Simplified Promotion Creates Waves of Opportunity

Dylan Notturno | Nov. 30, 2022

Digital promotion is an essential function of any successful marketing strategy. However, marketers have other tasks that require attention; devoting too much time or effort to promoting a business can be detrimental to the success of other responsibilities. As such, the perceptions surrounding promotion should be revisited to ensure that time and effort are balanced correctly. Restructuring promotion by automating it in ways that will reduce the amount of time it takes to achieve the same results, but also simplify and enhance those efforts, should be the ultimate goal.

Why Time Spent Promoting can be Disproportionate to the Results we Crave

Often our expectations for improved KPIs distract us from ensuring our efforts remain effective. For example, a marketer who notices that promotional efforts are yielding lots of conversions might fall into the trap of increasing promotion to cast a wider net. The issue that can result from this mindset is that casting a wider net does not always result in more returns.

The initial promotional efforts may have been effective, but if promoting was a simple activity to scale, then everyone would be achieving success. The reality is that promotion isn’t guaranteed to be a successful activity, and scaling it is a meticulous endeavor.

More posts do not equal more clicks, conversions, or other forms of engagement.

We crave results. Society is instantaneous results driven, as we want improvement and we want it immediately. However, we have to be realistic in our pursuits and adjust our mindset accordingly. For example, if we crave results, instead of constantly pondering about promotional activities day-to-day, why don’t we instead prioritize thoughtful planning?

Committing to a promotional strategy and reflecting upon it afterwards can be more beneficial than constantly tweaking posts, creating new posts impromptu, and flooding your audience’s feed every single day.

This is why many allocate too much time to creating promotional materials for their business. And they’re not even necessarily being thoughtful, they might just be devoting too much effort to graphic design, caption writing, hashtags, or other minute details. The belief is that more time equals better results, but that isn’t always true. Unless the action is going to realistically result in an increase to tangible returns, then it isn’t worthwhile.

Time spent on the minor details of promotion need to be reduced to maximize efficiency, and time devoted towards planning is the gateway to achieving that efficiency.

How to Restructure and Automate Promotional Efforts

The development of a social calendar can be a great aid for marketers to ensure that promotional efforts are done efficiently. I have three basic tenets of any time-efficient promotional strategy:

1. Ideate and plan,

2. Build the content,

3. Schedule it and leave it alone.

Maximize efficiency of your efforts by structuring the time frames you can work on promotional efforts. Create deadlines for each of the above tenets by being honest about how long it takes to complete certain tasks. If a graphic needs to be created, should that take 30 minutes or 2 hours?

At the beginning of each month, creating a social calendar and scheduling posts in advance is an effective strategy. Devote time to ideating and thoughtfully planning how you want to engage with your audience: What do I want them to see, and what are the best methods to achieve that? From there, build out the content and schedule it accordingly.

If your team creates other promotional content that cannot be planned or completed at the start of each month, that is totally fine. The same principles apply: Spend more time thoughtfully planning, and only the necessary amount of time doing.

Using software that automatically posts your content on a schedule that you set is an excellent way of managing time efficiently. This way, you are limiting the time you think about promotion strictly to the times you planned for it in your schedule. The last thing you need on your plate as a marketer is having to stop what you’re doing midday to post something that could have been completed sooner.

Simplified Promotion Creates Waves of Opportunity

This shift in mindset will lend well to ensuring the content your audience views is relevant, timely, and valuable. As such, the success of the post-conversion phase may see improvement because you are thoughtful in your pursuits. This isn’t to say it’s impossible to be thoughtful in a spur-of-the-moment creation of content, but simplifying the process opens doors to other opportunities.

Simplicity often is bliss. Quality should not be sacrificed for efficiency, but not every piece of promotion needs an abundance of time or effort to reach the expected quality marks. This is something that every team needs to determine internally because standards will be different for everyone.

The reality is that promotion isn’t easy. The reason why is because improving KPIs and increasing ROI are achieved through well-developed strategies, not impromptu posts because you have fears, doubts, or a surge of passion. Channeling those feelings into the planning stage will be more effective than the alternative.

More time and effort can now be allocated to projects and longer term goals. Meeting with a client and updating them on your progress. Strategizing for the future. Being available to your colleagues because you are not swamped catching up on the busy work.

As a marketer one of your main responsibilities is ensuring that the brand grows. How you present yourself to your audience is a big part of that growth. Be passionate about how you engage with your audience, but reflect internally to determine if your communication is thoughtful or needs refinement. Thoughtfully strategize, automate, and be excited about reviewing the results.