How to Effectively Manage the 7 Buckets of Marketing

Managing your marketing is no small task. When you first started your business, you probably were your Marketing Team (I know I was!) – but as you grow, your marketing will grow with you. And when this happens, you’ll likely find that the different areas (or “buckets”) of marketing will become more than you can manage by yourself.

When I first started Upleveling Your Business, I had a very small team – literally, it was just me, my Bookkeeper, and a small VA team that I outsourced to. I wrote the content, determined the strategy, kept an eye on everything, managed the activities, and handled the coaching, sales, client happiness, and everything else that went into building this business.

And for that first year, things went well. We grew from $0 to $1 million inside of a year, during the height of the pandemic.

As we continued to grow, however, I knew that our tiny team just wasn’t sustainable. As much as I loved being involved in everything, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. So, I started to expand my team (and yes, this was an intentional part of my business plan!)

Today, my Marketing Team consists of:

• Marketing Coordinator
• Copywriter
• 2 Marketing Assistants
• Tech Support Assistant
• Video Editor
• Ad consultant

And we’re looking to grow further in the coming year.

As your company grows, you’ll find that each area, or “bucket,” of marketing becomes more specialized. In other words, as you’re able to allocate more time and funds to marketing, you’ll find that there is more to focus on and manage.

This begs the question: as your Marketing Team and marketing activities expand, how do you effectively manage each of the 7 buckets of marketing? This is no easy task, but with strong communication and the right systems as well as the right team members, it can be done. (This is where I lean heavily on my Marketing Coordinator!)

Social Media Management

If your prospects can’t find you, they can’t hire or purchase from you – and social media is one of the best ways to find the people you’re looking for. However, social media can also quickly become overwhelming…and if you don’t have a strong content and engagement strategy along with the systems your team needs, you can end up putting a lot of work in for minimal results.

In order to effectively manage your social media, your Marketing Assistant will need to be equipped with a few different things:

• A content calendar that fits your goals
• A posting strategy that will build your audience while not overwhelming your Marketing Assistant (a scheduler tool can help!)
• A branding guide that clearly expresses what you’re looking for in terms of design and content
• Clear expectations for engagement
• Strong systems for content creation, approval, and publishing

Written Content Management

Keeping up with written content is no small job – and as you grow, you simply won’t have time to keep up with it. This is where your Marketing Assistant and a strong Copywriter can be a huge benefit!

Your written content isn’t something that you can just magically hand over, though. When I first started working with my Copywriter, we met at least once or twice a week so she could pick my brain, ask me questions, and start to learn my voice. I shared stories, explained what I was looking for, and gave clear notes on everything she submitted. This is something that takes time, but within a few months, she was able to take on projects with minimal notes.

In addition to allowing your Marketing Assistant or Copywriter access to you, you’ll also need to provide clear expectations and strong systems.

• Which types of content will you expect each month? Each week?
• How far ahead of time will you expect the drafts to be submitted?
• What type of approval process will you want? Do you have a clear timeline?
• What is the process for editing and publishing?

Once your writer has these expectations and systems in place, they’ll be able to learn your voice and start to get in a good groove!

Audio/Video Management

Almost every social platform today is leaning toward video content, and some are geared solely for video. This makes it imperative that you have at least some video in your marketing strategy!

In addition to pleasing the algorithms though, there’s another consideration: accessibility. Many people simply prefer to learn and connect via video or audio, so including it in your marketing strategy is also a great way to reach more people in your ideal audience.

Managing your audio and video content is challenging, though. Again, this is where clear expectations and communication along with strong systems become necessary. When you assign tasks to your video and audio editor, you’ll need to explain the purpose of the content, any specific clips you’re looking for, and which platforms you want to publish it on.

However, you’ll also need to be clear with due dates, your desired approval process, and timelines for edits. This is where I love to use our project management tool!

Brand/Culture Development

Your brand development is something that will happen over time. I strongly recommend working with a brand strategist to develop your initial brand assets (as this is something that is extremely difficult for most owners to do on their own), but as you grow, you’ll notice that your brand will evolve.

This is why clear communication is so important! As your Marketing Team grows, you’ll want to allow various members of your team to innovate and expand your brand.

• Your Graphic Designer can develop an ever-expanding set of templates to work with, based on the changing market and your growing audience.
• Your Marketing Assistant or Copywriter can work with your written content to more clearly define your brand on social media, your website, emails, sales pages, and ads.
• Your Video Editor can help you determine how to use current video trends to better hone and develop your brand.
• Your Marketing Coordinator can bring all of your team’s suggestions together to keep you informed and where relevant update the procedures and the Brand Guide to keep everyone on track!

As your brand develops, your team will also help you find new ways to amplify your brand and company culture. Some options may include video, social media stories, images, and more!

As you grow, you will also showcase your culture to attract future clients and future team members.  People want to work with great companies that take care of their team and where clients love to return again and again. Being intentional on this bucket of marketing can yield huge returns!  

Product/Program Development

As you grow, your services, products, and programs will need to grow with you. These will not only help you stay current with market changes, they’ll also help you remain top of mind for your ideal client!

Whenever I decide to offer a new product or service, I involve my Marketing Team. This is partly because they take care of whatever technical build will be needed (uploading course materials, creating sales pages, etc.), but also because they are the ones who will be planning, creating, and executing the marketing campaigns for it. Involving them in the entire process helps them market it much more effectively!

This does take planning, communication, and strong systems, though. There is a side benefit to this process: having to explain the details and purpose of what you’re launching to your team will help you launch a better product!

It is also vital for businesses to refresh their products or programs from time to time and make sure they are aligned with their ideal clients.  As a company grows even more, they may add additional packages or adjust products for additional persona categories or avatars. 

Online Presence Management: Website, SEO & Directories

Your online presence is one of the most challenging things to manage. This bucket includes your Website, SEO, your online directories, and any other back end technical work.

There are a couple of different ways you can handle your online presence.

If you choose to handle it in-house, I recommend equipping your Marketing Team with strong training. Online directories are easy enough to handle (they just take consistency and a clear checklist), but SEO can be a beast. Not only is it technical and detail-oriented, it also tends to change on a regular basis. (Thank you, Google!)

There are good courses and plugins (such as Squirrly and RankMath) available – finding the one that works best for your team can make a huge difference.

The other option is to outsource this service. There are some amazing SEO agencies out there with differing levels of service, and depending on the bandwidth of your team, outsourcing your online presence projects can be a good choice. If you’re considering this option, be sure to be clear with your goals, your budget, and your expectations. (Otherwise, this can get pricey!)

Online Ads

The last of the seven marketing budgets is online advertising. Whether you advertise on social media (like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn) or through something like Google Ads, online ads are a necessary part of many marketing strategies.

This is for a few different reasons:

• Social media algorithms are largely designed to suppress fully organic posting. In other words, your audience is unlikely to see your content in their feeds unless they routinely engage with your page. One of the best ways to avoid this is to combine your organic content with paid content.
• Because these algorithms are much less friendly than they used to be, you are far less likely to attract new audiences without paid content. With social media ads, however, you can specifically target the people you’re looking to attract AND help them to effectively move along your customer journey.
• If your audience is difficult to pin down on social media, running PPC (Pay Per Click) ads on a platform like Google can bring you some fantastic leads. Taking advantage of Google’s data and targeting can help you reach the exact audience you’re looking for.

If you happen to have someone on your team who is experienced with ads, handling them in-house can be a good option. There are a lot of details to be aware of, however, and effective ads take a lot of split testing and analysis. I encourage you to objectively evaluate whether your team can handle these projects.

If you decide to outsource this marketing bucket, find a company that you feel comfortable with – one who is willing to talk with you, understand your audience and goals, and create a strategy that works for your budget and your business.

Managing all 7 marketing buckets is a full-time task in itself, which is why it’s necessary to have the right team, the right systems, and strong communication. This is why we offer our Marketing Systems and Staffing Packages, Marketing Boot Camp, and Marketing Coaching – to help business owners and their teams optimize their time and skills. If you’re interested, click here to contact us and find out which solutions will work best for you!