Everything we do that qualifies as marketing—networking, content creation, staying in touch with clients and prospects, running ads—is easier and more effective when we “prepare” before we “do”.
Let’s call it “pre-marketing”.
Before you attend a live event, for example, you don’t just show up. You make a list of people you want to connect with, what you want to ask, offer, or tell them, notes about the speaker and his or her topic, and so on.
If you have a blog or newsletter or regularly post on social media, your pre-marketing activities would include collecting content ideas, creating a backlog of new content, verifying links, and updating your calls-to-action.
Yes, it’s all marketing. But pre-marketing activities can be done ahead of time, when you have an easier schedule.
Do these things so that when it’s go time, you’re ready to go.
Things like
- Learning more about your target market and ideal client
- Looking for articles to send to your key clients and referral sources
- Signing greeting cards and thank-you notes so they are ready to mail
- Reviewing your competition’s content
- Taking seminars about SEO and AI and tools you can use to improve your marketing
- Creating new forms and updating old ones
- Finding and working with a “workout partner”
- Reading blogs about marketing and productivity
Keep a list of these activities close at hand and schedule time to do them.
Boring? Maybe so. But you can delegate a lot of this.
Do enough pre-marketing and you might be able to hire a full time pre-marketing assistant.
