Time Management Tips for Digital Marketers – The Ultimate Guide
If you are looking to build a career in digital marketing, now is probably the best time ever. However, as rewarding as digital marketing is, it’s not without its challenges.
In fact, because the field is so dynamic, digital marketers are under a lot of pressure, having to wear multiple hats and handling several tasks at once. All that multitasking is actually harming your productivity, which is why you may want to look into different methods and tools for managing your time.
According to research, 74% of marketing automation users have stated that the biggest benefit of technology is its ability to save them time. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the best time management tips for digital marketers, along with a few useful tools thrown in for good measure.
1. Limit the Number of Tools You Are Using
It’s easy to fall into the trap of installing multiple new, shiny tools that are supposed to help you become more productive. In reality, having too many of them will only be slowing you down. It would be better if you could consolidate your toolset to only include the tools that can provide you with some real benefits, as well as those that can pull data from various sources and other apps.
TimeTackle fits the description perfectly, because it allows you to export the data from your calendar to Excel. You can also choose to export to CSV or spreadsheet.
2. Do Away with Distractions
There's no shortage of distractions on the internet, which makes your job as a marketer especially tricky, considering it revolves around the online world. Now, whether your biggest time waster is YouTube, Facebook, or Reddit, it doesn’t matter, because you can limit your access to all the distracting websites and content with StayFocusd, which you can easily add as an extension to Chrome.
In addition to that, ignore most emails, phone calls, texts, and notifications once you're focused on your work. In likelihood, none of that stuff will be more urgent or important than what you're doing at the moment.
3. Take Breaks
Although not working seems like the worst productivity tip out there, it’s actually the opposite. Since our bodies and brains are not designed to work like machines, we need rest in order to recharge, which means you need to take regular breaks. According to research, you should take a 17-minute break for every 52 minutes you spend working.
Or you can create your own custom intervals using Marinara Timer to make good use of your energy and time. And you can also make use of the famous Pomodoro technique, with 25-minute work intervals, followed by 5-minute breaks.
4. Opt for Verbal Conversation
Email does have its place, but if you're looking for an answer that will enable you to proceed with a project, it has a tendency to slow things down. The solution would be to opt for face-to-face conversations, and if those aren’t an option, you can always use tools like Skype, Microsoft Teams, Apple FaceTime, and such. In most cases, this leads to a quicker conclusion, and each member of the team can move on with their task.
Keep in mind that you should still send out an email when you find the time to confirm your agreement, so that everyone remains on the same page, especially if the terms have changed in the meantime.
5. Expand Your Skill Set
Picking up a new skill when you have the time for it or learning to use a new tool or app can prove itself extremely valuable down the road – especially if those skills and/or tools enable you to save time and speed up your workflow.
For example, although it’s a pretty complex platform with all its modules, HubSpot can help you handle anything from inbound marketing to sales and email campaigns. You'll just have to first take the time to learn how to use it. The same goes for Buffer, which helps you schedule your social media activities in advance.
6. Learn to Delegate
If you have people that respond to you, you can always delegate some of your less important tasks to them. You get more time to work on something that is more pressing and remove at least one distraction, and the employee gets to grow through increased responsibility.
But, even if you work alone, you can always hire a virtual assistant or a freelancer to help you handle some of the workload. They can answer emails for you, format your documents, answer you calls, or anything else, while you focus on your core activities.
Final Word
Being productive is about hard work, there is no doubt about that. But working hard doesn’t always equal working smart. Sometimes, you need to take a step back and optimize your workflow to be more productive, as well as pick your battles, because you only have so much energy and so many hours in a day. We hope these tips and tools will help you do just that. Good luck!