Internet Marketing Productivity: Start Small

It’s been a while since I blogged about SEM leverage and productivity. Internet marketing, especially in the corporate world, is a discipline where you can easily feel overwhelmed. Add on top of that your commitments outside of work – exercising, hobbies, family, friends, and blogging/affiliate marketing (if you’re like me) – and you could quite possibly lose your sanity! Today’s short post is for those times when you feel so overwhelmed that you don’t know where to start. It’s all about starting small and building momentum.

Prioritize Your Smallest Projects First

The header above really says it all. If you’re in one of those situations where you’re so overwhelmed you don’t know where to start, I highly recommend starting small. This is actually quite counter-intuitive. Small tasks are typically low leverage. Some small tasks are so small that you could theoretically cross them off the list. However, this tip is not really about getting leverage instantly. It’s not about adding a ton of value instantly. It’s about building up momentum so you can break out of the rut, feel a sense of accomplishment, and then later build up to the big, high value projects.

Of course, if you’re already very focused and already have momentum on your side, I don’t recommend this tip. If you’re in an empowered state of mind, it’s all about harnessing that power and going right after the big projects.

Some of My Favorite Small, Momentum-Building Tasks

In terms of making this advice actionable, here are some small projects I regularly tackle to build up my momentum:

• Find one exciting blog article about Internet marketing and send it to my team at work, with my commentary on why it’s useful. (Of course, remember to send the email with a low priority flag).
• Search Google (or Yahoo/Bing) and find one or two interesting paid ads within my vertical. Send the ads to my team to spark creativity in ad copy testing.
• Search Google (or Yahoo/Bing), just like in the last tip, and find interesting landing page experiences within my vertical. Send the landing page experiences to my team to spark creativity in our own strategy.
• Search all major search engines manually for trademark violations on our trademarked terms. Even if you have automated software that polices trademarks it’s good to double check it works once in a while!
• Generate a few keywords manually (just a handful) based on my own industry knowledge and experience. Make sure the new keywords don’t cannibalize old ones (make sure we don’t broad match to the terms), and then deploy them.
• Record the projects I’ve worked on recently (or plan on this week) in Sharepoint. Our world is moving fast and it’s essential to record completed projects so you remember everything when annual reviews come around.
• Get routine stuff done such as expense reports, timesheet approvals, invoice approvals, and other similar tasks.
• Find a project that someone on my team did particularly well and send out a short email to the entire team that celebrates success. I really like this strategy because it not only gets my momentum rolling, but it empowers my entire team.

So, there you have it! Just a few small tasks that can quickly build up my own momentum when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Want to push your productivity even further? I recommend checking out my post about controlling your PPC mind. Thanks for reading and I’d be super curious to see if this start really small strategy works for you?

Image of Man In Labyrinth © iStockPhoto – Petrovich9