We get it. It’s late July and you’ve got summer vacation on your mind. We hear you. But, we’re not letting you off the hook that easy.
We spend months planning and dreaming about our summer vacations. We save, research, plan and pack. If we put a quarter of that effort into planning our marketing to work for us while we’re away, not only will most prospects not even realize your absent, but you could potentially arrive back to work with more than tan lines and souvenirs.
Here’s five easy tips to automate some marketing tasks so you can relax and enjoy the sunshine knowing you’ll come back to work – with any luck – some fresh leads.
1. REPEAT AFTER ME – “HOOTSUITE IS OUR FRIEND”:: Hootsuite is an online platform that allows you to manage most of your social media channels all in one window. It helps you keep track and manage your many social network channels at a glance. Follows, direct messages, replies, retweets and so forth. But here’s the best part. You can schedule your social media posts to go live when you’re out. See where I’m going with this? Hootsuite will post your scheduled updates to Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for you. This is a beautiful thing. Read more here: #HootTip: Scheduling Social Messages
2. ARE THOSE CRASHING WAVES I HEAR?:: Don’t want that big client to know you’re at the beach, but don’t want to them to wait a week until they hear from you? Well, have you heard of GoogleVoice yet? One number will ring all of your phones (cell, work, home) depending on the time of day or the person calling (Yeah. I know. Wait…it gets better.) You can listen to the message before answering – or, don’t answer but read a transcript of their message so they don’t hear the waves crashing when you pick up. Then, how about replying via a text message for free? What about having different greetings depending on who is calling? So Mom can hear the seagulls and waves, but Mr. Big, not so much. The list of benefits goes on. Check out their short videos of benefits here and I’m sure you’ll be convinced this is a pre-vacation must have. And did I mention it’s FREE.
3. SCHEDULE A BLAST:: We like to write our summer newsletter and schedule it send at a time that’s convenient for us, like, say Tuesday morning sometime in July. Why not do the same when you’re away? Write (and have your agency design) a newsletter or promotional eblast ahead of time and schedule it to send the week you are gone. This way, you are still reaching out and staying top-of-mind while napping in a chaise by the pool. When you return from your time off, you can check the newsletter open rates and reach out to those showed interest. Here is a chart with the pros and cons of several different e-Mail providers you may find handy. It’s fun getting stuff done while your toes are in the sand while sipping a tropical concoction from a coconut, isn’t it?
4. WISH YOU WERE HERE:: This tip goes out to those of you who have the occasional direct mail pieces you send out. We like to print our direct mail pieces all at once in the beginning of the year (saving us hundreds) and storing them at a local mail house. Most of you probably do the same, so why not schedule one to be sent out a day or two before you arrive back to the office? This will give you a little momentum walking in Monday morning because you know you’ll need a little lift. It’s nice to come home and have some leads to follow up with instead of starting from scratch.
5. BLOGGING #LIKEABOSS:: In our first tip (above), we mentioned Hootsuite, which has the capacity to post to your WordPress blog for you. But for those of you who don’t need such a robust platform such as Hootsuite, why not just schedule timed posts during the week you are away through your blogging platform? There is no need to drop off from your usual blog schedule to alert folks you are out of the office. Write one or two ahead of time for your first week back so you can focus on catching up and ease yourself back into posting when you come up for air.
A few other thoughts on some work details to consider while you’re packing your bags:
- Ask an assistant, office mate or intern help thin out your mail stack (you don’t need to spend your first hour tossing out Pottery Barn catalogs and junk mail). They can sort into a junk and keep pile for you to make sorting quick.
- Pre-plan an away message and arrange for a forwarding contact for your email. People appreciate your pointing them to someone who can field issues while you’re out. Just be mindful that your away message should coincide with the message they’d receive if they called your cell or work line.
- Arrange with your staff and co-workers a schedule of your check-in times. They can be as many or few as you wish, but having set days/times you will absolutely check in will keep interruptions to a minimum (don’t forget time differences!) and give peace-of-mind to those holding down the fort.
- I like to leave myself a little checklist under my keyboard before I’m away for a week or more. It’s easy to become quickly overwhelmed when you return and this helps remind me of the top priority tasks still pending. A status meeting with staff to catch up on all open projects and items that transpired is critical – for you and for your team. Schedule that hour for the morning you return before going away so it is locked onto the calendar.
Here’s to a great vacation and don’t forget to bring a little something back for your team (thanks for the salt water taffy, Chelsea!).
What are the things you’ve found useful to prepare, plan, schedule, automate before you step away for a vacation?
Cheers!
~Amy
featured image via camillestyles
