We all crave higher productivity and punish ourselves each time we realize that after several hours of “business” we accomplished nothing. Marketers are by all means exposed to the danger of time waste. One of their main problems lies in finding out which activities deliver results and are therefore worth their efforts and which ones doesn’t.
Below we list common marketers’ time-management problems.
1. Content vs. Context
Problem: Marketers invest tons of time in creative and conceptual work. They write, design banners and infographics, invent campaigns. But do they think about the audience? Who will read or see it? When? Why? As Arnie Kuenn points out, context is more important than content. No matter how great, informative and well-written your content is, it can’t work if addressed to wrong people.
Solution: When devoting your time to a campaign, start from establishing to whom, when and in what context the campaign will be issued. Do you have tools and knowledge to execute it.
10 Commandments of Email Marketing. Download Free Ebook
2. Social media
Problem: Social media are full of paradoxes. From one point of view, it’s a space of personal relationships, and it tempts you to be authentic and handle each interaction manually. On the other hand, you see that it absorbs way too much time. On the top of that, conversations in social media rarely translate into sales.
Solution: Spending hours in social media can be an excuse, distracting you from more demanding tasks. Put an end to it! For the beginning, automate social media duties. Properly conducted, it won’t hurt your credibility. Secondly, as Neil Patel advises, focus on precisely distinguished groups of users and aims you want to achieve. You need to increase traffic to your website and sales, not just count likes, right? The third thing is to plan – it will provide a schedule and limit the time you spend on social media.
3. Lack of automation
Problem: You write emails to each user manually, you add new data to the database manually, you capture leads manually… it takes too much time, not to mention that such practice is prone to human error. Naturally you will make mistakes by long, mechanical and monotonous tasks.
Solution: Automate! Use Marketing Automation platform: it will not only help you get more efficient and organized but will help you collect all the data on customers and use them for personalized messages in all channels.
Also, check out automation that will improve your workflow. We recommend Zapier.
4. Not measuring effectiveness
Problem: Which actions and channels are most effective? If you can’t tell, you probably waste time and resources doing WOMM what delivers no results. To organize your work, you must prioritize, and to so you need data on how given actions work out. Instead, you operate blindly.
Solution: You need tools to help you measure the efficiency of your campaigns. Set KPIs and use analytics software (like Marketing Automation Platform). It will not only improve your productivity but will increase the trust of your superiors, allowing them to see the value you provide to the company.
5. Multitasking
Problem: You want to do everything by yourself. You don’t delegate, don’t plan, you just do, trying to accomplish as much as possible in the shortest possible time span. Result? Multitasking. Neuroscience (and experience) leaves no doubt: we don’t multitask, we just switch between tasks fast. Moving attention from one object to another can hurt your productivity because you lose time and energy on refocusing.
Solution: Learn to distinguish between urgent and significant and practice focus – maybe you will find something useful on our list of helpful tools for marketers. Also, start respecting your time and concentration. You don’t have to be connected and available all the time. Nobody will die if you respond to an email in two hours and finish editing the text you’re working on.
Now you turn: what is the most dangerous time-waster for marketers? With which do you struggle?
Follow
