3 Baby Steps to a Marketing System Even You Can Maintain!

Can you relate to this? I often hear from women that I talk to that their greatest challenges in building their real estate, mortgage or other service-based business are putting together a do-able system to achieve marketing consistency and staying in touch with referral partners, past clients, and new prospects. If you can relate, this post is for you!

This has been a challenge I’ve struggled to overcome in building my business and one of the main issues my clients have said that they’ve desired to overcome while working with me. In my experience, the problem of consistency happens for two reasons, 1. Misplaced priorities; 2. Task overwhelm. Do you have any other stumbling blocks you could add to the list? We all likely have a few other choice reasons to procrastinate that we could add, right?

For now, let’s first deal with these two obstacles:

1. It’s not a *really* a priority – For the last ten years or so I’ve been writing, creating, and publishing an email newsletter for a client, a mortgage bank, that we send out to about 10,000 people each Monday. Aside from holidays, we have not missed a Monday in those ten years. Why? Because it’s a priority. I’ve made a commitment to that client and they depend on me to get my job done. And I have. However, when it comes to my commitment to doing the same for my business, like keeping up with my own marketing and writing regular content, it can get pushed off the plate by other responsibilities. How does this happen? Because if I’m really honest, I was not making it a priority.

2. It’s too overwhelming – I’m sure you’re not a procrastinator, like I am, but it is so easy to set aside projects that seem too big and overwhelming and instead gravitate to projects that are familiar and quickly and easily completed. I love checking things off my to do list! This is especially true for big, overwhelming projects that push me out of my comfort zone or I don’t absolutely have to do at that very moment. And consistent marketing and content creation can often seem like an insurmountable project. There’s so much to create, plan, and complete! Where do you start!?!

How do we overcome these obstacles – and any of the other reasons we may not be keeping up with a consistent flow of marketing and content? We’ve got to create an effortless plan that breaks up big projects into baby steps and schedules them with realistic time set aside on the calendar. Let’s break down this plan a little more.

Say for example you want to become a consistent blogger. We’ll use that as an example, however, you can use this plan for any other marketing projects you need to get done.

Baby Step 1 – Brainstorm all the tasks associated with the project.

Take 5 minutes and list all of the tasks you’ll need to complete this project from start to finish. For blog posting, tasks may include coming up with ideas, doing research, conducting interviews, writing, editing, publishing the post, sending out an email notification, posting about it on social media channels.

Baby Step 2 – Break up the task list into small do-able steps…

…that fit into the time you’re going to regularly allot to this project – batching where possible. For example, one small task might be creating ideas for the blog. Take your time allotted – say 30 minutes – and list as many post ideas – just ideas – for the next six months. Then go back and eliminate ‘so-so’ ideas and highlight ideas that really get you excited. And depending on how often you’re planning to publish – I suggest once every week or two – whittle down your list until  you have the right number for the next six months (either 12 or 24 ideas). Viola! You’ve got your blog content planned out for the next six months! Of course, keep the remaining list for future.

Baby Step 3 – Schedule your time block for first thing in the day – go for the early win!

Depending on whether you’re a morning person or not, schedule the time to work on this project when you’re most productive. For me, I do my best, most productive work first thing in the work day. I’ve found that if I put off my most important projects til later in the day, I’m tired, slow, and not so creative. However, if I schedule 30 minutes or an hour first thing in the morning I get lots more done and BAM! I get a quick win for my business first thing in the morning. I love the tone it sets for the day!

I’ve used blog posting as the example here, but you can take this approach to any of your marketing efforts. If you’re struggling with knowing what you should be doing to market your business or just getting started, I’ve got you covered. Simply download my Easy Keep-In-Touch Plan. It’s a plan that will walk you through the marketing tactics that are most effective for real estate agents, mortgage brokers and other service-based professionals in just 30 minutes per day.

Cheers,

Melissa

My passion is promoting, encouraging, and equipping women in professional services with authentic digital marketing, content, advice and instruction. If you’d like to learn more, visit my website where you can learn more and sign-up to receive lots of great marketing advice, just for you.