Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

5 Marketing Tasks to Automate (to Keep You Sane)

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5 Marketing Tasks to Automate (to Keep You Sane)Automation is a pretty great tool that companies of all shapes and sizes take advantage of. Are you? It can seem overwhelming to get it setup but once you’ve made the time to automate your systems, you’ll have more time to take your pup to the dog park (or read a book, or watch TV, or get your job done…) Here’s 5 Marketing Tasks you can (and should) automate!

  1. Your Contact Form – If someone reaches out to you on your contact form, you’ll most likely get back to them within a day or two (or a week if you’re not awesome at follow up and have an inbox that stresses me out to think about.) Setup your contact form to send a quick thank you note. “Thank you for contacting Yellow Dog Consulting, we’ll get back to you within one business day.” You can (and should) also invite them to check out a couple of things on your site – a link to your services page, a free download, or a link to your most recent newsletter are great ideas…
  2. Free Downloads – Do you have a snazzy free giveaway on your website that folks give you their email and then magically a PDF appears? I thought so! Make sure this system is automated so that it can happen while you sleep. You should also include a drip campaign with this so they hear from you more than once and really get an idea of how awesome you are so they hire you faster.
  3. Bookkeeping – Sure it’s not a marketing task, but automating my bookkeeping is one thing that keeps me incredibly sane each month.
  4. Social Media – I never thought I’d say this but I finally am. Each week I have a blog post. And I don’t trust that you’re going to check out my website each week looking for it – so I share it on social media. A few times. I talk often about my system but a few simple clicks save me hours of time and increases my site traffic…
  5. Reviews – Yes, you should automate your review process. Figure out the appropriate variable to reach out to new clients and ask for a review, then set that system in place. Maybe it’s monthly when you add your new clients to your newsletter list. Or at the completion of a project. Reviews are such an important part of helping your business grow, make sure you get this system in place!

There are a lot of other marketing (and small business) tasks you can automate, these are just a few that I tend to help clients with and that have helped me stay sane. What other marketing tasks do you automate?

5 Ways to Ask For a Review

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5 ways to ask for a reviewOn an almost monthly basis I refer current and potential clients to this blog post from a few years back about asking for reviews. We all know that reviews are an important part of your business. You want those gold stars next to your business on Google! You want people to sing your praises so that other awesome clients will find you! But, how do you go about asking for a review? It can feel awkward to reach out to someone and ask them for a review, so here’s 5 things I recommend:

  1. Ask at the end of a Project – Did you just complete a big piece of work together and they’re happy? Now’s a great time to ask! “Hey would you mind writing a review or testimonial for me?” Make sure to include links to where you’d like them to review (and give them options, we all know I’ll never write a review for you on Facebook!)
  2. When They Say Something You Want to Frame – If your client responds to a project with a really nice note about it – ask them if you can use it as a testimonial – or ask if they’d mind posting that on a review site for you. That’s often how I handle review requests – when they’ve already said something!
  3. At a Specific Interval in Your Work Together – I have one client where we setup a review system to email new patients about a month after their first visit. We created an automated email that goes out asking how it went – if they like it, we ask for a review. If it didn’t go well, we send them to a survey monkey survey to find out what went wrong. You may find that for ongoing clients specific intervals are a good timeline for requesting reviews.
  4. In Your Newsletter – If the majority of people who subscribe to your newsletter are clients (current or past) then adding a review request to your newsletter is a great way to ask. Just a little box near the bottom of the newsletter may be all it takes to remind folks they should say nice things about you.
  5. Annually – You might want to setup a system so that at the end of the year you reach out to your clients from the past year and ask for reviews. Or maybe in the summer when business can be a little more quiet for some folks. Find a time of year when business is quiet for you and reach out and ask!

What other intervals do you find are the right time to request reviews and testimonials from clients?

Guest Post: 3 Ways to Use Canva for Your Business

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One of the best things I did in 2017 was take a 5 day Canva Crash Course from my pal Emily Roach at Biz BFF. I knew Canva was a great tool but, it was overwhelming and, artistic and creative aren’t words used to describe me. I was thrilled to learn Emily is repeating her Canva Crash Course – starting January 22nd! You don’t want to miss this!

If anyone tells you that graphic design doesn’t really matter, they are straight up lying to you.

Sure, we may not consciously choose a business because we think, “Wow, their last instagram post was so well-designed,” or “I just love their font choice.” But if you’ve ever left a website because it looks like it was designed in 1992, or scrolled on past a Facebook post because you couldn’t make out the image, or quit reading a sales page because it was just paragraph after paragraph of monotonous text–then you know design matters.

But what’s a busy business owner supposed to do? We already have to be our own CEOs, CFOs, marketing agents, copywriters, and customer service reps… now we have to be graphic designers, too?!

If you’re already breaking into a cold sweat at the thought of designing your own social media images, don’t panic. There’s a super awesome design program that’s easy to use and totally free: Canva.

Canva is a web-based program (that also has an iphone, ipad, and android app available) that will turn even the most art-phobic entrepreneur into a designer in minutes. Canva includes hundreds of professionally-designed templates that you can customize with your content, colors, and photos in a snap. You can also start from scratch and build your own designs effortlessly. The possibilities are endless!

Here are 3 ways to use Canva to create eye-catching designs for your business:

Design click-worthy social media images

Design click-worthy social media imagesAnnounce sales, share inspirational quotes, and create your own memes. Canva includes templates for every popular social media platform, so you never have to remember which platform requires which dimensions. Just pick the appropriate template, customize with your photos, colors, and texts, and download! Canva even includes an extensive library of stock photos that you can use!

Make your own business cards

Make your own business cardsDon’t show up empty-handed to your next networking event! Design expressive business cards that show off your style. Download as a PDF to print at home, upload to your favorite online print service, or even order prints right within Canva!

Create engaging PDFs Create engaging PDFsNeed to create an irresistible free offer to grow your email list? You can design PDFs like e-books, checklists, and worksheets, right within Canva! You can even make clickable hyperlinks to direct people back to your website.

These are just a few of the awesome things you can create with Canva. Want to learn more about how to use Canva to design incredible images for your business? Check out my free, step-by-step ecourse! I’ll teach you the 5 essential skills you need to start designing professional images in less than 10 minutes a day.

Sign Up Here!