Making Marketing Fit: Strategies to Finally Market Your Biz

Last Updated on October 24, 2024.

It’s a reality for many small businesses: small business owners are wearing many hats, you’re staring down a long list of to-dos and you can’t possibly accomplish everything on your own. Marketing is one of those hats that gets passed around frequently and can be a challenge for many entrepreneurs. You might find yourself wondering how you’re supposed to juggle all the tasks that come with marketing on top of all your other responsibilities.

It’s normal if you’re a solopreneur or small business owner struggling to fit marketing into your busy schedule. Or feel that marketing is taking up your entire schedule. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things you need to do. But should it take priority over some of the other items on your to-do list? Absolutely!

Let’s not put marketing on the back burner as a “nice-to-have” but not a “need-to-have.” It’s crucial not to let marketing slide into the back burner. After all, unless you’re marketing your business, no one will know about it. Making it necessary, we make time for effective marketing that drives new leads and new customers.

1. Create a strategy tailored to your business.

Your marketing strategy is the first step in all marketing activities. With a solid, well-thought-out strategy and plan, you will have direction in your marketing efforts and know what you are trying to achieve. Otherwise, you do not know what to do, when to do it, or why you are doing it in the first place. You will be sure to save yourself time in the long run as everything will fall into place and you won’t have to scramble around at the last minute trying to figure out what you should do to market your business today.

When making your plan, your strategy should be tailored to the company and its products or services and align with your business’s overall sales objectives. And to measure your strategy’s success, create achievable and measurable goals to back them up (some marketers like making these as SMART goals) and key performance indicators (KPIs) so you know if it’s working or not working. If not, tweak until you have reached the desired result or goal, for that matter.

Ultimately, you just want to make it easier when you find time to make marketing fit. You will know exactly what you are going to work on during that period of time.

2. Set aside time in your calendar specifically for marketing and turn it into a routine.

Only you know your work schedule best, so you should look at your calendar and determine when you should work on marketing your business. And then make that part of your weekly routine. If you don’t, you may find yourself working on it too long or not finding time for it at all. Plus, it’s easier to do the same task at a certain time than sit down and work on marketing whenever you feel like it. Time blocking it will give you focused, deep work time. So schedule that no-meeting meeting with yourself!

3. Look for your pockets of time within your work schedule.

You may have some time that you aren’t aware of; it just takes some creative thinking. Think of it as finding “pockets” in your schedule—and then growing them into bigger chunks of time.

We’ll give you some examples here:

• You might not be able to carve out two hours for brainstorming, but you can make notes on your phone for five minutes during your commute and let that multiply over time.
• You may not have an hour to research the newest website, SEO or social media trends, but you can add an article to Pocket or read one later during lunch.
• You might not be able to dedicate a whole day to developing a social media calendar, but you can block off 12 p.m.–1:30 p.m. on Mondays and Fridays for planning posts for the week ahead based on the strategy you created prior.

4. Don’t try to do it all at once.

The problem is that there are so many different marketing levers today that trying to manage them all while also running the day-to-day operations of your business can be overwhelming.

Truly allow yourself time to figure out what works best for you, your business, and your customers. Don’t try to be everything to everyone right off the bat. Don’t feel like you have to be everywhere at once.

While it’s great to have a robust presence across multiple platforms, it’s better to start small and grow over time than to try to do everything at once and not be able to establish a good presence. It takes time to build relationships and gain the trust of your customers.

5. Outsource if and when you can.

Outsourcing is a privilege, especially if you are beginning your small business. But if you do have the cash available and struggle to find the time or bandwidth, consider outsourcing pieces of it to make it easier on you. There are many great marketers who can help you create an incredible strategy for your business and/or help you execute it flawlessly. It doesn’t have to be done alone. Outsourcing can help lighten the load and allow you to focus on what you do best.

6. Be consistent.

Remember that time block we decided we were going to create? Be consistent with it and use that time consistently for marketing efforts. You don’t need to go big or go home with marketing; instead, make it part of your routine so you can stay focused and be more productive in what you do.

7. Be realistic.

If you only have an hour, don’t set unrealistic goals for yourself! Set smaller ones and build up from there. Do as much as you can in that hour, but make sure you’re making progress toward your bigger goal, not just checking off random tasks from your list that have nothing to do with each other.

And as you get started, when it comes to making marketing fit into your busy lives, there are several “best ways” to reach your potential customers and target audience effectively. Nothing is the best thing, the good way, or the right place – it depends on you and your business. The most important thing is to find what is realistic for you and go from there, but the following are just some ideas as you begin to make marketing fit.

• Creating a strong online presence and business website is a great place to start; blog posts can help increase brand awareness and reach your target market.
• If you do not currently blog or want to expand your audience, guest blogging on relevant websites and offering special offers, special promotions or free gifts are great options to attract new customers and build relationships.
• Utilizing search engine optimization techniques ensures that your business appears in relevant search results.
• Collecting contact information and building an email list enables you to engage with your customer base through email marketing campaigns.
• Social media marketing, including maintaining active social media accounts and posting valuable information regularly, is a good idea to attract potential clients.
• Staying active on platforms like Google My Business, Facebook, and Google Maps can help you find your target customers, answer their questions, and hopefully, gain positive reviews, but also do some market research on what is relevant information to your customer.
• It also can be offline – if you are a local business, don’t forget to leverage local events and trade shows for networking opportunities and showcasing your brand.
• And while it is not something I typically dabble in, don’t underestimate the power of traditional methods like direct mail, print ads, and business cards, especially for local businesses.

Whatever you decide is an effective marketing strategy for your business is okay, don’t do it all at once; take a deep breath, know that you can always iterate on the different ways and know that you. got. this.