuite may be a more efficient option for your company.
Save 7 minutes/day x 260 work days/year = 30.3 hours saved each year
We start by using a Google Docs spreadsheet to get an overview of the content and then transfer to Facebook. While it is an extra step, we have found it more effective to have a visual history, post rhythm and color coded system to manage our posts.
Create Tutorials
There are two purposes to creating tutorials and videos for your audience. The first is informing them by answering commonly asked (or highly technical) questions about your products and services. How much time is spent answering phone calls and emails answering the same questions? How much time are employees spending explaining something that a well-produced video could have done a better job of? The second is generating highly relevant and sought-after content for search engines to find which can be more beneficial than saving a few hours. We’ll cover that in another post!
Save 60 minutes/week x 52 weeks/year = 52 hours saved each year
You don’t need to be Thoreau to write a blog post and your videos don’t need to be produced by Spielberg. Providing tutorials and a library of information about your products and services will encourage and attract a wide range of engaged users, positive interactions with your brand, and most importantly- satisfied customers.
Utilize Apps
Ditch your paper to-do list for a Calendar app. Schedule and track employee progress with iDoneThis. Access documents off-site with Google Drive. Bring high-resolution scanning capabilities to meetings. All these productivity and capability-enhancing apps are available for your smartphone. Even Adobe Creative Cloud is employing technology to “design from anywhere”, from any device. Ultimately these advancements in accessibility to technology will improve organization and efficiency by utilizing devices we already carry on a daily basis.
Save 5 minutes each day x 260 work days/year = 21.6 hours saved each year
Evernote is an app we highly recommend. It unites idea collection, writing, discussion, and presentation in a single work space. Tim Ferriss describes it as his “external brain for all note-taking, decluttering, research and more.
Content Management Platforms
Tired of paying a web developer for making minor updates to your website? Converting your current website to a content management platform will save you more than the annual expense of an outside developer. It will save you the time dealing with a developer to change a time or sentence on your website. It will save you the calls and e-mails back and forth when they misunderstand your request, and your secretary the time to cut a check. The right WordPress plug-ins can even help optimize search engine rankings. Content management platforms may be one of the best time management tools for marketing your business as it improves efficiency and reduces cost on many levels.
Cost of basic website with content management platform = $1,000 – $10,000
Hiring a web designer six times a year for two hours each time @ $125 hour = $1,500
The dominant content management platform is WordPress with over 22% of websites on the internet being built on it. It also a scheduling function similar to Facebook’s to preload news and blog posts. While designing a new website can be intimidating and costly, the ROI of rebranding and utilizing current technology is likely well worth it.
Contact us to learn more about technology to accelerate your productivity.
