Hey there my gorgeous listener, welcome to episode 160 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.
Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!
If you’re a first-time listener, super super welcome, I am so pleased to have you here. I am your host Jenn Donovan, and, as you’ll learn along the way, I pretty much live, breathe, dream marketing and social media!
This episode is sponsored by Australia’s first and leading marketplace for rural and regional small businesses – www.spendwithus.com.au – so if you’re looking for somewhere to support small rural businesses this Christmas – jump on the marketplace website and support away!
If you know any corporate peeps who are in charge of buying Christmas gifts for their fellow employees or clients, I’d love you to remind them about www.spendwithus.com.au and perhaps they could support small too!
Alrighty, today, I am going to have a chat with you all about Christmas marketing. Yep – it’s almost that time of the year and whether your business is Christmas orientated, you believe in Christmas or whatever, there’s no denying that for many business owners summer peak season is coming!
And, I have to say, and STRESS THIS A LOT now is not the time to get too busy for marketing! Top of mind marketing is so so important when it comes to Christmas or peak season time.
If you’re not marketing to your audience, I guarantee you, your competition is, and they are winning the business. Not because your customer isn’t loyal or they don’t love you and your products and/or services, but because they have simply been targeted and remarketed too so often by someone else that it seems like the easy choice. Emphasis on easy!
You need to make yourself easy to buy from this Christmas/summer season! And remember what is it that you are selling – it’s not your products or services, it’s TIME and CONVENIENCE!
So today I’m going to give you some practical tips and tricks on how to stay top of mind when you’re going out of your mind with busyness!
Like I said before, now is not the time to be taking your foot off the accelerator with your marketing. Being busy cannot be your excuse for letting marketing go by the wayside.
Yes, absolutely, it matters what marketing you do in the 10 months leading up to the bat crap crazy season, but if you let it go now, you WILL miss out on market share.
Harsh, I know but I’ve seen it too many times before. Last week in November hits and I hear nothing from the stores I love, from the businesses I’ve followed all year because they are busy being busy.
And I get it. Don’t you worry, I SO get it. I’ve been in retail. I know what busy looks like, but I also know that a little planning goes a long way.
So, here’ some tips on marketing when you’re busy.
- PLAN, PLAN and PLAN
Bit obvious I know. But you need to plan. I am currently planning all my podcast episodes up until mid January – trying to record as many as I can over the coming weeks in November and early December so I can take some time off.
But really it will be time off from this business and put into my marketplace which will be crazy by then, so I probably won’t actually get much time off!
Even when I had a retail store I planned, and I planned some more, especially in November for December.
I dedicated a whole day out of my calendar in mid-November, planned out our Christmas marketing and got together all the assets I needed, and I scheduled my little heart out with any marketing I could.
- SCHEDULE WHAT YOU CAN
Once you’ve mapped out a 4-5-week campaign, schedule everything you can.
You can use third-party apps to schedule everything, I use Buffer.com and also Planoly. I also use sociamonials for Spend With Us because it posts as the business, not as an individual which is important! There’s plenty out there or you can simply use Facebook Scheduler if you only use Facebook and Instagram.
Write all your emails and schedule them too when you want them sent. For emails I use Flodesk – if you want a trial of that program – which is awesome by the way – you can use the link: http://bit.ly/loveflodesk
You can’t schedule everything though. You need to leave room for off the cuff marketing – but at least if you have scheduled marketing you know if you are super busy or super exhausted, something is happening and you know you are still reaching your audience you know, love and trust you (and keeping those pesky competitors away!)
- GO LIVE
If you just sunk in your seat at the thought of going live on social media – start now. Start today. Start getting used to how you sound and show up on live. Because I can tell you it will change your world when it comes to marketing when you are busy.
To have the ability to quickly go live and showcase a new product or a new arrival in-store, and do it in less than a minute most times, is going to make you mega happy rather than trying to do a post, find an image, think of an engaging caption and wonder which hashtags you should be using for maximum traction!
If you go live on Facebook or Instagram every day in December, and you have an engaged audience, I guarantee you, you will see the benefits financially.
Top of mind marketing – what’s the best way to stay top of mind, show up live!
So, there are my hints for getting marketing done when you’re busy being busy.
But that’s it for ep 160.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, which if you have listened to here – you hopefully are, don’t forget to subscribe, share this episode with another superstar business owner who’s doing the daily grind and would appreciate someone making their business simpler, and leave a rating or review to show how much you are loving this free weekly content.
Massive love coming your way if you do!
See you next week on the podcast for episode 161. But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.
But whatever you do,
…….. remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!
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