Tips for Making Your Life as a Digital Marketer Easier

by Raul Harman, Guest Contributor

​Almost every employer, when posting a digital marketing job, includes “must be able to multitask as well as meet strict deadlines”. And it is true, digital marketers are multitaskers. If you’ve just started your career in the industry, this may sound as a productive and dynamic way to spend your day. However, it gets tiring after some time and you’ll notice how your productivity drops when you try to do more things at once.

Tricks to improve digital marketing organization and workflow.

With numerous challenges and tasks that a digital marketer has to face every day, clients that constantly want detailed feedback and rigorous and tight deadlines, it often affects one’s efficiency. Getting lost in all that noise is easy, which is why digital marketers need to turn to different tricks in order to improve their work organization and workflow in general.

Learn to manage time more effectively
Developing good time management skills is crucial for every marketer, because time is their worst enemy. By dedicating a pre-set amount of time to finish a task, you’ll see how your productivity will be on the increase. Otherwise, it’s likely that you’ll get lost by trying to get more things done at the same time and letting a single task take up most of your time. You need to set limits, come up with realistic estimates, and eliminate distractions from your immediate surroundings. For example, if you need to write a new blog post, set 3-4 hours for finishing the task, set a countdown timer in order to create a sense of urgency, and give it your best to beat the timer.

Pinpoint and reuse repeated processes
If you’ve done similar marketing campaigns in the past, don’t try to reinvent the wheel every time. Certain processes are bound to repeat themselves, so recognize the patterns and make yourself templates in order to ease your work management. Of course, these templates must be adjusted to fit each task, so be wary of unexpected situations. Figure out the best way of handling unstructured and unplanned work, and then use your knowledge and experience to do the work as fast and as effectively as possible.

Create a centralized documentation infrastructure
By storing all your files, documents, reports, analytics, task schedules and updates in one place and having them accessible with just a few clicks, you’ll save time and effort by eliminating the need to look for the information you need. This will indirectly affect your workflow in a positive manner.

Use the right tools to optimize slow processes
Almost every digital marketer is a victim of slow and boring processes that steal our time and energy. For example, you have to create very detailed reports for clients, which includes gathering all the data, double-checking the numbers, pasting them into Excel sheets, working on design and giving your commentary. It is a process that keeps you from doing actual work, even though it is very important for client retention.

Fortunately, there are reporting tools that can help you automate this process and save yourself some time, thanks to their custom date range reporting options, a number of useful widgets and predefined templates for standard marketing strategies and campaigns. Using digital marketing dashboards will help you accomplish your reporting in less time, letting you get back to work sooner. There are other tools that can help you with your project organization, proofreading, content development, website analytics, email marketing, etc.

Improve your communication skills
According to these 2012 statistics, 7 weeks (280 hours) per year were wasted because of poor communication. Why does bad communication happen at work? The reasons differ, from poor leadership, personal issues, to unclear goals. You can have a tough time communicating both within the company and with your clients. Digital marketing agencies and freelance marketing professionals often struggle to communicate with clients, because they’re forced to present their ideas to employees who can’t actually speak for their company, which leads to many hours wasted on unnecessary meetings and emails. To improve the quality of communication, you need to remove these tampon zones in communication. Learn the importance of crafting detailed briefs for the clients you collaborate with on a regular basis.

In order to make your life as a digital marketer easier, you need to organize your time and establish a functional and efficient workflow. Also, work to improve your business communication and find the most suitable tools to optimize all the recurring, boring, long processes. Once you do this, all that’s left is to continue to strive toward achieving results and delivering value for your respectable clients.