Get more done: 7 marketing productivity tips

How often do you say, 'I wish I had more time,' complaining about the piling assignments? The fact is we do have enough hours per day to finish them all; it's just a matter of inappropriate time management. That's why we shouldn't only rely on the information that a typical working day usually lasts 8 hours. Instead, we should measure hours spent on various duties to check out how long it takes to finish them.

And here, tools such as a time tracking app come with a helping hand. The app frees your mind from glancing at the clock to find out how much you devote to each activity. Most tools measure working hours automatically, whether it's a web timer or desktop/mobile app. They also offer computer activity tracking and assign the projects' entries based on the windows/apps names or document titles. With the use of time tracking software that integrates with QuickBooks, tracking and syncing time data directly into accounting software becomes streamlined, simplifying payroll and invoicing processes. If we treat each customer as a project, we can easily find out how much time each customer-related activity takes. Based on the time tracked, we can generate reports that provide us with an in-depth analysis of our performance, productivity, and efficiency.

The budgeting feature helps estimate the project's real costs and reduces project profitability guessing to the minimum. Knowing that our marketing efforts will turn into revenues is priceless! What is more, measuring time spent on our duties significantly improves performance and effectiveness.

Last times forced us to switch from office to remote work or hybrid work. That makes task management software and other online productivity tools, including a CRM, way more popular than before for work from home jobs.

Now it's a must-have for a company that wants to stay perfectly organized and keeps a tight eye on the projects. The same goes for marketing professionals. A good task management tool will help you to prioritize tasks and increase your productivity in the long-run.

The market is full of different tools offering a different range of features. No matter which one we choose, it won't affect our marketing productivity if we don't make good use of it.

However, if you're motivated to track the tasks with it and improve marketing productivity, make sure the one you choose is packed with the following ones:

• Kanban boards - a task management method that visualizes the workflow. Treat each board as a different project, add as many tasks as the project requires, and assign people to them. All is clear, and we can track the progress easily (if a Kanban tool is packed with Gantt charts it’s even better!),
• Attachments - we used to share images or documents by creating endless email chains. It's inconvenient because we have to switch between apps to send them, but also, searching for these that were sent a long ago is hardly possible. Attaching files directly in the task they're related to saves time and helps keep all the important details in one place,
• Checklists - to make sure everything is 100% done, we should update the progress as often as possible. To-dos and checklists add new value to this process, especially if our task management tool allows us to create a separate checklist for each task!
• Priority settings - not every task we perform for the customer has the same priority level. That's why we should group the activities depending on how urgent or crucial for the project's success they are,
• Progress bar - shows the percentage value of how much we've already done - just one glance and we know how much work is still to do,
• Integrations - we all know it's impossible to find the tool packed with all the features we need to maintain the highest productivity level. That's why the more integrations they offer, the better! Especially if it's a CRM integration - just a few clicks, and you'll get your customers' structure and all important data inside the task manager.

A good e.g. Gantt chart software can significantly improve marketing productivity. It helps us plan and organizes the tasks, as well as monitor the progress. Choose your favorite (the market is full of free ones as well!) one and see for yourself that effortless task management significantly improves marketing productivity.

Marketer's work doesn't focus on the present actions only. They also create short and long-term strategies for brand or service that require planning at least a few steps ahead and sometimes take many working hours to finish.

Inasmuch, these plans often change, and to avoid getting lost, we should take detailed notes about the changes and the customers. To avoid losing them, we shouldn't rather write them down on a piece of paper like we used to. And here also the technology comes with the help, offering us the app traking tool. You can use the preinstalled ones on a computer or mobile phone, but they offer only basic features. More comprehensive apps are packed with attachments, handwriting conversion, and document scanning. What is more, they allow grouping notes based on the projects they're related to. A simple yet effective way to make sure we increase our marketing productivity!

Marketing professionals sometimes struggle with tedious processes like social media planning, creating a video distribution strategy or sending email campaigns. Planning and distributing high-quality marketing content are time-consuming, and doing them manually has a negative impact on productivity improvement. Some areas you can automate are:

• Email markeitng, sending automated messages
• Facebook and Instagram automation on the messages and publishing
• Tasks management
• Fast answers on chats and WhatsApp

To improvise marketing productivity, marketing automation can help us streamline the efforts put into campaigns from start to end. What is more, it can provide us with useful data on our customers' or website visitors' behavior. Social media automation tools are also esencial for this kind of strategy. Incorporating a social media planner can further enhance our ability to schedule and organize posts effectively.

We can focus on what's really important for our business instead of wasting precious hours on something that technology can do for us. Automation tools also offer various types of reports, and the deep analysis of them can affect the marketing investment predictions in the right way.

Meetings are, unfortunately, the enemies of being productive. Of course, their main purpose is discussing and making decisions important for each project.The results are often disappointing, we get distracted, and the conversations turn from the customers-related into small talks that last forever. Implementing project management tools can help keep meetings focused and ensure that key action items are tracked and followed through, minimizing wasted time.

That's why I'd like to encourage you to reduce meetings to the minimum. Instead of keeping from the duties, call or meet your colleagues in person only if it's urgent. What is more, plan them. Try to group similar subjects into one meeting to avoid micromanagement. Provide as much information as you can and make your teammates understood everything, and took notes.

It's hard to improve our marketing productivity when we're tired and stressed. It's also nearly impossible to work 8 or more hours per day straight unless we'd like to end at the hospital, medicated. Of course, sometimes finding a moment to breathe is a real miracle, but even the busiest days require some chilling out to calm the mind.

The labor law assumes at least a 1/2 hour break if you work more than six hours per day. It's a chance to eat something, get some fresh air, or take a quick nap if permitted. The research shows that taking short breaks during working hours reduces stress and the need for long recovery after coming back home.

Use a Pomodoro technique to find a healthy balance between work activity and breaks. It assumes breaking the worktime down into intervals (usually it's 25 minutes of work and a short break then). It creates a decent work routine and develops healthy habits. Additionally, this measuring hours system helps you focus more on what you're doing during the interval length. It's an example of how to increase productivity and effectiveness almost effortlessly!

Dealing with many marketing communication channels simultaneously can be a bit distracting. Receiving a new email or social media mention notifications negatively affect our focus and often makes us forget what we've been doing before. Believe me; it's not nice when you get distracted while writing a piece of content, and after reading the notification, you just lose the point.

Staying productive and effective will be much easier if you just turn off the notifications for a while. Your social life won't suffer, even if friends won't hear anything from you for a few hours.

As you can see, the tips mentioned above are more simple than you think. Implementing them in our daily routine requires only a dose of motivation and good intentions. No matter if you're working as a freelancer or in a company, applying them will have a positive impact on your marketing productivity.

Kommo is a pioneering Messenger Based Sales CRM software that helps businesses achieve more sales and create long-lasting relationships with their customers. It is a tool that enables companies to reach better results and increase their profits.