8 Marketing Activities to Do in a Free Hour
So, you’re midway through a busy week. You’ve just checked off one of your bigger tasks on your to do list and you’ve got a bit of time before your kick off call with that next client. Do you:
A. Put your feet up and turn on Netflix.
B. Take your pup for a walk.
C. Or do you try to find a quick piece of work which is going to help your biz in the long run?
A & B are great. Hey, we’ve got to look after number one. But C is going to really help you use your free hour or two to help you in the long run. Future you will be oh so grateful for using your time to market yourself.
I’ve put together a list of my favourite quick and easy marketing tasks to squeeze into an hours break in your schedule. These are all guaranteed to boost your engagement, reach new audiences and can even be supporting your business months down the line (I’m all about that evergreen content life, I tell you.)
Bookmark this tab or create your own list of little one hour tasks. Then when that next break in your schedule crops up, just dive into the list and pluck out your favourite.
Let’s go…
1. Write a Blog
I could talk to you about the importance of writing blog posts until the cows come home 🐮 I’m serious, this is the number one thing I encourage my clients and customers to add onto their websites.
Yes, it can be a little time consuming. But with blog posts, we’re in this for the long term.
It’s freaking powerful. Write a blog post today relating to your niche and you can be reaping the reward quite literally years down the line.
It’s all about SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). You see, when you create content on your blog, Google and other search engines do two things:
They love you for producing consistent content and updating your website. This tells them that you are an active website, one providing users with up to date information. They LOVE this and as a result, you get a boost up search rankings.
Your actual posts become searchable. Say I’m a wedding planner and I write a blog on ‘A guide on creating your wedding timetable’. Now, when anyone on Google searches this, they could potentially be clicking on your post. Then, once they’re on your site, they’re probably going to have a little snoop around. Then they’re all set to fall head over heels in love with your vibe and ethos.
Oh, and in the short term, you’re able to create valuable content for your current audience who can soak up all your magic and really learn to trust you. And when they trust you? That’s right, they’re ready to buy. Kerching!
2. Schedule your Social Posts for the Week
Batch it, batch it up! (Fun fact: I typed that to the tune of No Diggity).
Another of my favourite topics right here. Batching basically means blocking out a chunk of time to do one thing, and one thing only. It’s a super efficient way of working. Trust me, it’s going to save you so much time, especially when things like social media posts quickly add up over the week.
Each time you pull open Instagram to post, have you noticed that it takes a bit of time to warm up and get into your groove? To get those creative juices flowing. And then, when they do spark, you’ve pretty much finished and it’s onto the next task.
When we batch social media posts, we cut down that ‘start-up’ and ‘closing down’ time. So it’s all focus on using those creative juices to create the best possible content - and in a shorter time overall.
I love to use tools like Planoly or Later to schedule my posts in advance. You can then rest easy knowing your social content will automatically publish throughout the week - without needing to lift a finger at the time.
3. Plan your next 3 months of content
Another big time saving trick, right here.
Planning out content for your blog, email, social media, podcast, youtube channel etc. in advance will make it an easier ride when you come to actually creating that content.
I know this because I’ve been there. Whilst eagerly working with clients to flesh out their content plan months in advance, I thought I could just about wing it. I wasn’t practising what I preached. At all. And you know what that leads to? Yup, stress and a very empty Instagram feed.
With this in mind, I created my Content Calendar. Not only does it include over 650 important dates, holidays and red letter days, it’s also got daily strategic social media and content prompts for those days when you’re just not sure what to post.
One of my customers said she sat down with it at the start of the year and planned 12 months of content in one afternoon. How bloody incredible is that?!
Now, you don’t have to plan the full 12 months in advance but, by all means, you go girl. However, I really do recommend planning in 1 or 3 months ahead of time. It’s going to give you so much confidence to smash your online presence out of the part!
4. Go Live on Facebook/Instagram
In the world of social media, video is queen 👸
Why? Because video allows you to connect with your audience on a much more real level. They get to know you as the human behind your brand. What is it they say? Oh yeah, people buy from people.
Going live is just one way to reach your audience. It can be quick and a little off the cuff or it could be a little more planned and structured. Either way, you’re going to show your personality in such a real and authentic way.
Don’t forget to save your video at the end so other people who weren’t able to tune in live can watch it back at a later date!
5. Send an Email to your List
If you haven’t yet been recommended to start an email list (and let’s face it, who hasn’t?), you’re about to be!
Email marketing is such an amazingly powerful tool in your arsenal. I mean, there are about 5 hundred reasons why email marketing is a must have for your small business. Here are a few of my faves:
Subscribers are already interested in you. AKA more likely to buy.
You own your email list, unlike social following.
It’s the perfect place to build a relationship with your audience as you’re showing up in their own inbox.
Oh, and the conversion rates are sky high.
So, why not use that spare hour to type out some interesting tips, tricks or new launches to your email audience? If you haven’t got your email list set up, now is the time to do it. It really doesn’t have to take more than an hour or two either.
6. Create a Quick Opt In
So, you’ve got your email list ticking over nicely. But the subscribers just aren’t flooding in like you expected, are they?
Well, my friends, a few years ago all we needed to do was ask people to sign up to receive the latest news from you. Then we all signed up to everything under the sun and our inboxes started to overflow.
Now we have to offer our audience something extra special to encourage them to hand over their precious email address. That’s where your opt in/freebie comes in to play. This is that offer or gift that you deliver to your audience when they sign up. It could be a discount, PDF checklist, video series… I could go on. In fact, I have done over on this blog post.
By using a free tool like Canva* you can have your opt in created and delivered to your audience in a matter of hours. Oh, the power of the internet!
*That’s an affiliate link. But I promise you I’ll only ever share links to things I’m super passionate about. Like Canva, which I use every day with my clients and customers.
7. Hang out in Facebook Groups
If you’re starting out then this could be the perfect place for you to spend time during your spare hour. Whatever your industry or niche, I guarantee there are Facebook groups or online forums relating to your topic. I was amazed when I discovered just how many there are.
Whether it’s a support group for small business owners or one more specific to your audience, find a few groups to join. From here you can chat with prospective customers, build relationships and provide lots of useful information for them. It’s all about that know, like and trust factor, baby!
Quite often you will find people requesting your services or looking for a solution your product provides. This is your time to shine, dive on into the comments and nudge them in the right direction.
Whilst this isn’t a long term solution, hanging out in Facebook groups can have a brilliant impact in moving that needle in the early stages of your biz.
8. Repurpose an old piece of content
Finally, perhaps my favourite way to spend an odd half hour. Repurposing old pieces is the most time efficient way to market yourself with high quality content.
So, what does it mean? Essentially, we take a piece of content, new or old, and optimise it for today or another platform. I’ll show you two examples real quick…
You’re scrolling back through your blog and discover one that’s a little dated. After a bit of a facelift, you can promote your blog as a new piece of content. Then you can break your blog post into nice chunks and ta-da you’ve got yourself next week’s social media posts sorted. Don’t forget to email out your post to your newsletter audience too!
You’ve got a new YouTube video that’s just come out. There is so much you can do with this! First up, you could take the audio only and add in an intro for your podcast. Then you can use a tool to get a transcript of your audio. With a few tweaks and images plonked in, you’ve got yourself a blog post. Copy that over to your email list as a newsletter. This post could also be split into 3/4 social media posts. WOW, for not a lot of effort you’ve created a heck of a lot of content.
Oh gosh, it’s amazing, right!? Without using too much brain power or time out of your day, you’ve only gone and got tonnes of content. It’s all about rinsing your content for all it’s worth.
If you’re worried about speaking about that same thing across your different channels, I hear ya. It can feel like you’re repeating yourself time and time again. But in actual fact, your audience isn’t going to see every single piece of content that you produce. And they won’t be reading every single social post either. We need to repeat ourselves to be able to even reach them in the first place!
I’ve had so much fun writing out some of my favourite tasks for those moments of free time that we get in our schedules. I can’t wait to see you use this time to level up your marketing! Let me know which you have your eye on first in the comments below 👇
