Consistency is key when it comes to marketing. So why is it that we find it so dang hard to be consistent? Well for me its the pull of shiny objects, new ideas, new adventures that means being consistent is so hard!
But here’s what happens when you are not consistent with your marketing. You lose momentum. When you lose momentum your reach declines, your emails may be more likely to hit the spam box, your website traffic dwindles and then all of this hits your business on your sales! Yep you may not see it, but it’s a slippery slope downwards, on a spiral that you worked so hard to climb!
So how do you get consistent with your marketing?
I thought I’d do us all a favour here and find 20 ways to help you get consistent with your marketing.
Why 20? why not I say! But also I’d suggest picking a few ways to try that fit with your particular style of working rather than trying to implement them all at once. You can always come back for more.
1. Do things consistently when they are needed
This is the most expected way of doing things. Do your marketing activity as it is due. So creation of social media posts or email campaigns the week they are due to go out.
There are some people out there where this works for which is amazing. but for many of us (me included) this isn’t the case. If you’re not this type of person read on, and I’ll get you being consistent in way that suits you.
2. Schedule stuff to automate it
A lot of marketing can be scheduled and almost forgotten about. You can schedule on most social media platforms. There is software that enables you to do this, which is getting better by the day.
The trick to scheduling is to plan out a bulk in advance either months worth or 3 months worth depending on how topical your marketing needs to be.
I always schedule my marketing in layers, layer one is evergreen value content that is always relevant to my target audience, layer 2 is promotional materials and social proof and layer 3 is seasonal or topical. I know I can schedule both layer 1 and 2 far in advance if I have a plan for what’s going on in my business. Then I can leave layer 3 until nearer the time.
3. Invest in a bank of evergreen content
Having a bank of evergreen content is a must for all businesses.
There are two ways you can use evergreen content:
1. Firstly for the times where you just, don’t know what to post, you have a family emergency or you just plain forgot you can whip up a post or an email in no-time from your bank of evergreen content. Evergreen means that it’s always relevant to your audience so it doesn’t matter when it gets posted.
2. You can use evergreen content in your business to support you with consistency, by rotating it. If it’s highly valuable content that you’ve worked hard to create it would be crazy to just use that piece once. Especially if any new additions to your audience haven’t seen it. And let’s face it it’s unheard of for a piece of marketing to be seen by your entire audience. So by rotating it you give everyone an opportunity to see your amazing content and a refresher for those that loved it the first time!
The trick here is to build out 60-90 days worth of content so you have a good library of content, it still needs to feel fresh to your audience and then add and tweak it every three months based on the results you are seeing so you continually grow and improve your marketing.
4. Build out your email flows rather than sending weekly campaigns
Here’s one for those who hate sending out email campaigns.
If you don’t use a heavy dose of topical issues in your marketing then you can consider this approach instead of the weekly campaigns.
If you’ve a welcome series why not build it out so that you have many weeks worth of emails going out to your audience rather than just a few in a welcome series. This enables you to keep the simple conversation going with your subscribers via email and helps them build their knowledge of you, your products and services in an orderly manageable way.
A further benefit of this approach is if you spot any emails that bomb, you just take them out of the email series, so you will continually improve your email stats.
And if you need to write about something topical e.g. you have a launch to share or something else you absolutely must tell your subscribers – just send out another one on top! They subscribed to your list, and if they are engaging in your emails, of course they want to hear from you!
5. Make a game out of it
Have you noticed that things are so much easier to do when you’re having fun? Me too!
And I’m always looking for ways to make things I have to do either more efficient or more fun or else I know I just give up!
So how about making a game out of your marketing activities to help you to be more consistent. Often the challenge to being consistent isn’t necessarily the posting of the posts, or scheduling the emails themselves, it’s more the idea generation.
So here’s a game I play whenever I need ideas. This can be used to generate ideas for blog post titles, product ideas, social media content, email marketing content, leads.
I try to brainstorm 100.
Why 100? I hear you say! Well it’s big enough to think its almost impossible and it’ll keep you going for a while. Plus once you get to 100 you’ll definitely have a few gems in there.
So whatever the ask is, whether it’s content ideas, referral partners, leads, blog post titles etc… you name it, try and get to a 100, have fun with it and treat it like a game.
6. Have an accountability partner
When you are working on your own business it’s so easy to let deadlines slide and thing slip because, well hello, it’s hard to keep all those plates spinning. Plus also in the beginning you may only have yourself and the cat to rely on to get stuff done! That’s not to mention anyone scoffing from the sidelines about when you’ll get a proper job (We’ll that’s a whole new blog post isn’t it!).
So why not get an accountability partner. There’s nothing like having someone to share your progress with, someone else to motivate you to just get it done! You can ask for one my in free marketing facebook group here.
7. Time block
Time blocking is when you allocate time in your diary for a particular task and you do that task until that time block is up and then you move onto the next time block and task regardless of whether you’ve completed it.
Time blocking is helpful for people who don’t know where to start by allocating time to each activity it helps you focus for that period of time.
But the other bonus of time-blocking is that you know when the time is up you have to move onto your next time block (assuming your not cheating the system, I’m not gonna disclose why that thought came to mind!). This can sometimes give you the push you need to just get that piece over the line, done and dusted, so you don’t have to come back to it.
8. Narrow down your marketing by focusing on what works
We all know that as a business owner you have to wear many hats to just keep the wheels turning and the sales coming in. Sometimes it feels like running to stand still. So rather than do all the things every guru says, why not narrow your focus of your marketing to what actually works. to know this you need to be able to measure your marketing and you can find out how to do that just here in the facebook group. But don’t forget to ensure you have a marketing activity for every stage of the customer journey or your may find you prospective customers get stuck and don’t convert to sales. If you want to find out more about how to market across the customer journey I did a live on it here in the facebook group.
9. Be smart about your social media strategy so it fits into the time you have.
Yes it is good to be visible everywhere, but you need to consider the time you have available to market your business and what you need your marketing to do for you. There is no point generating more demand than you can cope with if, its taking up your time, energy and headspace from income generating activities. Plus everytime you add more into your marketing, the more complex and time it is going to take you even if you deploy every single way of being efficient. I would say that every additional social media platform you set up will take you a minimum of 1 hour a week to keep going and that’s even if you repurpose content if you want that platform to bring in results. So if time is the reason for you not being consistent in your marketing, then get a marketing strategy that fits into the time you’ve got and get that nailed first. Oh and if you need help to do this give me a shout, book a coffee chat with me.
10. Have a clear list of the non-negotiables
If you work out what the absolute key things are in your marketing strategy that make your business succeed have those as the non-negotiables and everything over and above that can then be optional. At least you know that you are keeping the essential stuff consistent, but the rest can fluctuate depending on whatever else is going on in your business and your life.
11. Set up recurring reminders on your phone
If you are like me your phone is the key thing that keeps your organised! I daren’t even think how I’d cope without it, I’m now so dependent on it. If this is you, then why not use your phone to schedule reminders for your marketing activities to help you stay consistent.
12. Use a Trello board
A Trello board is a great way for organise your marketing. You can create a system in Trello that reminds you what deadlines you’ve got and what you need to do. You can see everything at a glance and it can stop you from procrastinating over what needs to be done next.
13. Have an Idea hopper
One of the reasons my clients aren’t consistent in their marketing is that they run out of ideas. And if you had the ideas then maybe you’d be a bit more consistent. So a way to overcome this hurdle is to have ideas. So why not create an idea hopper, a place where you can store all your ideas whenever they are getting in the way of getting your marketing out there.
I keep my idea hopper in my notes on my phone and I just delete the ones I do as I get there. It doesn’t have to be fancy, don’t over complicate it. It’s just a list.
Then try and spend some time in the week just generating ideas, the more you generate the more you’re likely to generate.
14. Do something you love
If you are running a business you love or you’re doing marketing activities that float your boat then you’re more likely to do them. There are so many different ways to market your business. You definitely do not have to do what everyone else in your industry is doing. Do what you love and the rest will grow from there. If you need some help aligning your marketing to your strengths then get in touch, book a coffee chat with me.
15. Talk it out
Sometimes you have the idea, but when it comes to putting fingers to the keyboard the words just don’t flow. This can be a major block in your consistency. So rather than write it out, talk it out, to yourself or anyone you can get to listen. You could even use a dictation device to write it for you. Often you’ll find your voice is more natural and it’s easier to talk then it is to write.
16. Have a content repurposing strategy
Rather than create lots and lots of small pieces of content create a few large everything about this topic pieces that you an then split up into smaller pieces of content, be it email content, quotes on social media posts, list posts etc.
For example I plan to use this blog post as an email series for people who have a certain outcome on my quiz, I am going to write the list of things in a carousel post on instagram, I am going to use the list in a reel, as well as using it for the basis of a live with my group. Each piece will be different, but the bulk of the content creation work has already been done in this blog post.
17. Get someone else to do the stuff you really don’t like
So if you really have to do something as it’s critical to your marketing activities, or just zaps up far too much time, then consider outsourcing that work to someone who loves it. I’ve used online.ph before and I still do. I love that I can outsource at a rate that’s affordable for my stage of business, but I get to pay a really good wage for the person who’s doing the work. Make sure you do your research though. If you are going to do this treat it like growing a virtual team and seek people out for ongoing support or it just won’t be worth, your time, effort, money or theirs.
18. Reward your self
If you struggle to be consistent; how about planning rewards around it. Think about what your rewards could be for each week of being consistent. Once you’ve been doing it for 6 weeks you’ll start to see the results which should help to motivate you. Once you’ve been doing it for 12 -16 weeks you should start to see the impact on your bank account.
19. Batch creation
Batch creation is a bit like the 100 ideas concept and pulls in the principles of time blocking. With batch creation you can do one step of the process for many aspects of your marketing in one go. For example:
Step 1 Create the titles / headlines / subject lines,
Step 2 Write the content
Step 3 Create the imagery or media content
Step 4 Schedule
20. Stop doing things you hate
You never built your business to feel like you were a slave to it. There’s no point swapping out a 9-5 job for a 5am to 11pm one in the hopes that someday it’ll give you freedom. So if you’re not being consistent with your marketing because something doesn’t align for you then it’s time to take out the red pen to the stuff you hate, review your business model and your marketing strategy and shape it into something you love. And if you want some help with this, book a coffee chat with me and we can see how I can help.
Oooh and there’s more…
And yes you can spot two more down there. I’ve always been a bit of an overachiever, sorry about that! but hey, you get two more tips for free!
21. Use templates
Templates make everything quicker. Once I have done something 3 times I look to see if I can template it so it can make it quicker next time. If time is the barrier for being consistent then templates are your best friend.
Examples of templates I have and use to do my marketing
- Social media image templates
- Social media scheduling templates
- Email templates
- Social media hashtag templates
- Blog post templates
- Facebook live format templates
22. Just do 5 minutes
And if all else fails and you really are struggling to get it done today. Just commit to 5 minutes. Before you realise the 5 minutes is up you’ll have smashed through your to do list and you’ll be onto the next task
So there you have it, my, erm over achieving, 22 tips to help you stay consistent with your marketing. I hope you found those useful.
Which one will you implement? Let me know in the comments below.
Got a better one, why not share it in the comments below.
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