It is vital to have a schedule for your online and offline marketing efforts. Small business owners wear many hats and often are not marketing geniuses! Setting up a schedule in advance and devoting focused time to doing your marketing will make a huge difference in your bottom line.

So who has time to make a marketing schedule let alone implement it? You do, if you want to have a steady stream of customers instead of working like a dog for a while and then wondering if you will ever sell your product or service again! This up and down sales cycle can drain you of your enthusiasm for your business and must be avoided at all costs.

So what does a small business-marketing schedule look like?

• PLANNING – (Planning your marketing strategy always comes first even though it doesn’t ultimately take the most time) – three hours at least four times per year!
• Social Networking (like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter) – fifteen minutes in the morning
• Article Marketing – two to three hours a week (adding articles to sites like factoidz.com exposes you and your company to more people than you can generate on your own)
• Offline Marketing (like advertising, writing personal notes, distributing flyers) – No more than an hour a week or while you are out and about anyway
• Blogging – at least two hours a week – this is your high value time as the Internet and search engines love blog posts

So there you have it, less than ten hours per week to generate additional revenue for your business!

So what if you don’t have time to (or the inclination) to do that? Hire it out! I can guarantee that there are people out there who are willing to write your content, post your posts and in general manage your marketing.

BUT, make sure that you have a targeted plan to know what you are trying to sell before you set someone else to work. This is the biggest mistake that I see small business owners make, they are just doing “stuff” instead of formulating a clear plan and then they are asking a third party with no stake in the business to implement it.

Make sure that you are clear with what you are trying to accomplish with your marketing goals and then get out there and implement them!

Original article: How To Set Up A Small Business Marketing Schedule That Works – written by Tara Jacobsen on Factoidz

Tagged as: business, social media, time management