Why You Need a Marketing Planner

Are you self-employed? An entrepreneur? Or a Solopreneur?

Or whatever you call yourself, you are the one doing it ALL: Creating, accounting, janitor, social media manager, website maintenance and marketing. If that sounds like you, you’ll want to keep reading!

It’s hard to keep up with it all, isn’t it? There are barely enough hours in a day to get the fun things done much less create original content that helps you grow your business from where you are at today.

That was me anyway. I have 2 websites/businesses I manage. I do love it, but it’s exhausting at times. I know WHAT needs to be done but found myself spinning my wheels and getting not nearly enough done each day. It’s not that I’m bad at time management, I just have too much to do and too many great creative ideas to get them done.

I needed help. I looked at hiring someone and most things I wasn’t able to pass on (or able to afford that yet). Or we tried, and the end result wasn’t up to my businesses’ reputation.

So, now what?

I decided to create my own little virtual personal assistant: My Entrepreneur Planner.

This didn’t happen overnight. It was in the process for months! Mostly in the form of sticky notes all over my computer. (Which, let’s be real, I eventually began to ignore.)

My creative brain needed to check off something to feel productive. Or work it into my daily timed schedule of what to do when actually to make these tasks happen. And being so busy, don’t get me started on thinking ahead for things that grow our businesses.

This all looked like a HOT MESS of notes, amazing ideas and project details on many scraps of paper and notes made where they ended up getting lost.

Not very productive.

But this HOT MESS process was OK. I see now it was part of the process. It worked itself into something amazing for us entrepreneurs.

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What’s in My Entrepreneur Planner

What does My Entrepreneur Planner help you get done?

This is for online business owners who want to get organized to grow their business. It’s so easy to use too.

Monthly Page Overview

Each month there’s a spot to review your social media presence and track your numbers. During this time I weed out bad followers and make a note of the actual numbers for my accounts. (Remember our goal isn’t simply big numbers, but real followers that can be clients some day or others in our niche.)

Next, I schedule the time to plan out new topics for the following months. I work these tasks into my monthly or daily schedule. Some days I move them to other pages, but it sure helps me plan ahead!

Next up, affiliate income and email management. I schedule out time to handle these, and it’s amazing how they help a business grown. Do not skip it. A year from now you’ll be so glad you did these tasks.

Weekly Pages Overview

Each week there is a place to note what it is you plan to PROMOTE at this time.

These pages aren’t for CREATING content. They are for promoting ‘old’ content – meaning you already wrote the blog post and have the prepared copy for the scheduled email to send for this weeks marketing.
This is so helpful, cause if you go live you can mention, “hey if you like this, be sure to check your emails for the “blah blah blah” that went out yesterday.” And be sure to work in a fun note to remind those not on your email list to get on it!

That reminds me, are you on my email list?

Email Address First Name Submit

Back to the planner benefits, the weekly marketing tasks in the planner can be done all at once, or each week as needed. I like to block off 20-minutes each Monday morning to work on them. That way I can make sure I have the content done to promote and schedule them out before the scheduled day. A lot of the items I need to promote are done already, but I like to work in stories or Lives that coordinate in real time. And, I also post or comment in pages and groups that are not mine so I can’t schedule those out on Facebook ahead of time. They need to be done in real time, so planning helps remind me.

As I write this post, I only do 2 blog entries and 2 emails a month for this site, unless I have a sale going. I just ignore the extra notes or use it for other notes for now. But soon, I hope to fill them all up!!

Daily Page Overview

Each day has a set of check marks for social media. Some days I do them all at once for the week. But usually, I work them into my day. Like the Instagram checkbox. Some days it’s a Live Story, other days it’s a post into the newsfeed.

How this planner helped me.

As I developed this planner I realized being ‘me’ online is key to growing the right audience. Finding time to post as me and my brand is what I forgot to do time and time again.

I admit, some days I have NO check marks in sight. But most days this planner helps, whether it’s to remind me to throw up a meme or fun pic from my phone; or to schedule and do a 45 minute live. The result: GROWTH!

Since using my own planner (almost 2 months now), my Instagram has grown. In fact, as I write this post, I note it has doubled! And I have been great about removing creepy dudes and fake accounts along the way, so these are amazing chatty followers.

And on my Facebook page, well, that has doubled too! Yes. It’s crazy. Crazy good, friend!

My Facebook business page was at around 300 when I started using my planner. (This page takes little more work for content than my DIY page, We Can Make That). Seeing my Elegant Designs by Chelly page double on Facebook made me smile, but seeing my reach was up around 14,000 at this time made me a do a little dance! (and this girl can’t really dance, but I was happy no doubt!) haha.

Imagine what your page could do?

So why wait? If you read this far, you know it will help you. It’s great for real life too because you can fit in all the things that happen in a mom’s life, or a 9-to-5 life also.

Love my planner?

I would so appreciate a share on this blog post or the planner itself. Feel free to drop your selfie with your planner on my Facebook page.

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Coming soon: Journals to help you plan your blog posts and other business adventures!