7 kickstarters to get you out of your marketing slump

Struggling to find the willpower to knuckle down and market your business? Here are seven snappy strategies to help you get out of your marketing slump and back into action again.

Marketing works best when you develop a consistent habit of actually doing it (just like exercise).

And just as there are days when putting on your trainers and getting out the door for a walk or to go to the gym feels like the hardest task in the world, we’ve all experienced times when we just can’t summon up the inspiration, creativity or wherewithal to get on with our marketing. Me included.

In my experience, the secret to pushing through these inevitable marketing slumps is incredibly simple (even though it’s often excruciatingly hard): I just need to choose one teeny, tiny, easy task and force myself to get started.

After that, my momentum starts to build, and more often than not I’ll shift into a more productive headspace and be able to keep moving.

With that in mind, here are seven micro marketing tasks you can use to kickstart your marketing mojo when it’s feeling stalled. They almost ALWAYS need to be done – and are strategically smart to boot.

1. Extend the reach of something you already know people respond to

Scroll through your social media analytics and discover which of your posts has performed best in the past. If it’s still relevant, schedule it to be posted again a few times in the future (with suitable intervals in between of course) so that you can extend its reach (the number of people who see it).

Don’t be shy about reposting things. Nobody’s going to judge you for it. In fact, it’s likely that most of your followers either didn’t see your post the first time it appeared or won’t remember if they did.

In any case we often need to be gently prodded multiple times before we take action. Research by social media marketing company CoSchedule supports this, showing that when social posts are scheduled multiple times, they enjoy almost 200% higher click-through rates.

2. Improve the conversion of something that already gets lots of eyeballs on it

Check your website analytics too and unearth the details of which of your website pages is visited most often.

Look at it with fresh eyes to see what you can do to enable it to convert visitors to buyers at a higher rate. Avoid changing the URL (because you don’t want your SEO to fall away), but consider the graphics, layout, information and readability.

Most importantly are the calls-to-action strong, clear and easy for the reader to understand and follow through on?

If you’re not sure, ask yourself what steps you want the reader to take next? Then consider what you can do to streamline things so that following the desired pathway is easy, simple and inviting for them.

(HINT: Don’t be afraid to spell it out directly, for example having a link saying something like, “Click here to book an appointment”).

3. Improve the appeal of something that’s not working as well as it should

You’re on a roll now! Build on your progress by going through the same exercise as you did above, but this time with the goal of taking a web page that’s currently not performing well at all (in terms of either traffic and/or conversion) and bringing it up to par.

When you’re done, boost its visibility by going through your website and finding pages that should be sending readers to your chosen page but aren’t. Then get busy adding internal hyperlinks and calls-to-actions to them so that you can direct your traffic to where you want it.

4. Refresh your email signature

It’s possible your email signature is an overlooked source of leads and/or website traffic for you. Is it giving people the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter, follow you on social media or read your latest blog? How could you quickly and easily add a graphic to make it more eye-catching and achieve those aims?

This tiny update might only take you a few moments, but you never know how much impact it could have somewhere down the track.

5. Update your social media profile and cover images

Aside from your website, your social media profiles are some of the most common places for people to visit when they want information about your business. How long is it since you last updated yours?

Take a few minutes to review the info and make sure it’s accurate, up-to-date and appealing.

Consider the cover or header images too. If you’re not in the habit of changing yours regularly, it may be time for an update, especially as the required dimensions of them change from time to time.

(PRO TIP: Check your cover images on both your phone and your desktop and make sure that they’re appearing the way you intend them to).

6. Collate your social proof and shout it from the rooftops

If you don’t automatically do so as soon as you receive it, go through your most recent pieces of customer feedback and add them to the Testimonials section of your website – after seeking permission from the customer of course.

While you’re doing so, decide which of the many glowing testimonials you’ve received deserve to be seen by a wider audience. Choose the top handful and get busy turning them into social media posts and content for your email newsletter.

7. Prioritise your next few marketing projects

Still not feeling motivated enough to actually do any marketing right now? How about going into brainstorming and planning mode instead?

Choose one objective you’d like to achieve, then set a timer for 15 minutes, and write down as many ideas as you can think of that would enable the target to be met – no matter how wacky or expensive they might be.

Next, draw a grid like the one below, and place each idea somewhere on the matrix, according to how easy/hard it is for you and the level of impact it would have on your goal or your business.

When you’re done, find the Quick Wins – the ideas that fall into the easy effort-high impact section of the grid – and put a plan together for how and when you’re going to get them done.