As a self-employed journalist and custom content creator, I help my clients market their products and services and also teach marketing on the college level. But when it comes to marketing my own business, routine and discipline aren’t always easy to achieve, especially if my schedule is full.
This year, I decided to try to settle on some type of plan and schedule that I can employ regardless of the ebbs and flows in my schedule. I find that accountability, planning and flexibility are key to this process.
Goal Buddy Accountability
For the past five years, I’ve worked with another writer around marketing accountability. This partnership has proved invaluable in terms of keeping both of us on track through regular emails and phone calls. We usually schedule a call every two weeks or so to discuss our marketing efforts, including:
- Recent marketing challenges
- The results of marketing
- Plans for marketing during the next week or two
We also coach and support each other around our current clients and issues with potential clients.
Our clients have marketing plans – we should too
I’ve come to realize that I’m just as much of a salesperson as the guy down at the used car lot. Except, he’s selling used cars, and I’m selling financial writing services. To achieve any kind of sustained success in this constantly evolving business, I need a marketing plan and need to try to stick to that plan as much as possible.
So currently, I have two marketing plans: Plan A and Plan B.
Plan A is for when I’m in full-blown marketing mode:
- Monday: Research companies and contacts in my niche
- Tuesday: Blog for my own site and send follow ups
- Wednesday: Work on upgrading my own marketing collateral
- Thursday: Send out LOIs to targets uncovered on Monday
- Friday: Look through job sites for relevant ads and reply
Plan B is for when I’m really busy. It consists of doing one marketing thing every day. That marketing task could be as small as a follow up, sending out an LOI, replying to a job ad or reconnecting with a past client. It could take five minutes or an hour.
Finally, flexibility
If there is one important lesson I’ve learned about entrepreneurship during the past 15 years, it is this: as soon as I commit to a plan, my schedule changes. So Plan B might have to temporarily slide back to two or three things in a week.
But as long as I stick to some type of marketing routine, I believe I’ll continue to grow my business and attract new clients. Marketing regularly is the only way that I can do my part to ensure that happens. I can’t force clients to appear and give me work. But I can put myself out there proactively, which makes a big difference.