Every business owner knows that marketing is an important part of growth, but for smaller businesses and those without a dedicated marketing team, it’s very often something that is neglected. Most often, businesses will focus on marketing just once or twice a year – when they receive an offer for a free ad, have a conversation with a colleague, any time that they are reminded of it. Why aren’t you more active in your marketing?
Working with a professional marketing strategist can save you the headache of trying to catch up with your marketing. We recommend developing a marketing schedule with defined points throughout the year when certain deliverables will need to be completed.
A couple of easy ways to do this on your own – or with a professional – is to use a simple Excel spreadsheet or a Google calendar that you and your staff can access and change, as needed, throughout the year. Use the spreadsheet or calendar to document the following:
- Print ads
- Online ads
- Trade shows
- Webinars
- Email marketing
- Social media promotions and posts
By organizing your marketing in such a way, you can align your various efforts and ensure that you’re making a consistent effort to market your business throughout the year.
Let’s consider an example. You run an ad every year in the May issue of Insurance Journal. You enter that and all the other ads you plan to run in that publication into the spreadsheet or calendar and include the issue date, the topics, and the theme of your ad. Then you notice that a big area trade show is also being held in May. You have entered info for trade shows, including their dates, and you see that the timing aligns perfectly. So you may want to change the content of your May ad in the Insurance Journal to mention that you’ll be exhibiting at the trade show. Because you had it all entered in one place, you could develop a strategy that does double-duty!
Now let’s expand on that. You know that you’ll want to broadcast an email campaign and post to your social media in May as well. Now you have two sizable marketing commitments to promote. Schedule your email marketing and social media posts alongside these other items to ensure that you’re getting noticed – and getting the feedback you really need – in a timely fashion. You could even use the spreadsheet or calendar to assign staff members along the way so everyone knows what they are responsible for.
The key to this idea is to build it out far enough in advance that you can use the spreadsheet or calendar as a guide and reference throughout the year. If used consistently and effectively, an organized marketing strategy can be a real boon to your business’s success.
Need help with marketing strategy? We can help!
Comment (1)
If agents are going to use a calendar plan like this, do you think it yields better results to compress more marketing efforts in the months that are typically slower? Just the opposite? Or would you recommend a more consistent approach? Thanks!