Why good intentions do not last
Almost every owner has started a marketing push. A newsletter that ran for three issues. A social account that was lively for a month. A plan written on a quiet Sunday and never opened again.
The push fails for the same reason each time. Client work has deadlines and consequences. Marketing has neither. When the two compete for an hour, the client wins, as it should. After a few weeks of losing, the marketing stops.
Trying harder does not help. What helps is giving marketing the things client work already has: a fixed time, a named person, a short list and something due. That is all a routine is.
The one below is deliberately small. A routine you keep for a year will do far more for a firm than an ambitious plan you keep for a month.
Before you start: three decisions
A routine needs a little setting up. These three decisions take an afternoon and save you from redoing them every week.
Decide what you are saying. Write one page that answers three questions. Who are you? What are you about? Why should someone hire you? Every post, page and email will draw on it. Without it you will stare at a blank screen each week wondering what to write.
Decide who approves. One person. If two people must agree on every post, nothing will go out. In most firms it is the owner. In a regulated field, add your compliance reviewer as a fixed step and give them a deadline too.
Decide where things live. One shared folder for photographs and notes. One simple calendar. One list of logins that the firm owns. It does not need special software. It needs to be the same place every week.
The weekly hour
Pick a time that is rarely taken by clients and protect it. Many owners find that early on a weekday works better than Friday afternoon, when the week’s leftovers pile up. Then do the same five things in the same order.
1. Look at what came in (10 minutes)
Check enquiries from every route: the website form, email, phone messages, direct messages on social accounts. Has each one had a reply? Does each one have a next step and a date?
Then check reviews. Draft a short reply to any new one.
This comes first because it is closest to revenue. An unanswered enquiry is the most expensive item on the list.
2. Capture one thing that happened (10 minutes)
Something worth telling happened this week. A project finished. A client asked a good question. A new person joined. You solved an unusual problem. You went to an event.
Write three sentences about it and drop in a photograph if there is one. Do not polish it. This is raw material, and collecting it weekly is what stops the monthly scramble for something to say.
3. Prepare next week’s posts (20 minutes)
Turn raw material into two or three posts for the coming week. Short, plain, with a real image. Schedule them.
If you have nothing new, answer a question a client asked you recently. You will never run out of those.
4. Fix one small thing (10 minutes)
Keep a running list of small faults: an out-of-date biography, a wrong phone number on a directory, a page that reads badly on a phone, a broken link. Fix one each week.
Fifty small fixes a year changes how a firm looks.
5. Write down what is waiting (10 minutes)
End by noting anything stuck and who it is stuck with. The photographer who has not sent the files. The web developer who has not replied. The partner who has not approved the announcement. Send the chasing notes now, before the hour ends.
A routine you keep for a year will do far more for a firm than an ambitious plan you keep for a month.
The monthly hour
Once a month, replace the weekly session with a longer look.
Review. What went out? What did people respond to? Which enquiries came in, and where did they hear of you? Ask every new enquirer that last question and write the answer down. It is the simplest and most useful measurement a small firm has.
Plan one substantial piece. An article, a project write-up, a client letter, a short video. Something with more depth than a post. One a month is enough.
Plan the month’s calendar. Mark holidays, events, launches and busy periods. Decide roughly what each week’s posts will be about. Approving a month at once is far quicker than approving a post at a time.
Check the basics. Hours, address, staff page, contact form. Send a test enquiry through your own website and see what happens.
The quarterly hour
Four times a year, step back further.
- Is the one page with your three answers still true? Firms change, and the page should change with them.
- Is your best recent work on the website?
- Is there any news worth telling the press or your trade? An anniversary, an appointment, a new service, a finished project.
- What should stop? Dropping an account or a task that is not earning its time is a sound decision.
Rules that keep it alive
The same few rules tend to make the difference.
Smaller and steadier. Set the weekly amount so low that you can do it in your worst week. You can always do more in a good one.
Batch the capture. Take ten photographs in one go when the light is good or the project is finished. Record five answers to common questions in one sitting.
One approver, with a time limit. Agree that silence after a set number of days counts as approval for routine posts. Without that, one busy week on the approver’s side stalls everything.
Use each thing three times. A finished project is a page on the website, three social posts and a paragraph in the next client letter. Do the work once.
Do not chase trends. A serious firm does not need to join every new format. Consistency is what a prospect is checking for.
Keep everything in the firm’s name. Accounts, logins, photographs and the contact list belong to the firm, not to an employee or a contractor. People move on.
Measure what you can act on. Enquiries, where they came from and which became clients. Follower counts and impressions are less useful than they look.
When the routine breaks
It will. A deadline, an illness or a holiday will knock out a week or three.
The important thing is how you restart. Do not try to catch up. Do not write an apology post. Simply do this week’s hour as if nothing happened: check what came in, capture one thing, schedule two posts. A gap of three weeks is forgotten by the next month. Giving up because of the gap is what does the damage.
If the routine breaks every month, the amount is too large or the time slot is wrong. Halve the amount or move the slot. If it still breaks, the honest conclusion is that the owner is the wrong person to hold it.
Who should hold it
There are three workable answers.
You. If you can protect the hour and you do not mind the work, this costs nothing and keeps you close to how the firm presents itself.
Someone on your staff. This works when they have real authority to act, a place on the calendar for it and your approval turned around quickly. It fails when it is added to a full job with no time attached.
Someone outside, working as part of your team. This is what an outsourced business manager does. They hold the routine, do the writing and the chasing, and bring you a batch to approve. Your part shrinks to the decisions only you can make. If you go this way, how you set up the working relationship matters more than who you hire.
Whichever you choose, choose on purpose. The arrangement that never works is the common one, where the routine belongs to nobody in particular and everyone means to get to it.
A place to start this week
Block one hour. Check every route an enquiry can arrive by and reply to anything waiting. Write three sentences about one thing that happened. That is the whole first session.
If you would like the routine built and run for you, our 90-Day Plan sets it up, produces twelve finished pieces and leaves you with a plan for the next quarter.