The business world is constantly evolving, so it is always important to check in with your internal processes and marketing effectiveness. As we approach the mid-point of 2021, it’s a great time to prep for what’s next. Below are tasks you can do to make sure your upcoming marketing efforts are as efficient as possible.
Get “e-organized”
As most days are filled with responding to emails, downloading files, and creating new files, there isn’t usually a dedicated time for document management. Use the end of the quarter as a reminder to clean up files including email and DM inboxes, local and cloud files, and any online tools such as Canva, Mailchimp, and WordPress. File and backup any important items and delete any that that are no longer needed or are duplicate copies. Once this cleanup is part of the ongoing plan, each quarter should be a shorter process.
Set intentions for the next quarter
Goal setting should be common practice as an employee / manager as well as goal setting for a business. However, creating a list of intentions is just as important. What’s the difference between intentions and goals? Intentions are the plans to get to goals. “I intend to [insert intention] to reach my [measurable goal].” For instance, I intend to learn more about video editing, so I can increase my YouTube followers by 25%. Separately, while goals should always be measurable, intentions can be non-measurable. An intention to learn more about video editing could simply be to learn a new skill for personal/professional development.
Recap marketing and business results
Lessons learned are crucial to any business – whether it is a Fortune 100 company or a microbusiness. The point is to review marketing and business results against the backdrop of you goals, gather key insights and learnings, and formulate next steps based on this information. Whether it is a formal deck or a working Google doc, the information should be the same. Note, depending on the type of business, lessons learned can also be collected on a less frequent basis. These also do not replace individual campaign reviews; they are a compilation of campaigns for a “big picture” view.
Review internal processes
Similar to getting organized, taking the time to evaluate individual and internal businesses processes on an ongoing basis helps improve long-term efficiency. For instance, the accounting and time keeping process can move from Word docs and spreadsheets to an online tool such as QuickBooks or FreshBooks as more customers are acquired or employees are added to the team. Or from an individual standpoint, answering emails throughout the day may cause unintended inefficiencies, so potentially scheduling time blocks everyday to respond to messages may be more efficient.
Take the time to do the “no-time” task(s)
Who doesn’t wish for an extra five or fifty minutes every day to complete tedious tasks? Oftentimes these tasks are simple and would take only a couple of minutes if that time could be dedicated to the task. Clean up that list by taking the time at the end of the quarter to cross at least one off – and like the other tips, the more regularly this is done, the easier it gets each time.
There are four weeks left in June, so there is still time to get these five tasks done. 😀
Kirwei Lo Consulting 