7 Top Initiatives for One-Person Marketing Teams
Marketers are known to be master multi-taskers, but when you are a one-person marketing powerhouse—multitasking reaches a whole new level. One-person marketing teams understand what it means to truly work under pressure as they are tasked with handling all the different aspects of running a business. From developing successful marketing strategies, content creation, and managing social media, to running advertising campaigns, analyzing data, and increasing lead generation, one-person marketing teams understand the power of versatility and resourcefulness.
While it may seem daunting to shoulder all of your company's marketing initiatives single-handedly, significant growth can stem from rising to these challenges. By implementing a few smart strategies and wisely managing your time and resources, you can thrive as a one-person marketing team and achieve remarkable results for your organization.
A key step in achieving this kind of success starts by understanding your marketing strengths and identifying where there might be opportunities to hire contractors to support you on your journey. Here are 7 important initiatives that will help you achieve success as a one-person marketing team.
1 - Align Goals and Objectives Across Departments
Your marketing goals should align with your overall business strategy. That might mean connecting with the sales team or meeting with executives to determine what marketing objectives should have the highest priority. For example, you may want to grow your social media following, but customer retention might need more focus because the company is losing customers after a few months. As you meet with other departments, evaluate the greatest gaps where marketing can do the most good.
Setting Manageable Marketing Goals
After establishing your marketing objectives, plot out your course of action with SMART goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and timely. Additionally, we recommend making those goals small. Breaking large goals into much smaller chunks makes it easier to stay on track and celebrate the little victories along the way. It also helps spur action and decreases decision paralysis when faced with an overwhelming objective.
For Example:
Goal objective: Increase website traffic by 50% in the next six months to generate more leads and increase brand visibility.
Specific:
Define target audience and determine current website performance. Determine what channels will increase traffic.
Measurable:
Determine what tools will be used to measure results (like Google Analytics). This goal is set at 50% growth.
Actionable:
Assess the marketing department's resources and how they will affect your goals. Make sure goals are feasible for you to accomplish, and allow or outsource help where the budget allows.
Relevant:
Your goal should tie into your overall business goals. Increasing website traffic can help bring in new leads or improve brand visibility.
Timely:
Set a reasonable timeframe to achieve your goal and milestones along the way to help track progress (6 months).
Getting the Leadership Buy-in
Organic traffic to your website and social channels is great, but sometimes, you need a bigger budget for ads or outsourced support. If you want to get leadership teams on board, present your proposal with as much data and concrete information as possible. Connect the dots between the investment and the anticipated results. Tie in how marketing goals support overall business goals and conclude with how you plan to address any potential challenges or risks. You should also highlight options for who might do any outsourced work and the cost/benefits of working with these individuals.
2 - Maximize Website Performance
Your website is an extension of your marketing department, so it should have all the resources it needs to attract and convert new leads. If you are operating with an outdated, clunky website, it may be time to conduct a website audit. Start with this audit checklist to evaluate your website’s performance:
Check website loading speed with Google PageSpeed
Redirect any broken links
Write keyword-rich meta descriptions for each page
Optimize image format for faster loading times
Make sure your website is mobile-friendly
Evaluate overall UX design and website copy
Fill your website with helpful, original content
The behind-the-scenes technical aspects of your website are just as important as aesthetics because of how they affect functionality. Users don’t want to wait for slow websites or fumble around for information. If web development isn’t your strong suit, get help from a professional for faster, more efficient results.
3 - Build a Manageable Content Strategy
Content is critical for connecting with new and existing customers. It communicates your value proposition and represents your entire brand identity. For this reason, your content should be cohesive across all platforms.
It can feel like a whale of a task at first glance, but getting strategic about your content can help you stay ahead of the curve. It starts with understanding what areas need your focus and prioritizing them. Keep your goals small and break your content needs out into subcategories. In many cases, you may already have content resources at your disposal, but they may need a little help getting up to current quality standards. Use the resources you have to save yourself time. There’s still plenty of opportunity to mold it into something new and engaging.
With such a demand for content, how can your one-person team manage it all? To learn more about how to be intentional with your content marketing strategy, read Content Marketing: Everything You Need to Know Before Launching Your Strategy.
How to Build a Content Calendar
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a content calendar. What’s most important is that you are consistent with your content and use your available resources to distribute and repurpose the content that you create. Get it in front of your target audience in as many ways as possible.
With our SMART goal from the above example in mind, how can we create a content calendar outline to help us reach our goal?
Overall goal objective: Increase website traffic by 50% in the next six months to generate more leads and increase brand visibility.*
Content strategy goal: Improve company blog by updating old material, redirecting broken links, and increasing monthly blog cadence to two blogs per month.
To-do:
Identify important keywords and content opportunities
Review past blog posts for outdated content and broken links
Align new content topics with product/service calendar updates as needed
Cross-post new content on various platforms
Drive traffic to the website with regular email updates
Review website traffic metrics after 90 days for notable improvements
Monthly Content Calendar:
Week One: Update 1-2 outdated pieces of content. Improve the links and keywords, and bring up the current SEO standards.
Week Two: Publish new blog content based on previous keyword research. Repurpose this blog into multiple social media posts and email marketing to improve reach.
Week Three: Update 1-2 outdated pieces of content. Improve the links and keywords, and bring up the current SEO standards.
Week Four: Publish new blog content based on previous keyword research. Repurpose this blog into multiple social media posts and email marketing to improve reach.
*This is an ambitious goal for any marketing team. This content outline alone won’t get you there. Do your research and test what works for you.
Should You Outsource Content Creation?
One of the best things you can do to support your marketing efforts is to outsource your content writing. Professional copywriters are experts at the nuances that make great content that converts. They can help you craft compelling content for your website, lead magnets, emails, and blogs so you can focus on the other elements of your marketing strategy.
4 - Set Up Social Media for Success
Not every marketing professional will love social media management, but just about every business needs some form of social media presence. Social media builds brand awareness and community engagement. It can also serve as a source of customer service and lead generation.
Social media management is another space where outsourcing all or a portion of your responsibilities might help a one-person marketing team. Independent contractors can schedule posts, manage comments and messages, and do market research while you oversee the overall content strategy.
Choosing the Right Social Media Strategy for Your Business
A common mistake marketing departments make is trying to be on all social media channels without a real goal in mind. It’s far more important to choose the right social media channels–those that are most relevant to your business and target audience.
For example, if you are a local brick-and-mortar or service-based company, Facebook is particularly important for connecting with your local community through relevant groups. Instagram can also be effective by using locally-based hashtags and local influencers. If you are a tech startup, you’ll likely have more success focusing on building a LinkedIn network or building interest on X. If you are struggling with determining which channel is right for you, focus on one at a time until you’ve built up a steady cadence of content and an engaged audience.
On the other hand, if you have already built a following and are ready to take things to the next level, consider what paid ads might do for your marketing strategy. Facebook and Instagram tie for the highest level of ROI for social media marketing.
5 - Repurpose Content
Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose. As a one-person marketing team, repurposing content can be one of the most efficient ways to allocate your resources wisely. Taking one piece of content and using it for multiple channels and formats sounds repetitive, but really, it isn’t.
How to Repurpose Content
Repurposing content can be as simple as pulling old or new content and reformatting it to work on other platforms. This is a great way to source social media content. For example, if you want to repurpose a blog for social media, take a blog post and cut it into three social media posts.
The first one highlights a main point from the article (e.g., a solution for your audience) to build interest in the topic.
The second one shouts out the blog topic and provides a hook to get people to click through to the website.
The third pulls a quote from the article and asks a question to engage your audience in a conversation. Link the article in the comments as part of the conversation.
It doesn’t have to end there, either. A blog post can be repurposed into long-form video content, a podcast, an infographic, a whitepaper, or even a slide deck. Use the content you have, make it great, and use it wisely.
6 - Grow and Nurture Your Email List
Your email list is your curated audience of potential and current buyers. As such, it should be handled with care. Many email management software programs are available to help you segment your list so that you can send targeted emails to the right people.
Too often, marketing departments let their email list become a convoluted collection of contacts without any rhyme or reason. If you can successfully organize your email list, you can start crafting target messages that reach your audience at the right time during their customer journey.
Use your email marketing to keep existing and loyal customers engaged and coming back for more. Offer them unique promotions and keep them up-to-date with new products or services. When you want new email subscribers, make sure you have a lead magnet or other incentive that kicks off their customer journey and gets them into your email contact list. Email is a great place to put marketing automation to work for you.
7 - Get Out and Network at Special Events
Sometimes, the best marketing strategy is to get out and touch base with your community. Depending on your industry, that might look like visiting local communities, trade shows, and networking. All of these can still make an enormous impact on your marketing efforts. Don’t just use them to collect new leads, bring your overall marketing goal to the forefront with giveaways, QR codes, and landing pages that can help increase traffic to your site.
Additionally, marketing events are a great place to boost brand awareness and connect with potential partners.
Mastering the One-Person Marketing Team
A one-person marketing team is no small feat, but you can still accomplish your goals by making small attainable goals, allocating resources wisely, and outsourcing projects where possible. Focus on your strengths and get the support you need to do the rest.
Schedule your free 20-minute consultation today to learn how Comma’s content marketing team can help you achieve your goals.
