Itching to recharge your batteries?
Chances are there’s a project management system that can run your business. Suffice to say, today’s project management workflows are the quintessential workhorse—sorting, streamlining, and scheduling round-the-clock tasks.
So if they’re that hopping good and can go the distance (sorry, Energizer Bunny 🐰), why the hesitation?
Well, taking a vacation may feel out of reach to some business owners. Slowing your marketing efforts, even briefly, could mean letting down your audience or falling behind the competition.
Project management software and social media tools, however, imbue a consistent marketing presence thanks to automation. The kicker? You can finally indulge in a much-needed respite remaining on track and on budget.
Here is how to keep your hands off the keyboard, while continuously promoting your services with #true-blueflair.
The Problem: Absent Project Management vs. Continuous Marketing
Creating an ongoing marketing experience supports your business in several ways:
- Provides a Seamless Brand Experience
Customers engage with your brand across multiple touchpoints – website, social media, email, and mobile apps, to name a few. They can access these channels anytime, even if you’re not monitoring them. As such, customers expect steady updates and valuable information across social media tools and platforms.
2. Boosts Awareness of Products and Services
The adage “out of sight, out of mind” becomes reality if you’re not consistently marketing. Remind customers about your offerings and keep them informed about the problems you’re solving. What does this look like?
- Launching targeted campaigns
- Aligning social posts with product releases
- Enticing loyal customers with repeat incentives and calls-to-action
3. Builds Loyalty and Community
Did you know? Essentially 73 percent of patrons rank customer experience as the deciding factor when purchasing from a company? Consistently showing up, marketing-wise, fosters loyalty and trust. The lesson: never underestimate the power of organic word-of-mouth—courtesy of your online community.
4. Fine-Tunes the Overall Marketing Strategy
Customers, alongside social media tools, are ever-evolving. To better understand who engages with your brand, pinpoint demographics and psychographics via project management databases and dashboards. Knowing which posts and products resonate with your audience (and why) helps capitalize on strategy.
The benefits of parceling tasks through project management is clear. But who has time to tackle social media 24/7?
The Solution: Social Media Tools That Do the Work
Social media tools batch operations—organizing, scheduling, and seamlessly collaborating across online campaigns. Here are a few favorites:
Meta Business Suite
Meta Business Suite is ideal for B2Bs and B2Cs leveraging advertising and promotions on Facebook and Instagram. This free social media tool lets you create and distribute content via a centralized, all-in-one hub.
Through Meta, project management includes:
- Scheduling posts and stories up to 30 days in advance
- Viewing and responding to direct messages
- Creating ads to boost viewership and visibility
- Tracking metrics and trends traversing all posts and campaigns
Sendible
For a more comprehensive approach to project management, consider Sendible. It’s an aggregated platform of all your social accounts and team collaborations. Sendible does require a monthly subscription, yet offers pricing suitable for businesses of all sizes.
Through Sendible, project management includes:
- Scheduling content up to one month in advance
- Managing messages sent to social media pages
- Tracking metrics across all social media content
- Assigning tasks to collaborators; back-end approval before posting
- Interfacing with popular content creation and social media tools (e.g. Canva, Google Drive, and Dropbox)
Trello
Finally, if you’re struggling to organize your projects and team, Trello is a fantastic, free project management system. Through the use of “boards” you can assign tasks, review content, set deadlines, and receive automated reminders.
Through Trello, project management includes:
- Creating custom boards, lists, and templates to filter projects
- Assigning multiple duties and collaborators
- Color-coding, labeling, storing, and archiving files
- Interfacing with popular SaaS (software as a service) applications (e.g. GitHub, IBM Connect, Google Drive, Slack, and Salesforce)
Balance Automation and Personalization With Project Management
We understand the importance of personalizing the marketing experience. At the same time, we understand your desire to promote and sell your services with ease. Strike the right balance between automation and personalization by:
Automating Repetitive and Routine Tasks
- Segmenting audience sales funnels
- Batch scheduling across multiple social media tools
- A/B testing emails, paid ads, and their respective deployment
- Responding to real-time inquiries or complaints
- Monitoring metrics and sourcing content of interest for bespoke customers
Personalizing Content With the Human Touch
- Leveraging customer management systems to understand audience needs, preferences, and behaviors
- Analyzing data to create tailored messages, offers, and experiences across customer segments
- Engaging in genuine conversations to foster community and loyalty
Now do you feel ready for that much-deserved respite? We think so!
Before you go, why not schedule a (virtual) coffee chat with us? We’d love to discuss how you can keep your marketing efforts running smoothly.
Reach out to us… and don’t forget to become a monthly subscriber for more practical advice.