As a small business owner, your days are filled with meetings to attend, task lists to complete, and hundreds of other pressing items that all seem to need your attention right now. Oftentimes, marketing doesn’t make the cut. But there are quick, easy ways to accomplish your marketing goals in 10 minutes or less.
Here’s 12 easy marketing tasks you can do in 10 minutes:
- Go to your last email newsletter and find your open rate (the percentage of people who opened your email). Email marketing programs track this rate by taking the number of opened emails (calculated by interactions with an email server, such as clicking a link or downloading images and dividing it by the total of emails that didn’t bounce back.) Then, go here and see how your open rate compares to the average for your industry.
- Go into your shopping cart software and find the people who have purchased from you more than once.
- Write a thank-you note to someone who has helped you in your business, or who has inspired you to succeed.
- Get your latest revenue and expense reports and see how much profit you’ve made in the last 12 months. Which months are strongest for you?
- Get your latest revenue report and see which product or service makes the most profit.
- Compare your logo to the colors on your website. Do they match? Are they consistent?
- Compare the photos and graphics you use on your social media platforms. Do they match? Are they consistent with your brand, as well with as the photos and graphics you use on your website?
- Create a “good girl” or “atta boy” folder. Whether it’s a physical folder or one in your email program, create a place where you can store testimonials and rave reviews from your fans. Such a folder has two purposes: It’ll be the well from which you can draw testimonials for your website (with permission, of course). And, even more important, it’ll give you inspiration on those days when life is beating you down.
- Look at the tasks on your to-do list for today and tomorrow. Which business goals are they associated with? Are you doing the best tasks you can, today, to reach your goals tomorrow?
- Ask yourself, when was the last time you increased your rates? Many people resisted raising prices during the recession for fear they’d lose business. But you’ve become more of an expert in your field over that time, and therefore, you’re worth more. So, what’s stopping you from raising your fees? What are the potential rewards if you DO raise them?
- Think of one objection or question that prospective customers might have about buying from you and craft a response to it.
- Write 10 possible headlines for your next article, or 10 possible titles for your next speech or class. Choose the one that’s most powerful and compelling to your audience. (Hint: the more you write, the better they get!)
Each of these tasks can help you achieve your business goals. You may find things that need your immediate attention, like mismatched web graphics. Perhaps your email open rate is low compared to your industry, so you need to freshen up your newsletters. By performing just one of these quick steps, you’re saving yourself time in the long run.
Self-Quiz: Is It Time to Re-design Your Website?
Now I feel better! Definitely, these are do able with my timetable. Thanks!
When you’re a busy entrepreneur, you need to find those small, 10-minute slices of time to get one simple task done. By the end of the week, you would have done nearly an hour of marketing, right, Caroline? 🙂
Great tips, and very practical. One more thing I would add to the list: if your business has a blog, make sure you comment on AT LEAST ONE other blog each day. It shouldn’t take much more than 5-10 minutes but it helps to drive traffic to your site (as well as start conversations with like-minded thought leaders in your field — win/win!).
Great tip, Jose. Thanks for adding it to the list! 🙂
Excellent 12! So doable a person may not even think about how much you can get done in 10 minutes. Thanks, Karyn.
You’re welcome, Bea and Jeannie. I feel that ideas are only helpful if you can DO something with them. 🙂
Karyn,
You do the best articles and ideas. These are so practical and doable – and important. I will incorporate them into my actions. Thank you!
Hey Karyn. Great blog post. I love that you always remind people to pay attention to stats because they tell the story about what is happening in your business. Too many online business owners completely overlook this which as we both know is a crucial part of running a business. Thanks for laying it out so clearly.
Thanks for the doable ideas, Karyn. You write such great articles. I for one do read them.
Thanks, Karen, for letting me know you read the articles! It’s always good to hear that people do read the articles and find them helpful.
That is really a great post. Thanks.
Excellent and nicely down-to-earth recommendations. I especially like collecting the atta-boys/girls, because they often get lost in the email archives, and I can use them in my review/testamonial section of my websites. Thanks, Karyn!
One of my friends takes his atta-boys and testimonials and posts them on a cork board in his office. Then, whenever he needs a little reminder, he can wander over and look at them. 🙂
I love the idea of an atta-girl file. It’s a nice reminder that our work is valued.
All these tips are easy and fast to do. Thank you for posting them!
You’re welcome, Ellene…glad you found them helpful. I’m starting Part 2 of this list soon! 🙂
Thanks for the actionable tips, Karyn. With “just” 10 minutes, it is tempting to review, revisit, revise–in other words, go back over that which was already done. LIKE your suggestions for moving action forward in snippets!
Snippets is a good word, Gail. Sometimes we only have 10 minutes here or 15 minutes there. Instead of throwing up your hands because you don’t have hours and hour to dedicate to a project, ask yourself, “What’s one thing I can do, right now, to move forward?”