Successful entrepreneurs and small business owners know that products and services don’t sell themselves. The truth is that even if you lack experienced marketers on your team, you must learn to market effectively. Still, many business owners worry that they don’t have any time to market and never get started. As a result, their businesses stagnate or worse, fail. The good news is that marketing isn’t just about big, expensive tactics. Many marketing gains come from smaller tasks that create forward movement. Setting aside just 60 minutes to concentrate on marketing efforts can make a lasting impact on the growth of your business. Here are 12 quick marketing tactics you can execute in one hour or less. Create an editorial calendar Research blog post ideas Respond to blog and social media comments Repurpose old content Communicate to your e-mail list Create a customer survey Record a video Batch post social media posts Share 3 industry-relevant posts from others Analyze your top competitors Submit your business to directories Check for dead links Let’s take a closer look at each of these tactics. 1. Create an editorial calendar If you want your content marketing to be successful and efficient — you need an editorial calendar. Don’t let the name fool you — an editorial calendar is a powerful tool that extends beyond simply scheduling blog posts. Editorial calendars serve as a structural backbone to your blogging strategy. They should be used to brainstorm, plan content, collaborate with others, and keep on track by following systems in place. Once your editorial calendar is set up, never again will you sit at a computer unsure what to write for your blog — you already have ideas and systems in place! Editorial calendars can be created in 60 minutes or less. Popular choices of programs used to create editorial calendars include Trello (we use Trello at crowdspring), CoSchedule, and Asana. 2. Research blog post ideas Your editorial calendar is all set –but now you need content to feed into it. This is the time to build up a log of content ideas. If you are just starting out, coming up with a large list of topics can seem daunting, but rest assured that by investing 60 minutes in this — you are actually freeing up time to be productive in other areas in the future. When brainstorming, consider the following: topics pertaining to your business niche date-relevant topics (think seasons, holidays, quarters) visit competitor blogs and get inspiration from their content take the lead from Google’s autocomplete when using keywords For example, we noticed that many entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners were trying to figure out ways to start a business. We were disappointed with the existing content about this topic. Most posts were short, poorly written, poorly researched, and importantly, not actionable. We developed a connected series of ideas that turned into popular content on our blog, including how to start a business, how to start a consulting business, how to start a real estate..
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