As part of my new marketing mindset (New Marketing Mindset - Part 1), I am attempting to be more disciplined in my marketing efforts. I am putting marketing tasks on my TO DO list every day and will focus on those items as I start my day. I have picked five (5) activities that I believe will have an immediate impact on my business (Advantage Printing and OBX Advantage variable data printing & marketing services).
Here they are:
- Read Favorite Blogs – Lots of these blogs are related to marketing, the printing industry, or just plain motivational. These usually get my juices following and make me think beyond self imposed boundaries. Sometimes this is also a great time waster as well and one of my weaknesses.
- Write Blog Post – I don't intend on posting to my blog everyday but at least three times per week. But for articles to be valuable and worthy of others spending time to read, it's going to take me more than 20 minutes to put something together. Others may be able to do that, but not me. So the plan is to begin thinking or planning my blog posts at the start of everyday.
- Build Database – I want to focus a part of everyday to building my database or email lists. This is the life blood of most businesses. Quite frankly, I am ashamed of the condition that my database is in. So time everyday will be spent on adding to or cleaning up data.
- Face-to-Face with Prospects/Customers – I live in a small town and while I love the opportunities internet inbound marketing offers, the original B2B means belly-to-belly. Getting out and meeting with customers and prospects face-to-face, belly-to-belly is still very important. Lately mundane office details have kept me from doing this as much as I should, but that's going to change.
- Write/Email/Phone with Prospects/Customers – With my time being limited, I plan a making an effort everyday to make more personal contact with my customers. By using email marketing, personal letters and phone calls, I will be able to leverage my time and make valuable contacts every day.
So there you go: I plan to get up and get out. I am going to break bad habits and not let the typical busy work bury me. Marketing has to be a priority and not something you just "get around to".
Unfortunately, as an independent business owner, most of the time you don't get help in this area. A small staff has an overload of work on their desk already. Heck, just trying to figure out if "they" are being efficient is one of the things that prevents me from being efficient. Arrrgh! It never ends!
We talk about team this and team that, but when it comes down to ME doing the marketing…I'm a YOYO (=you're on your own). You have to be your own coach. No team.
Hey, how about some Twitter coaches. Anyone interested? @davidamoore
