Of the many small business leaders that we’ve talked to over the years, several have told us the same thing: they’d love to spend more time on marketing, but the reality is they fit it in when they can.
Sometimes they have an open hour or two, sometimes 15 or 30 minutes.
In a perfect world, that time is spent executing an existing marketing plan, but if there’s no plan in place or putting the time toward one isn’t feasible for whatever reason, it can be helpful to have some tactical ideas handy.
In this short series, we’re be organizing potential tactics by the amount of time required and the three principles of the inbound methodology they address: attract, engage and delight.
Feel free to bookmark these posts, and the next time you have time for marketing, refer back to them for tactical ideas and inspiration.
Below is Part 1 in this series. Read Part 2: 30-Minute Tactics here and Part 3: 60-Minute Tactics here – or get them all in one place here.
Part 1: 15 Minutes
Attract
Use the following tactics to attract visitors, earn attention and remove friction as they try to learn about your company.
- Give your website a checkup and plan any follow-up tasks needed from the report
- Test recently created pages and content for mobile friendliness and note room for improvement
- Share industry news on social media with topical commentary
- Find and follow 5 targeted accounts on social media
- Provide an answer on a relevant forum or social network
- Do a Google search with your target keywords to ensure they’re still relevant. Note any new competitors ranking for these terms.
- Check a social listening platform like BuzzSumo to see what relevant topics and users are trending; note any content ideas or influencers as a follow-up to-do
- Review your top visited blog posts in the past 12 months and note any that could stand to be updated or repurposed
- Review your editorial calendar to ensure you have ample content scheduled in advance
- Email your sales team to ask if there are any recurring questions their leads are asking. Note any trending topics for potential blog topics, one pagers or social post fodder
- Reach out to your five most recent customers and ask if they’d be willing to write your company a Google review
Engage
Use the following tactics to personalize visitor experiences, foster relationships with potential buyers and nurture leads into loyal customers.
- Review your top visited landing pages in the last 12 months; note which pages have the highest bounce rates and lowest conversion rates and make a to-do to revisit these
- Test your website contact forms to ensure they’re working correctly (and sending your team notifications)
- Test your chatbot and note any areas of potential confusion or awkwardness
- Review recent clients and projects and note any potential case study candidates
- Collect your last 10 clients that have closed and determine where they came from; note any patterns
- Find a helpful or interesting article to send to the top three prospects in your CRM who haven’t closed
- Pull up five contacts in your CRM and confirm if their lead score is aligned with their engagement; note any discrepancies and plan follow-up tasks as needed
- Audit one lead nurturing workflow and note room for improvement. Ask for a second opinion from a colleague
- Review the top performing social media posts from the past 90 days; note any patterns and takeaways
Delight
Use the following tactics to make your current customers so happy they’ll want to go out and sing the praises of your business.
- Find a helpful or interesting article to send to three customers
- With a top customer in mind, spend 15 minutes considering what your business could do to make their life easier
- Identify a good customer you haven’t talked to recently and write them a thank you letter
- Take time to consider whether a customer appreciation event or outing might be a good idea this year
- Write a client or vendor a LinkedIn recommendation
- Consider if there’s a way to spotlight a customer through your own content
- Review your customer roster; are there any customers who haven’t received your newest company swag who might appreciate it?
While 15 minutes of marketing might not seem like enough to move the needle, getting in the practice of putting this time to use will eventually form habits that stick.
Over time, you’ll be surprised by the results these habits can yield.
Want a print-friendly reference guide with all of our 15-, 30- and 60-minute tactics in one place?
