As you all know, starting and running a business is HARD WORK. Our team is growing, our clientele is growing, but guess what’s not growing? The number of hours we have in a day. So how are we supposed to keep our workloads manageable and still get everything done?
Planning ahead. It always seems like a great idea in theory, but if you don’t keep up with it, things can spiral downward quickly. Then suddenly all you’re ever doing is playing catch up and eventually you find yourself staring that big ugly burnout monster in the face. The good news? There are things you can do to avoid the monster! We’ve outlined some first steps for you to take control of your marketing plan and stay ahead of it so you never have to play catch up again.
1. Annual marketing plan
We know this one can be intimidating (especially if you can hardly wrap your brain around a single Instagram post, let alone an entire year) but taking the time to plan out the next 12 months will save you a ton of time and brain power in the long run. Your annual plan is going to look different depending on a number of factors, but each one should include:
- Marketing Outlets
- Sales and specials
- Themes
- Holidays & local events
2. Monthly social media calendars
You’ve heard us preach about planning your Instagram posts before, but it’s worth mentioning again. Planning your social media posts out a month in advance is the secret sauce to using social media as an effective marketing tool. Save spontaneous posting for your personal feed.
3. Auto-reminders
If you’re like us, you probably have a bazillion and one things going at any given time. Even if you keep a meticulous planner and never forget a coffee date, it’s still a good idea to shoot yourself regular reminders to keep your marketing plan on track. Want to make sure you have your marketing calendar filled out by the 15th of every month? Set a monthly reminder to go off on the 12th. Want to update your website header quarterly? Set a reminder that goes off on the first of January, April, July, and October. And if you need a regular reminder to take a deep breath, we encourage those too!
If all of that sounds like just another thing to add to your very long to-do list, please know that we can help you! Not only can we assist you in creating all of these things and more, we can also manage the daily, monthly and quarterly to-dos.
If you’re more of the DIY type, check out our FREE monthly planning kit!