Five-Minute Marketing
by Ann Siegle

We all know we need to market. Yet, it's valued less than pure selling because it's not a one-to-one relationship. When you sell, you see a direct result - the prospect either buys or they do not. It's seen as an expense, not an investment. And, none of us have enough time. But what if I told you, you have an additional 120 hours a year to devote to marketing just by utilizing unused bits of time in a typical business workday? To use Five-Minute Marketing effectively, you need the following

>A strategic plan (where you are going and why)

>A tactical plan (how you're going to get there)

>A calendar

When you develop or revise your annual marketing plan (you have a plan, right?) take the activities (the tactics) and break them down into small chunks.
For instance, let's say you want to revamp your web site. That's a big job. But breaking it down into sections like vendor selection, resource allocation, content development and maintenance makes it easier. Then, put specific weekly tasks (such as, search for three local vendors to request bids from, contact vendors, schedule interviews, and other similar tasks) on your calendar.

Put your marketing on your calendar. I was lazy. I bought a calendar already pre-made with typical weekly and daily activities for my industry, but you can use your own calendar software to do this. The one I bought is listed here.The calendar keeps you honest. It also makes the five-minute marketing work. Filling out your calendar each week can be part of your five-minute marketing. Pick five tasks in five minutes to add to your calendar. By week's end, with just 30 minutes of activity, you'll have placed 30 new tasks on your calendar for NEXT week - most of which take about five minutes to complete.

Rather than looking out at the behemoth web site revamp, you can see "identify vendors" as a task. With Google by your side, that should take about five minutes to search potential vendors. If you can cross-reference that with local trusted sources such as the Lansing Chamber's Business Directory or even a quick e-mail to a fellow colleague asking whom they used on their site, it all can be done in five minutes.

Five minutes can be squeezed in at odd times - such as just before lunch, or just before leaving for a meeting. I use five minutes to update one page of our web site. I pick a page per day, and I tackle that page and that page only. I also do the five-minute tasks just before I leave the office, as I clean up my desk for the next day.

Five minutes can help you sell. I love to leave voice mails for prospects and e-mails for clients. Prospects need to hear my voice, and clients often like a written version of what we need to talk about. Each of these takes about five minutes.

As you think about it, do it! A lot of procrastination is not taking advantage of small tasks right when they come up. When you see a great link to share with your clients, copy it, pop it into your newsletter right at that moment, rather than waiting until you have a larger chunk of time to do it.

Great five-minute tasks:

• Google yourself - try several keyword searches that your prospects might use.
• Add prospects to your e-mail list AND your LinkedIn contacts (LinkedIn is a professional social networking site). Then you can stash all those business cards you picked up at the Chamber member mixer!
• Look at a couple of competitor's web sites. Note which things you like about their sites and compare it to yours.
• Update a page of your web site. Can't update your own site? Call us to help you with a content-managed site that's easy to maintain on your own!
• Send an e-mail to a long-lost prospect. Re-introduce yourself and share a short success story as part of your introduction. "Hi Mary, we proposed that web site project two years ago. We just completed a similar project for XYZ firm and they loved it. We boosted their Google rankings 20% in the week it relaunched."
• Thank one of your clients via e-mail or a personal note. No sales, just thanks.

Fifteen-minute chunks are for bigger tasks. For those projects that take longer than five minutes, I like to put those under fifteen-minute marketing tasks.

Five minutes plus five minutes equals a lot of marketing at the end of the week. And the nice thing about the calendar method of tracking marketing is checking it off. For those of you like me who live by the list or calendar, crossing something off is a big sense of satisfaction. My calendar allows me to see how small steps add up to big results.

If you want another prod to get this done (I'll send YOU a reminder in two weeks to ask how you're doing) or for more information to help on your marketing, send me an e-mail. It will only take five minutes!