This Is the Marketing Business

How much time do you spend each day on marketing?

After you’ve selected your marketing strategy and approaches and determined your inbound to outbound ratio, the next important step is determining the amount of marketing that will be required to achieve your business goals. Your marketing efforts (inbound vs. outbound) will vary according to the amount of experience you have (see graph below).

The labour intensity of your marketing efforts will decrease as your capabilities and expertise improve. When you are just starting out, the majority of your marketing activities will probably be outbound, consisting of cold calling, tapping your personal network and direct mail. These activities take considerable time and effort.

As you build your client base, inbound marketing will become your primary approach. For many top professionals, the midway point is about 3 years; this is where the inbound to outbound marketing ratio becomes 50/50.

From year 5 and beyond, the majority of your marketing activities should be inbound, focusing on attracting business.

You are in the financial services marketing business; it’s the sole reason for your firm’s existence. Regardless of your experience, marketing needs to be a daily priority to constantly achieve above-average organic growth.

To help you determine the amount of time you should be allocating to marketing, here are some guidelines:

• Less than 2 years’ experience: 70%
• 3 to 5 years’ experience: 50%
• 6 years’ +: 25%

At a minimum, 25% of your time should be spent on marketing and growth activities, roughly 2 hours per day. Once you’ve grown your business to a critical mass, your marketing will take very little effort as you leverage your existing clients for growth.

For the many top professionals that I’ve observed, their marketing is a daily habit that is integrated into their day. They divide their marketing activities into 15–30 minute segments, leaving plenty of time to attend to the needs of their clients and firm.

It’s important to start building your marketing capabilities early in your career. As your business grows, your marketing efforts will become part of your comfort zone, take less effort and become enjoyable.

It’s never too late to start improving your marketing capabilities.