It seems as though productivity experts are everywhere. Many offer valuable tips on how to become more efficient and make better use of your time. For example, from the moment you get up in the morning until the time you shut it down at night, you’re offered advice on how to increase productivity and be more effective in whatever you’re doing.
But what about when it comes to marketing your business, or the business you represent as a distributed marketer, brand manager, or marketing agency? What can a business do to improve its productivity? Do you simply apply the same principles? The answer is both yes and no. Here’s how to increase productivity for your brand.
Business Productivity: Setting Goals
You’ve likely heard the adage: “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Benjamin Franklin is credited with this time-honored phrase, and it applies to how you market your brand.
You need a marketing roadmap, of sorts, that clearly details what you want to achieve and how you intend to achieve it. After all, your goal is to not only win customers, but also keep them. To do that, you’ll need a plan of action. As you discover how to increase productivity, this is an ideal place to start.
Be SMART with Business Productivity: List Your Goals
The popular and widely publicized Harvard MBA Business School Study on Goal Setting revealed that written goals and a plan for attaining them work. In the study, a graduating class was asked if they had goals and a plan. It was determined that 84% had no goals at all, 13% had written goals but no plan, and only 3% had written goals and a plan. The results showed that the goal-oriented 13% were making twice as much money as the 84% that had no goals. And the 3% of the class that had both written goals and a plan were making 10 times more than the rest of the class.
So, write down your goals and develop a plan to achieve them. But make sure they’re SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely).
For example, are you hoping for a 15% increase in sales per quarter this year? That’s specific and measurable, but is it achievable? If you don’t have a realistic chance of achieving the goal, you’re less likely to find success—and more likely to get frustrated. Also, make sure the goal is relevant to the direction you want your business to go in. Naturally, increasing sales is a typical goal for most businesses, but does it also relate to your other goals, like increasing your brand’s awareness or hiring more staff? Look at the big picture and make sure the goal is relevant.
Finally, you’ve got your deadline. A 15% increase in sales per quarter is a timely goal. What you don’t want to do is wait until the end of the quarter only to find out you’re nowhere near your goal. That’s where benchmarks come in.
Set Benchmarks Along the Way
You can take the SMART process a step further by setting benchmarks. This is a great way to know if you’re on the right track. If you want to increase sales by 15% over a four-month period, set monthly benchmarks to see if you’re heading in the right direction. That way, you can make adjustments if you see you’re not moving toward that goal. If you increased sales by 3.75% or more during the first month, you’re on the right track.
How to Increase Productivity: Work Smarter, Not Harder
When it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything you want—and you’re burning the midnight oil to check the next item off your to-do list—consider a new plan. By implementing a few simple techniques, you’ll discover how to increase business productivity and free yourself to do more in less time.
- Work in blocks of time. According to an article from Inc., our brain is only able to stay focused for about 90 minutes. Then you need a minimum of 15 minutes of rest from whatever you were doing.
- Avoid distractions. When you’re hard at work on a specific task, avoid the things that will easily distract you, like the “ding” of an incoming email. Set aside specific times to check and reply to emails, like the beginning of the day. Others like to wait until they’ve completed a priority task or two, like Hannah Morgan of Career Sherpa.
- Take productive breaks. When you take a break, make it a productive respite from the tasks at hand. Go for a walk, take a quick power nap, or try a meditation app like Headspace to help you recharge. Another option is to try looking at a “green space” for about 40 seconds to improve your concentration.
- Conquer your most important tasks. Career guru Adunola Adeshola identifies her highest-priority items each day and conquers them first. This not only gets those tough tasks out of the way, it also provides a sense of accomplishment.
- Delegate authority. There’s no law that says you have to complete every item on your to-do list. Maybe someone else can do it. Think about those tasks you can outsource and hand them off.
- Clean off your desk. Sometimes desk clutter can serve as a distraction. Disorder overloads your senses. Clean up your desk (and your computer desktop) and you might clean up your mind to tackle those harder tasks.
- Save for later. When you happen upon an interesting article you’d like to read, don’t let it distract you. Use a service like Instapaper to save it to read later.
OK, Work Harder, Too
In your search on how to increase productivity, there’s nothing wrong with hard work. Oftentimes, there’s too much emphasis on ways to get around hard work when that’s the precise prescription for getting something done well. Find a balance between working smarter and working harder to reach your business productivity pinnacle.
In an article for the Huffington Post, technology marketing leader and TEDx speaker Ian Khan said:
Working hard or working smart cannot be separated from each other. Even when working hard, you have to make smart choices. You cannot just wake up one day and say to yourself, ‘Today I will make smart choices.’ No, you should be saying that to yourself every day and work ‘hard’ on it.
Embrace Technology
Embracing technology doesn’t mean using email instead of the telephone to communicate. By all means, use both whenever it’s appropriate. But think about adopting a marketing strategy that focuses on how to increase productivity, creating ways you can become more efficient in the process.
Brand Marketing Center
Picture this scenario. A local marketer representing your brand needs marketing collateral. Let’s say it’s a localized brochure. Rather than taking a request and having a graphic designer create this individual piece for them, you’re able to provide a customizable template they can work with that meets brand standards. The design of the brochure is complete and approved. All they have to do is “fill in the blanks” with their local information. The end result? Your entire marketing team is more efficient and your designers can use their time more wisely.
BlueSky ETO provides brand marketing software for distributed organizations. You can enjoy the benefits of a brand marketing center, digital asset management, and automated marketing campaigns. Combined, they form an efficient and productive method of marketing your brand.
Marketing Automation Tools
Let’s say you have an email to send to a diverse audience. Instead of creating each message separately, marketing automation software automatically generates and sends these messages for you. Consider the time savings. You don’t have to create thousands of unique email messages. You can use marketing automation and variable data printing to create customized materials for each audience. Now that’s business productivity.
Business Collaboration Tools
Playing phone tag with your co-workers or stretching an email thread from days to weeks is not a productive way to do business. A team collaboration tool like Slack brings all your communication messages together into channels. The channels split into teams, projects, clients, or any other method that’s relevant to your organization. And unlike long chains of emails, team members can join and leave channels as needed. It’s an efficient and productive way to communicate with your marketing team.
Make Continuous Quality Improvement a Priority
No matter what plan you have in place and no matter what method you use to increase your marketing productivity, you need to be sure you’re not stagnating. A commitment to continuous quality improvement will help to ensure you’re always on the right road to success.
Continuous quality improvement—also known as CQI—is a management philosophy. Businesses want to reduce waste and increase the efficiency and satisfaction of their customers and employees. It’s an ongoing process that examines how an organization works and then finds ways to improve upon it.
What Can a Business Do to Improve its Productivity?
It’s a simple question. And for all intents and purposes, there are simple answers. Yet, business productivity eludes us. That’s why we search for ways we can improve upon it. By applying the recommendations mentioned above, you’ll streamline your marketing efforts and become a more productive marketer for your brand.
As you discover how to increase productivity, get your entire marketing team on the same page by incorporating a brand management software solution that’s customized for your organization’s specific needs. Schedule a free consultation to learn how to increase your business productivity.
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Setting goals and revisiting those goals is very important. It allows you to always have something that you are working towards.
The past month I’ve had such a hard time FOCUSING at all, let alone for blocks of 90 mins at a time! Super valuable article. Have you ever heard of a structured fulfillment? I think it’s the same thing as what you explained… someone from Landmark told me about it. It’s all about having a PLAN!
great post! those techniques are awesome and could really come to use for people that have a lot of screen time especially. thanks for sharing.
Wow, this is pro tips! Although it seems so complicated but I’m totally going to read and take notes to it. thx
Very very valuable insights! The nnew age of marketing is what we do today – these will certainly help boost productivity!
Setting goals is very important. These are some amazing tips to keep marketings on the right path to increase productivity!
As someone who works in marketing, this list of pointers and tips is very helpful to me. Great list, very comprehensive and detailed x
Yes!! Really great thorough post! I agree that while it’s important to work hard, it’s also important to work smart! How we utilize and prioritize our time is essential to productivity.
I have heard of setting SMART goals, but I love your extra tips on working in block times. I also hadn’t heard of the study where people can only be productive for 90 minute blocks, so I will try to structure my day around this. Thanks for the tips!
These insights are really amazing. Branding and marketing properly really go the distance.
Great post on productivity! I tend to read a lot on the topic, and love to pull in things that work for me. Lately, I’ve been batching my work, which seems to have helped too!
This is a really great article. There was so much helpful advice here. I learned so many new techniques to try out.
This is such a great list of increasing productivity. Thanks for putting it together.
So many great tips! I usually have a set time for each task and then try to get it done. If I can’t I will see if I can fit it in later that day.
These are all great information and tips for the new ones. I think the visualization really works well.
I like that you’ve mentioned some pointers that I already do and others that I’d like to try. And yes, blocking off time does help with productivity.
Visualizing and then listing your goals is such an important step! It helps you achieve a lot more.
This is so relevant for me, considering I am new to blogging. Thank you for sharing
This is all great information for business owners. Thank you for sharing!
Setting goals is definitely a good tip! That is something I need to work on myself.
What excellent tips for increasing productivity! Working smarter and focusing on automating tasks are key concepts to keep in mind.
The last thing on my to-do list is to automate more and find people to take over smaller tasks so I can work on the bigger ones. This is such great advice!
I kind of knew that my brain can only handle 90 minutes. That’s why I take breaks after a couple of hours of working.
This is great information. It’s important to be sure that the ROI for the time spend is worth it on some of the marketing processes we go through.
One of the toughest things especially nowadays is to keep focus! There are just too many distractions!!
great tips. i always make a big goal, and then little goals to meet along the way to make it easier.
focus is rough when you have three kids and work full time! But this has some great tips for productivity!
I’m guilty of getting distracted and not focusing on one thing after another. I’m even doing that now!
Back to work, and thanks for the practical tips.
These are really great ideas. I am a big proponent of working smarter, not harder. I have a lot of responsibilities in my job and tend to be a little overly organized, but it helps me get a lot of things done.
Love the sentiment to work smarter not harder. This is a great post for those people needing inspiration for productivity.
making a propper list is a tip that changed my life as far as productivity goes! I know its so basic, but i overlooked it for a long time and now as I make lists I laugh at myself for thinking i was above them!
These are amazing tips. I am easily distracted, but I also have two toddlers running around at home and interrupting my work. I may need to start paying for a sitter or begging their Nana to take them off my hands for a few hours a week.
These are some great tips – I have to admit I am not very good at being productive, I get so distracted easily.
I love that you mention to work smarter not harder! This is so important to do this and spend more time on money making activities.
I feel like setting goals is key to increased productivity for a business or an individual. Without focus, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut and not accomplish anything!
I struggle with being productive consistently. I can make plans all the time, and set goals, but it’s a struggle for me to put in the work everyday to reach my end goals.
I like the quote work smarter not harder. I need to remember this one every day.
Awesome informative post! I would assume the SMART goals could work for almost any plan. I have been trying to do the task I dread or the task that never seems to get done first. Not only does that get done so does everything else.
These are great tips, this article is great to help re motivate productivity, thanks for sharing!
~xo Sheree
poshclassymom.com
This is a fabulous post to help with improving productivity. We can always learn and improve our business.
In my opinion Hard work in right direction is the Smart work. And yes automation tools really helps in increasing productivity. Well, I love your complete post. Thanks for writing the great content!
Being more productive is a constant struggle for me. Thanks for the tips!
I have been having a bit of issue with productivity, so this article is spot on. I’m looking forward to utilizing some of the tips you have here to indeed “work smarter, not harder”.
Automation is the key to success with this stuff for sure.