The art of making time for marketing (no magic required)
--> and some surprising ways to do it
Ever caught yourself saying you can't "find" the time for marketing?
I hear it all the time from folks struggling to get clients. But here's the thing: you don't find time for marketing. You make it.
It's not some mystical resource hidden under the sofa cushions. It's about being proactive and carving out space in your schedule.
My last email was about being productive with your writing (and marketing generally). But it doesn’t matter how productive you are if you never actually carve out any time to do that productive marketing.
So how do you carve out time?
You won’t be surprised to hear it’s something I’ve worked at a lot over the years. And here are the biggest lessons I’ve learned - including a couple that might surprise you.
Get your pricing right
Pricing? Yup - absolutely.
If you're working flat out 24/7 (or even 40/5) just to hit your revenue goals, you'll never have time for marketing. Your pricing needs to let you hit those goals in 3-4 days a week, leaving time for other stuff.
This is a classic mistake new solo professionals make: they take their previous salary and divide it by 250 working days in a year and figure that’s how much they need to be charging per day. But the reality is you need to be working at least 20% of your time on marketing and probably another 20% on other non-billable activities. So really that equation should be target earnings divided by 150, not 250.
Schedule it in
Every week (ideally Monday morning), look at your marketing activities and schedule them into your calendar. Treat these slots like client meetings - sacrosanct unless there's a genuine emergency.
Typically what most people do is schedule their client work and meetings and then try to fit their marketing round it ad-hoc.
But in practice, there’s always more you can be doing for clients and there are always little not-really-emergencies that come in to drag you away. So you end up doing your marketing after you’re worn out or not at all.
Use your best time
For most of us, that's the morning when our brains are fresh. I always try to dedicate Monday morning to marketing. It sets the tone for the week.
Change your environment
When you need some deeper thinking time, it’s a great idea to change your environment. Get away from the desk for a bit.
I find coffee shops work wonders for marketing thinking. Find your spot and use it regularly. Your brain will start to associate it with marketing mode.
Keep it visible
This is one of the simplest but most useful tips for me. Print out your schedule and task list. Keep them in front of you. It's amazing how easy it is to forget what you're supposed to be doing if it's not staring you in the face.
And no - having your list and schedule on your phone or computer isn’t the same - it’s just not visible enough and it’s far too easy to crack on with other (easier) stuff instead of realising there’s important marketing work to be done.
Do marketing you love (or at least don’t hate)
This is perhaps the most important tip.
We all enjoy different things. I have fun writing and especially from researching new things. You might love networking and meeting people. Or making videos. Or doing deeply-techie SEO stuff.
If you enjoy your marketing tasks you’re exponentially more likely to actually do them - so use that as the guiding factor when you’re choosing what to do.
It’s no use doing marketing that’s theoretically 50% more effective if you dislike it so much you never do it. Less effective marketing you actually do wins every time.
And remember, marketing isn't some optional extra. It's the lifeblood of your business. Treat it with the respect it deserves, and you'll find (or rather, make) the time it needs.
- Ian
P.S. If you're struggling to make time for marketing, you might find my course on effective email newsletters helpful. It's designed to help you create engaging content quickly and efficiently. So you wont need to carve out quite so much time (and you’ll find you enjoy it much more). Click here for details.