Marketers all over the world understand that time is precious. Some days we are on top of our game, while other days seem to slip through our grasp. On those days when there simply aren’t enough hours in the day, we often find ourselves stressing about deadlines and wishing we had been better prepared.
Below we have outlined some time-saving tips you can use to get ahead of your schedule and reduce unnecessary stress.
Define Your Audience
First and foremost, you need to know your audience. You need to know the different demographics, such as the age, location, career, and personality of each segment of your audience. Knowing your audience gives you a clear idea about what type of content to publish, and when.
You can gain insight into your audience by:
- Monitoring your competitors (similar businesses)
- Web analytics
- Social media analytics
- Customer feedback
Quality Over Quantity
High-quality content is more important and effective than a large quantity of poor-quality, irrelevant content. You don’t need an extensive archive of blogs, newsletters, articles, and social media updates to show off your business. More effective is content that is relevant, engaging and high in quality.
Consistency is also key to marketing success. Quality doesn’t only refer to the quality of your blog content, but also your delivery. If you post content three days in a row and then go silent for two weeks, you are unlikely to yield positive results. However, if you post three days a week, and repeat for every week, you demonstrate professionalism and reliability, which can boost your business growth.
Create a Content Calendar
Create a content or editorial calendar to plan your schedule weeks or months in advance. Calendars help you stay on top of your weekly posts and give you a great overview of your campaign. Among a sample group of marketers, those whose campaigns were most successful were those who had put a clear content marketing place. (ContentMarketingInstitute)
You don’t need to plan too far in advance, It may seem like planning a year in advance is a great idea, but marketing trends change quickly, and you might find yourself rearranging and adjusting your calendar if you plan too far in advance. Start with just a few weeks or months and see the benefits from there.
Plan in advance to prevent deadline day stress. Procrastination is a productivity killer. If you need to submit new topics you have nothing planned on the day, you might find yourself stressing out. Stress, like procrastination, is also a productivity killer. (Business) If you are frequently stressed about deadlines, the quality of your work might also take a hit. To do your best work, and be your healthiest self, plan ahead.
Repurpose Content
It’s important to be consistent with your posting schedule, but you don’t need to create and publish new content with every post. You can reshare existing content to remain consistent. Research has found that repurposed content can yield up to a 300 percent increase in traffic volume. (DuctTapeMarketing) This also allows new followers and customers to read content that they might have missed.
If you are going to repurpose, remember to refresh. Check your blogs and articles for facts and statistics that might be outdated. If you add a status update to your posts, take a fresh angle when using older content. There may be key points that you can highlight in your status update – key points that may not have been emphasised the last time around.
You can also repurpose content by changing its form. For example, if you have an informative long-form blog post, consider how it could be altered. You could break the blog up into a listicle or a how-to blog.
Video content and infographics are growing in popularity. Transform a blog post into a video or well-designed infographic to give your older content a new look. Videos and infographics are effective content marketing tools because they offer a simple user experience (UX) and increase engagement rates. (Square2Marketing)
Compile Your Ideas
Take some time to compile a list of ideas for future content. Whether or not you use all of those ideas doesn’t matter – what’s important is that you have ideas ready to go. If you scramble for content ideas at the last minute, it’s unlikely that they will meet the standard your audience is expecting. To fulfil your audience’s wants, needs, and expectations, have a list of quality content ideas and themes ready to begin working on.
In Conclusion
To save time with your marketing efforts, and reduce the stress of deadlines, use the above tips. These tips will help you prepare for those days that aren’t long enough to get everything done. As mentioned earlier, stress takes a toll on our health. Even though it can motivate us, it ultimately makes us less productive. With the above tips, you should be able to save time and re-allocate it somewhere more productive.
