Are you trying to juggle too many marketing activities at the one time and getting nowhere.
You may have noticed that people who seem to achieve great results and are successful are often very organised.
They know what they want to achieve, how they are going to achieve their goals and then follow a path. They do not jump down side paths in case it is more interesting and they are focused in their approach which gives them time to ensure their marketing activities are completed on time.
I was reminded of this when reading The Marketing Mix blog post by Deidre Rienzo who is following a plan which includes a calendar with daily and weekly checklists.
Another blog post by Shirley George Frazier from Solo Business Marketing shared information on her daily schedule which helps keep projects progressing each day.
A third post is by Skip Reardon on Small Business CEO about the importance of tracking how you spend your time.
All of us have different ways of working that suit our personalities and habits. One way of achieving more in less time is what I call – Work in Progress.
Work in Progress is based on treating all your major marketing activities as projects. You break down each step so each month you will have a list of tasks that need to be actioned to implement your marketing tactics.
Here is how it works:
- Make a list of all your marketing activities, including the ones that are projects as well as your usual day to day activities relating to marketing your business.
- Break down the projects that you are going to do over the next 3 months into tasks, eg. research content for blog post, draft blog post, finalise post
- Put start and completion dates or just completion dates for each task
- In the last week of each month, list the tasks that need to be completed in the next month including the usual daily and weekly tasks
- Ideally schedule these tasks in your calendar or you can print them out if you prefer
Don’t forget to always overestimate your time for the tasks to cater for interruptions, phone calls etc. By completing this in the last week of each month means you are all set to tackle the next month’s work.
This is a shot of how it looks on paper and here is a simple Work-in-Progress Template you can download and use.
It really doe not matter what method you use, the important thing is that organising your marketing activities does help to achieve better results in less time.
How do you prioritise your marketing activities?
Susan,
This is a great visual tutorial to achieve success when deciding how to approach each project.
It seems that problems begin when a project is viewed as one massive part rather than in pieces that are more-easily managed, as you’ve described.
Personally, I know that my head aches when thinking about all parts together, but when I break down the objectives that accomplish the goal, the ache quickly disappears, and I can move forward.
Hi Shirley,
Your post actually gave me the idea for this article. I have found that when you start stepping out tasks it actually moves you forward to achievement as I find myself thinking of the end result to be achieved rather than the all the work to be done.
Great post. I have found breaking down larger tasks like this into smaller ones is a fantastic way to make progress towards your goal.
Thanks for your comment Jack. I have also found that this approach is useful if you are managing others. It stops micro managing and it gives others the responsibility and freedom to get on with their work.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.