As we bid farewell to the preceding year, we’re all looking forward to an industrious and thriving year ahead, marked by the global resurgence from the lock down endured two years ago.
Much like starting your Christmas shopping now, there are things you can do in January that will give your future self a huge helping hand and make your year that much easier.
Here are five digital marketing tasks and projects you can tick off right now that will be a big help later on.
1. Set up templates for emails.
Writing emails from scratch is so last year.
Take the time now to create templates for the most common types of emails you send. Encourage everyone on your team to do the same.
These could be sales pitches, introductory emails, quote outlines, requests for information, or practically anything else.
Many email providers offer the option of saving templates, but they can easily sit in a folder on your desktop. Even for relatively short emails, these can save you time and help you move through an overflowing inbox all year long.
2. Set up marketing automation.
Marketing automation tools take a little time to set up, and very little time to maintain. They also free up a huge amount of time as you and your team no longer have to spend the work day dealing with slow manual tasks.
Think about the areas where you spend most of your time, and which of these could be improved with automation.
This could include:
- A social media chat bot to deal with repetitive messages
- Email automation to follow up with customers
- Analytics automation to help you make more sense of your website data
- CRM automation to help you make more sense of you audiences.
For example, if you provide a service of creating customised or bespoke products for your clients, set up an automatic reply in your social media accounts – such as Instagram and Facebook – that are triggered against keywords like ‘custom’ or ‘unique’. This lets them know that you have received their inquiry and will get back to them for more information within the next 48 hours.
Make sure you monitor your social media messages of course, but this automation will promote customer retention and ensure you are not missing any potential leads through these channels.
One Nucleus report found that marketing automation improved business productivity by as much as 20%. That’s almost like getting a whole extra day each week.
RELATED: What is marketing automation and how can it help you?
3. Train and up-skill your staff.
How many tasks are on your plate right now? And how many could be taken by staff with a little training and up-skilling?
Perhaps right now you are managing a team of contractors or freelancers who help out with tasks such as content creation, research, or social media management. That’s definitely something an employee could do with a little training now and minimal management throughout the year.
This route to delegation is a win for everyone, as it will free up your time in future and provide staff with valuable skills and experience.
4. Make a back-up plan.
If there’s anything that the last few years have taught us, it’s that life – and business – are unpredictable.
We’re all hoping the worst is behind us, but it always pays to have a back up plan, just in case.
This should include your action plan for what happens in these scenarios, who is responsible for what, and the messaging you want to get to your customers. Draw on what you learned from the past few years and keep your plan in your back pocket. Just in case.
RELATED: Set it and forget it marketing for the holidays.
5. Get help when you need it.
Many businesses reach a point where they need outside help to continue on a path of growth – there’s simply too much work and too many diverse skill sets required for a single marketer or a small team to tackle alone.
That’s why you can take the time in January to do a little research, spend a little time talking with online marketing agencies, and finding one that meets your needs.
That could be Yellow Pages. Our teams offer help with everything from social media marketing to digital display, SEM, and more. Contact us today to see how we can make the rest of your year that much easier.
