How to Make Time for Your Content Marketing

If I had more time I'd do this or I'd do that...I'm sure you've said something like this whether it was related to your marketing, business, or even personal life. It's no secret that time is hard to come by, especially if you are a small business. There are few people to do many things, right? Here's the thing, if you are serious about your inbound marketing, online marketing, web marketing, SEO...whatever you want to call it, content marketing is a vital component. If you aren't sure what it is, here's an easy to understand definition of content marketing.

So how much time does content marketing really take and how do you accomplish it when you are already out of time?

The amount of time that a content marketing strategy will vary quite a bit depending on how you plan on attacking it. For example, it is a lot quicker to write a blog post than it is to create an infographic or ebook. If you told me your content marketing strategy was to create an ebook 3 times a week, I'd think you were crazy. So let's break this down a little bit by how long it might take to accomplish various content marketing pieces.

• Blog post - 30 - 120 minutes
• Video - 60 - 180 minutes
• How-to Guide (Blog post and Photos) - 30 - 180 minutes
• Image w/text or Meme- 15 - 60 minutes
• Basic Infographic - 4 - 6 hours
• Custom Design & Complex Infographic - 6 - 14 hours
• Email Newsletter - 30 - 180 minutes
• Ebook - 6 - 20 hours
• Podcast - 30 - 90 minutes
• Social Media Activity - 1 - 15 minutes

Those are estimated times to complete some content marketing tasks and obviously this will vary based on quality, skill, topic, etc.

So let's say your content marketing strategy consisted of 2 blog posts, 1 email marketing newsletter and 10 social media posts per week. You could be looking at 2 - 8 hours per week of content marketing. If you can break this down so multiple people were handling it each person might spend 1-4 hours per week. That is not that much time, especially with the various tools that will allow you to schedule out your activity.

Well...I don't have 2 hours to spare every week!

You do know how many hours are in a week, right? Just to be sure, there are 168 hours every single week. I understand that you don't want to utilize all of these working, but if you are serious about the success of your inbound marketing, that cannot be your only excuse. Let me walk you through how I make the time.

Here at protocol 80 I know that my scheduled blog post days are Tuesdays and Thursdays. That means in a matter of a week, I have to find at least 1.5 - 2 hours to get this done. Just like all of you, my work week gets pretty hectic. Luckily my daughter has gymnastics on Monday and Wednesday evenings and the gymnastics facility has WiFi (Thank you YMCA of the Twin Tiers). I take my Chromebook to the gymnastics facility and write my blog posts there, schedule them to go out on my blog post day and schedule out social media immediately after that. While everyone's schedule won't always work out exactly like mine, the point is I made it a priority and found the time. I could spend that time watching funny videos on YouTube, but how productive is that?

How you can make time for your content marketing?

RESOURCEFULNESS

1. Make it a priority. If something is a priority, you'll find the time.
2. Create a schedule and stick to it.
3. Assign some responsibility to others. You'll get more accomplished and it will require less of one individual's time. If your business is close to a college, try and get an intern. Just make sure
4. Plan ahead. Try and get a list of topics to write about in advance. You should be able to brainstorm many topics in a matter of 15 minutes.
5. Give yourself the right tools. Your blog platform should be easy to use, have something you can work on the go, get Hootsuite, BufferApp, etc.

So next time you give an excuse for not doing content marketing, please try and think of something other than "I just don't have the time". Be resourceful and you'll get it done and reap the benefits!

Let's get to work on a content strategy for your business!