Time is free, but it’s priceless.

You can’t own it, but you can use it.
You can’t keep it, but you can spend it.
Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.

“All these years, you’ve lived but you’ve never had a life.”

In the movie Age of Adaline, the main character gets stuck being the same age and has to watch people come and then go. (Starring Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman and Harrison Ford).

“Time is the single most precious commodity in the universe.”

In Jupiter Ascending planets are inherited and can ‘harvest’ human beings to create a solution to bathe in that gives them immortality. (Starring Eddie Redmayne, Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis).

Both movies I highly recommend and have watched each more than a couple of times.

Time is becoming more valuable

The ‘noughties’ (2000-2009) saw us place more importance on time – it’s not just about your career, it’s getting a work life balance that works for you.

The ‘twenty-tens’ saw us becoming more concerned about time wasted on devices and placing more value on real connections and quality time.

There is a push to be planet aware for future generations… we talk about looking after our bodies so that we can have a longer, active lives… There are so many experts to give advice, including organisational apps, books, goal setting guides – all to achieve and feel good about it.

The same can be said in business – the time you spend in growing a company is expensive. Prioritising what will add value and the time it takes requires juggling skills, and often, marketing falls by the wayside until it’s quiet and you need some work. And so the roller coaster begins; chase work, get work, do work, run out… chase work, get work…

Having a basic marketing strategy in place and utilising campaign spikes, will often keep you going without the ups and downs.

Basic Marketing Strategy

I don’t think I’m giving anything away here by talking about this strategy, I guess because it seems so obvious, perhaps even common. If I am giving it away, you’re welcome…

Step One: Baseline Marketing

Have your digital marketing on a regular cycle. This includes your website, newsletters and any social media channels you use. Consider how often each one needs to be updated and how often your audience would like to hear from you.

This is how you tell people who you are and what your purpose is. You are keeping connected with those who know you, and giving a first impression to those who happen to find you.

• If your website has dated content, what will their first impression of you be?
• If your newsletter doesn’t provide value, why would they stay subscribed?
• If your social media isn’t updated, why would they like/follow/connect?

Baseline marketing requires commitment and discipline no matter what’s going on. It’s something that needs to be done whether you’re busy or not. It is often delegated and this ball is often dropped. Some people find satisfaction in ticking a box or scrunching up a to-do list, increasing a following, etc.

Step Two: Targeted Campaigns

Choose an area of your business that you want to increase – either sales or awareness – and develop a plan around it that plays out over a specified period of time. SMART goals are a great way to start this process.

Boosting sales, creating awareness, increasing attendance – decide who you want to attract, find out where they live (not literally, I mean where they comfortably engage online) and talk to them in their language (text, imagery, video).

Here at Gilligan Sheppard we’re in the middle of a targeted campaign for valuation work. It’s been so effective we’ve been getting queries daily!

For some, campaigns can be the fun part – they’re into the data, clicks, numbers, playing with keywords, boosts, etc. – any learning is an opportunity and they don’t find it daunting. Campaigns have a start and finish which can be worked around your workload – just push the go button when you go quiet.

For others it can be quite stressful, is the ad spend worth it? Will you get a return-on-investment? What if someone comments negatively, perhaps it’s better to avoid social media altogether? Where or how do you start?

Outsourcing for Success

Focus on your strengths and get someone else to fill in the gaps. At Gilligan Sheppard, we provide both baseline and campaign marketing services as part of our purpose…

“We enrich our lives through enriching yours.” Or in other words, creating a successful marketing strategy for you, will feel awesome for us, and therefore awesome for you.

We monitor and update your online platforms as often or as little as you’d like. We can use your existing platforms or we can create new ones for you.

You can use the same content everywhere, content that is adjusted for each audience or completely different content for each platform. You can reuse existing content, create new content or we can get content written for you by an industry expert.

We can set up the measuring tools so that we can tell you what’s currently going on in your online presence so that you can better focus the content to attract the customers you want.

Whatever it is that is stealing precious time, or quality of life, or even sucking the passion out of your business – we’d like to help.

Get in touch to organise a get together and see if we’re the perfect fit for you.