Too busy serving customers to polish up your website, online profile, or post on LinkedIn? You’re not alone. It’s crucial to conduct marketing now to build a steady stream of customers three, six and nine months from now. Here are three shortcuts to maximize every minute you spend on your marketing.

  1. Do less. 

The key is fewer, bigger, better. Not sure where to focus? If you sell to other businesses, start with email and LinkedIn updates to stay in front of your potential clients. If you sell directly to individual consumers, consider email and Facebook posts and shares to build a presence and remind them of your brand.

For those who think that email is dead, just check out the data about results and spending on email. Higher return on investment beats trendy, every time.

  1. Revise, repurpose, reuse.

One single email – about 500 words – can be tweaked slightly to update your blog. You can also pick out ten key points and use these as social media posts. Whatever marketing you’re doing, think about how you can repurpose the work you’ve already done.

An event or interesting article can be written up as a brief blog post, featured in an email, or used to create multiple social media posts. One presentation can be posted on Slideshare or edited to become a video; links can be social media posts; the topic itself becomes a blog post or email theme. Or, you can comment on or update content that you’ve already created and posted.

Pick the easiest one or two, and just get it done.

  1. Go with what you’ve got.

Don’t stop marketing while waiting for your new logo design or website update.

Our rule: go with what you’ve got. If you wait to perfect an element of your marketing or branding, your message is not going to go out – which means you’ll be hearing crickets in your sales pipeline in a few months.

These three shortcuts will help you shoehorn your marketing in around new customers, hot projects, and hopefully, your summer vacation.

June 25, 2014