Do you ever experience those moments when you remember you have to do something, then you remember another thing, then another, then another…?
Next minute, your brain is spiralling out of control and you’re feeling so overwhelmed at the mere thought of all the things you need to get done, that you don’t even know where to start with it all.
“I need to write more social media posts”, “I need to update my website”, “I need to get a newsletter out to my subscriber list”, the list goes on.
It’s so easy to get overwhelmed, and the problem is that quite often we end up over-analysing everything and not doing anything, because we just can’t figure out the best place to start.
We end up throwing it all in the “too hard” basket and carry on with our day, only to find ourselves in the exact same situation tomorrow, or next week, or next month.
We know we SHOULD be marketing our business, because in its very essence, that's how we tell our prospective clients that we exist!
The fact is though, that you’re probably in business doing something that you’re really good at, and so your days are
filled with you doing that thing. Marketing might not be something that comes naturally to you – and that is 100% okay!
If this is the case, here are the 3 steps I recommend to overcoming your marketing overwhelm and actually getting things done:
1.) Give yourself a break
Yes, just stop for a minute.
If you’re in this stressed-out cycle of analysis paralysis, trying to get anything done is not going to help you put out quality work.
Take a breath and take the pressure off for a moment. Remember, we’re only human and there are only so many hours in a day!
2.) Write out all your ideas
Take out a piece of paper and manually write out all of your marketing to-do’s that you’ve had circling around in your head all this time. Give yourself enough time to really get ALL the thoughts out on paper.
I usually give myself 30-60 minutes. There’s just something really cathartic about this process, I love it!
3.) Choose ONE strategy at a time
Now that you’ve written out all your ideas, choose just ONE of them to focus on, just for now.
If you’re having a hard time figuring out which one to choose, think of what will help you get your message to your market in the shortest amount of time.
For example, you might have written down that you want to build your website, write a newsletter to your mailing list, and post on social media.
Now, if this was your list, you could probably imagine that building a website would take a lot longer than, say, posting something on social media. Posting on the socials, by contrast, takes seconds, and can show your audience your latest creation, bit of news, etc.
If you absolutely MUST get a website up first, consider putting up a landing page that gives just enough information for now, until you have time to address it properly and in detail, later on.
A newsletter can help you communicate with your whole subscriber list at once, and would also take less time to compose than a new website, but would take longer than a social media post, so you might make this your second priority.
Of course, having a solid marketing presence is important, and all of the above channels serve their purpose.
The reality is though, that time is a very finite resource, so you need to make sure that you’re doing the best you can with what you have available.
In my opinion, more important than having everything in place immediately, is consistency, so I would recommend that you choose ONE marketing practice at a time to get really consistent with, before adding another to your arsenal.
If you’ve only been posting on social media once in a blue moon, or not at all – start with that.
Choose ONE social platform for now (the one most applicable to your target market) and make it your mission to post something 2-3 times a week. Once you get comfortable posting, find a scheduling tool (eg. Hootsuite or Buffer) and start scheduling your posts in advance.
All of a sudden, you'll have freed up your time to move on to the next marketing project.