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A Digital Marketer’s Guide to Time Management
Your life as a digital marketer is busy, especially if your marketing team is composed of only one or two people. While you probably gained a number of skills (like a digital marketing Swiss Army Knife), time can limit what you get done and how well you can do it.
And we never want to sacrifice quality because we don’t have enough time.
That’s why we’ve developed this digital marketer’s time management guide. Read on to learn how you can make the most of the limited marketing time you have each day.
You might find our latest email marketing statistics useful too.
What is a digital marketer?
First, here are some interesting digital marketing statistics to consider:
Source: We Are Social
A digital marketer is a person who is responsible for using technology to promote a company’s goals. These goals can be anything from brand awareness to promoting a particular product or service. Digital marketers use many electronic channels to achieve their goals. Examples of such channels are:
- Social media
- Search engines
- Email marketing
- Websites
As a digital marketer, you have to understand and use many tools and programs. And while most companies understand digital marketers’ ability to multitask, they often overlook the limited time these marketers are working with to achieve all their goals.
In fact, most are on the verge of burning out due to poor time management.
That’s why digital marketer’s time management tips (like the ones below) are essential. After all, failing to manage your time will result in poorly planned and executed marketing campaigns.
The digital marketer’s time management guide
So, what can you do to ensure your day isn’t wasted? Here are 10 time management hacks to help you optimize your time, maximize your results, and still leave you with enough time doing what you actually want to do.
1. Understand your limitations
Many of us want to be the hero in our company’s marketing endeavors, but some tasks require resources you may not have. So, even if you feel obliged to push yourself beyond your limits to achieve specific goals: don’t.
Understand your limitations and work within them. This will help you preserve your health and keep you energized to push your campaigns to success.
2. Delegation is okay
Many digital marketers feel that they have to be in control of every aspect of the marketing campaign. That’s a sure recipe for disaster. Learn to delegate tasks that:
- Don’t need your immediate presence. Yes, not everything requires your “special skill.”
- Someone else is better equipped to do
Running a digital marketing campaign involves a number of moving parts. Keeping tabs on all of them is next to impossible for one person. If you want your strategies to work, it’s wise to split the responsibilities.
3. Divide your day into blocks
Instead of trying to multitask and do all your projects at once, block out time in your schedule to take care of each task individually. For example, you can block out 15-20 minutes for social media. You can reserve 3 such blocks solely for social media in a day. You can do this for other tasks as well.
Dividing your day into blocks may not be enough: If you find yourself veering off schedule, try using a countdown timer on your phone and a dose of discipline to keep you on track.
4. Ditch multitasking
Yep, we said it. Ditch the multitasking. Contrary to popular belief, multitasking doesn’t make you more productive: It makes you less efficient. This is because the mind works better when it focuses on one thing at a time.
Of all time management skills, this one is probably the one you’ll have to work on the most.
Besides being detrimental to your efficiency, multitasking also negatively impacts your life. In fact, according to research, multitasking doesn’t just hurt your productivity, but it can also be harmful to your mind and your body.
5. Get into the zone and ignore the distractions
Once you get involved in a task, don’t allow distractions to veer you off course. Once you’re in the zone, stay in the zone until you complete your mission. This means getting rid of all distractions, particularly notifications from your phone or computer.
The best way to eliminate distractions is by identifying your work station and make it a distraction-free zone. That means putting your phone on do-not-disturb mode and silencing your Slack notifications. You can also use certain programs to block out distractions from apps or websites.
6. Give yourself a break
Taking breaks is one time-saving hack that may seem like a contradiction, but it works. The reason you need to invest time in taking breaks is that your body can only take on so much work before it starts becoming less efficient.
By taking breaks regularly, your mind and body are fresher, allowing you to work faster and more efficiently. So, no matter how busy your day may be, don’t feel guilty about taking a break. One of the best ways (proven by science) to rest your body is by taking a power nap, so use your lunchtime to reboot your body, not push a little more work.
7. Use a password manager
As a digital marketer, your job requires that you use multiple tools, apps, and software that require you to log in with a password. This is something that can actually steal into your time without you noticing. This is why we recommend using a password manager, like 1Password, to make logging in fast and easy.
Besides, remembering all the passwords for your different apps and tools is quite difficult considering how many apps you probably use. Trying to remember or recover a forgotten password is bound to cost you precious time.
8. Use templates
One of the best digital marketer’s time management tips you should adopt immediately is the use of templates. Most marketing tasks are repetitive and mundane. This is why you need to use templates for as many tasks as possible.
When it comes to social media, you can save a set of graphics templates for future posts. With email marketing, you can save templates of the emails you send out most, or you might even have an email template design you can use for all your emails.
9. Automate everything you can
Besides using templates, another way of reducing the workload brought about by repetitive tasks is to automate your marketing activities as much as possible.
By setting your activities on autopilot, you create time for more critical things (and for relaxing).
While not every activity can be automated, a number of them are, including:
- Social media. By scheduling post sending, you can make this major part of social media marketing take care of itself. However, you need to check on your social media profiles and actively engage in conversations.
- Email marketing. You can set up customer journeys that automatically lead your subscribers down your funnel.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Marketing automation is definitely the way to go. Automation doesn’t just free up your time, but it also gives you the capacity to scale your marketing efforts without burning out or spending a lot on resources–particularly human resources.
10. Evaluate and eliminate
You probably use several tools to achieve your marketing goals. With new tools and apps coming out every day, you likely feel overwhelmed. So, evaluate your tools and systems to see what’s working and what isn’t.
This will help optimize your system, speed up your computer, and even save time.
Wrap up
Every second you save is money saved. Plus, when you save yourself time at work, you add to the time you can spend relaxing with family and friends.
We hope you have enjoyed the digital marketer’s time management guide. At Campaign Monitor, we believe every marketer should work efficiently. That’s why we created a resource on the top digital marketing tools you can use to make your campaigns more effective. Check it out.
