Digital Marketing: What's the Best Use of Your Time?

When it comes to digital outreach, you could literally spend all of your time creating and distributing content. But you have a business to run! So, what's the best use of your time?

Let's pretend that you have four hours per month (one hour per week) to dedicate to digital marketing. How should you spend that time?

Content

I will always be a content "queen" so whether you're spending your time on social media or email outreach, it all comes down to the content you're promoting. Whether it's written or video content, you want to make sure you're creating things that your ideal client will respond to.

This content should be on your website where there are many calls to action so the potential client can find out more about how they can work with you. Ways to schedule appointments should be obvious and easy. Creating consistent content will also help your traffic and Google ranking.

TIME: Because this is the foundation of your digital marketing, you should spend 75% of your time working on content.

Email Outreach & Social Media

Both consistent email outreach and creating social media posts can take time. This might surprise some of you, but if time is an issue and you have to choose between the two...I'd go with email outreach.

Statistically, you will have a higher client conversion rate over email than you will on social media. I look at social media as brand awareness - potential clients will likely check out your website and social media before moving forward with the next step - but if you have someone's email address, they're already somewhat invested in you and what you have to say.

Now, that's not to say that social media isn't valuable. Just last week a client told me that she had gotten a new client because the woman had looked at her LinkedIn profile, liked what she had to say, and then noticed that they were connected by a mutual friend - and that was what prompted her to call.

Through both social media and email, you should be highlighting the content you're creating. Again, this builds trust and gets more traffic to your website.

But overall, people are more likely to read your newsletter because social media feeds move so fast. They're also more likely to share your email with a friend with just the click of a button.

TIME: With the remaining 25%, I'd spend at least 20% of that on email outreach and the remaining 5% on social media. If you find yourself in the carpool lane on your phone, spend more time on social media building your digital network. But if you have to choose how to spend your time, this is what I recommend!