Time Out: Making the Most of Your Business Marketing/PR Efforts

Summary: When you take time out to categorize and prioritize your marketing/PR efforts, you learn what you’re good at, what you can delegate and how to balance your day. In this article, you will discover ways to be a better marketer and well-rounded business professional by tracking and analyzing your performance.

Article and Watchful Butterfly Image by Barbara Rozgonyi, founder of CoryWest Media

To request permission to reproduce or republish this article or the Watchful Butterfly image, contact connect AT corywestmedia DOT com.

When you take time out to categorize and prioritize your marketing/PR efforts, you learn what you’re good at, what you can delegate and how to balance your day. In this article, you will discover ways to be a better marketer and well-rounded business professional by tracking and analyzing your performance.

For one week, track everything you do. Because you have a hand-written hard copy, writing on a notepad works better than typing. Make two columns: start time/end time and project or activity. At the end of the day, highlight income-producing activities in green.

Cross out anything you can delegate and transfer these items to a list that will become your job description for new employees, a marketing/PR consultant, an intern or a virtual assistant. Highlight all work-related activities that only you can do in yellow. Then go over the document and assign your activities into categories: income producing, administrative, creative and entertainment.

At the end of the week when you add up the time you spend on each, you’ll have a clear idea of how you prioritize your day. To grow your business, make adjustments and reallocate your time to make the most of your income producing business marketing/PR efforts.

Income Producing

How much time do your spend making money? Is it a priority or does your business run on auto-pilot with a steady stream of revenue or referrals? Do you personally need to make an effort to make money or can someone else do it for you? What other revenue streams might you consider: affiliate marketing, product sales or purchasing another business?

Administrative

Everyone has to some administrative work, don’t they? Even so, there are ways to reduce the administrative overload. For example, check email only a few times a day instead of responding immediately to every incoming message. You’ll stay focused longer and will save hours of wading through meaningless communications.

Creative

Allowing for a few hours a week of creative play recharges your energy and connects you to the world. Creative play might be finding new friends on Facebook, responding to questions on LinkedIn, having lunch with someone who inspires you, or taking photographs of falling leaves.

Entertainment

This catch-all category is up to you. Take some time to liven up your day, but don’t let your need for amusement take over. Accept that it’s okay to build in a few minutes for an entertainment break and find a quick escape route for that purpose. You can log onto a blog you like, check out the latest shoes online or look up airfares for a travel destination.

Stop trying to do it all

After a week, go back and look at where your time winds up. Ask yourself: Who else could do this for me? Would I get better returns or results if I outsourced? How can I save time? Is there a faster or more efficient way to complete this task? Refocusing your priorities onto the income producing category will help you grow your business.

About the author . . .

An in-demand publicist, professional speaker and marketing communications consultant since 1990, Barbara Rozgonyi is grounded, edgy and prophetic. “Panoramic PR,” Barbara’s latest project, compresses everything she knows into an affordable, manageable course that teaches small business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, experts, coaches and anyone else who wants more free publicity how to get completely covered by being fully exposed. Claim a free report and get automatic articles like this one at http://www.powerprsecrets.com.

Today’s Wall Street Journal also features this chart in a story called “What’s the Hindi Word for Dot-Com?” by Christopher Rhoads about a new development that happens on Monday: domain suffixes will translate into native languages. No more .com, .net or .org. Wanting to know where the Internet world is going? Visit Internet World Stats.

Here’s this week’s Marketing Transformations Network News article. Thanks to Andrew for checking in from AP Link to see if I had any ideas about Universal languages based on images for Second Life. I sent over these resources, not one a perfect match. Moving away from a myriad of languages into universal access images as an alternative means of communication makes sense.

Universal language translator in Second Life

Background on International Languages

Blog for Second Life Business Communicators

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Ezine Article: Universal Marketing Communications: How to Communicate in Multiple Languages

by Barbara Rozgonyi, founder of CoryWest Media,LLC

To request permission to reproduce or republish this article,

contact connect AT corywestmedia DOT com.

Even if all of your real life customers all reside within your country, county or state, if you are online, your audience is global. There’s no getting around Google to position your site just to your zip code.

Business bloggers get it. They write to contribute to a global conversion. Still, it can be surprising, not to mention flattering, when someone comments on your blog in another language.

Business owners who expand their reach and influence beyond borders are leaders, experts and moneymakers. Read this article to find out how to speak to the world in a more than one language.

1. Offer an instant translator plug-in on your site or blog to make international visitors feel welcome right away.

2. Translate your site or most frequently requested pages into several languages. Use a professional translation service to make sure your message is clear.

3. Be sensitive to being a global citizen with neutral communications that appeal to universal situations, not just those that apply in your country.

4. Realize that your patriotism may work in your favor – or against you. [Hint: this goes for countries, sports teams and regions of the country.]

5. Play up your specialties for specific markets: entrepreneurship is popular everywhere.

6. Seek out new areas of influence that may have more room for growth than your own backyard.

7. On your blog or your site, break out your content in headlines and bullets with clear navigation and graphics that emphasize important points.

8. Ask someone who speaks another language to test your site and let you know if they understand the navigation and call to action.

9. Record a video and have a translator do a voice over or better yet, run subtitles in other languages. Then, post it on YouTube and Google Video.

10. If you have a blog, connect with bloggers on other continents by sending them an email and asking them about your type of business or service and how people use it there.

11. Research trends in other countries and write a white paper on how your product or service helps.

12. Visit other countries and meet with business people while you’re there.

13. Contact business organizations in other countries and offer to be an exchange resource.

14. Host a gathering of college students from other countries to learn more about their culture.

15. Use short sentences. Write at a fifth grade level. Test your copy on a third grader.

About the author . . .

An in-demand publicist, professional speaker and marketing communications consultant since 1990, Barbara Rozgonyi is grounded, edgy and prophetic. “Panoramic PR,” Barbara’s latest project, compresses everything she knows into an affordable, manageable course that teaches small business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, experts, coaches and anyone else who wants more free publicity how to get completely covered by being fully exposed. Claim a free report and get automatic articles like this one at Power PR Secrets.