Marketing Action Club BLOG

One of the most common business questions is: “What do you do?” This is an intro into the 30 second introduction of course. However another very common question is a variation on the theme of: “How’s it going?” This can come not only from new acquaintances, but those you know well.

One of the most common responses to THAT question is: “Very busy”. That does that mean really? Of course it is a conversational statement, but is being busy, particularly in marketing, necessarily a good thing in its own right?

It is easy to make yourself busy. In marketing your small business there are countless things you can do with your time. To take a simple example, let us consider Social Media and online networking. Applications such as Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, Brightkite and others can be hugely time consuming. They may be a perfect fit for your business, but how do you make sure you are spending your time wisely?

This is true of all marketing activity. It may feel as though you are getting a lot done, but are you sure that the time you are putting in is really yielding the results you want, or at least going in the right direction? If you are unsure of the answer to that, you might be engaged in “busy work”.

There are a couple of things to bear in mind for all your marketing activities:

1. Planning – Do you know your target audience profile intimately? That includes their demographics, their issues, characteristics and where to find them. Make sure you have taken all those into account as well as researched the tools and tactics you will use and then committed to them. Ensure that you know what the deliverables and indicators of success will be and most importantly, make sure you know how it fits into your overall marketing and business goals.
2. Measurement – How will you know when you are making progress? Conversely, when will you decide it is time to adjust or change course? Without these terms of reference there is a real danger you will get sucked into doing the work for its own sake, without keeping the goal (usually increased revenues!) in mind.

Being busy can be great. Having a thriving business is great and will certainly keep you busy. However make sure that you are not engaged in activity that you really enjoy, but that isn’t getting results. Also make sure you know why you are doing anything on the marketing front and also that you are not avoiding marketing altogether and making yourself busy with less productive work!

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