Marketing Burnout!

I talk to many professionals throughout the Indianapolis area, and what I’m hearing from many of them is that they suffer from something I’m calling “marketing burnout.” Essentially, marketing burnout is a condition where a business owner or professional has become overwhelmed with all of the responsibilities of running or managing their business. These responsibilities may include any of the following:

• Updating the company’s website content and corporate blogs
• Optimizing the company website for search engine visibility
• Developing written sales materials for the company sales team
• Writing, editing and sending out the company e-newsletter
• Attending networking events and trade shows
• Pre- and post-event marketing  and follow-ups
• Managing the company’s social media accounts
• Writing direct mail letters and other sales pieces
• Developing company marketing strategy
• Developing a public relations campaign to generate media coverage for the company
• Writing columns for local newspaper or industry magazines
• Creating advertisements and finding ideal places to run advertisements
• Dispersing marketing budget across the most effective avenues
• Training employees on proper social media usage
• Participating in nonprofit or fundraising activities within the community
• Writing, shooting and editing radio or video scripts and footage
• Selecting promotional products for client incentives and tradeshow giveaways
• Developing a new tagline for the company’s new brand
• Managing sales team and generating qualified leads on a regular basis

I could go on and on here with responsibilities. I am overwhelmed just listing all of the items on the VP of Sales and Marketing or President/CEO’s to-do list. How can executives deal with this overwhelm, make some sense of it, and take action toward accomplishing any of these items? Here are some options:

1. Start with a strategy and timeline: Tackle the overwhelm by looking at the big picture. Create an overall marketing strategy for your business. Incorporate the business and sales goals with the marketing tactics that make the most sense for reaching those goals. Then go about formalizing a plan and calendar for each area of the strategy, complete with those responsible for making it happen.
2. Delegate, delegate, delegate: First of all, quit trying to do all of these things yourself, especially if you are also the business owner and handling sales for the organization. Recognize that no one person can truly “do it all.” What items do you have to do, and what others could you give to an employee or outsource to a marketing firm? Trying to do it all can mean doing none of it well, so the more people can help you with these tasks, the more likely you will be to complete them.
3. Automate processes: Can you create ad campaigns for the year, and hand them off to the publisher all at once, and set them to run every month? This will save you from scrambling to get something to press by the deadline. Can you use tools to share new content you have created by scheduling your blog posts and social media posts automatically? Work from a content calendar for ideas,  and hold weekly sales/marketing team meetings to keep everyone in the loop and on task.

Don’t let yourself experience burnout because of all of the marketing tasks in front of you. Instead of doing nothing at all, follow some of the above guidelines to help you overcome the hurdles and start seeing the results of taking action.