More Time Thinking = Less Time Doing

In our constant push to get things done, it’s easy to move at a frenetic pace in marketing. Articles, blog posts, white papers, emails, podcasts, videos. Employees, media, investors, customers, social followers. So much to produce for so many audiences.

How do we get it all done? Either through tremendous resources (which most of us don’t have) or by moving at a breakneck pace (which isn’t sustainable).

There is an alternative, however: Spend more time thinking (strategizing) upfront. Here’s why.

 

1. Strategy and organization save time in the long run.

Think of a football team that has plays to follow vs. a team running around aimlessly during practice times. Who’s making better use of their time?

When you take the time to create a thoughtful strategy — whether it’s your overall marketing plan for the year, a campaign strategy or a creative brief for a single piece of content — you’re getting your thoughts organized. When you take time to think through in advance what you want to say and to whom you want to say it, you reduce the amount of time you spend creating. Writers, designers, videographers and others can dive right into their assignments because you’ve thought through the strategy.

 

2. Thoughtful strategy gives you permission to streamline.

Without a plan, you might think you have to produce a dozen white papers and a hundred blog entries and a bazillion social media posts across multiple platforms. But when you take the time to be thoughtful and strategic, you give yourself the time and space to think through what is necessary, what is possible, what will give you the best bang for your (limited) buck.

If you take the time to do the research, you might discover that the audiences you need to reach aren’t really on Instagram, so why spend hours and hours this year on Instagram posts? You might argue that only a handful of publications reach your key audience, so maybe a targeted media effort is what you need.

 

3. Strategy gets everyone on the same page (which saves time).

If your strategic plan or creative brief is well thought out, when you distribute it across key stakeholders, you ensure everyone at all levels is on the same page. This means executive buy-in early in the process. It means contributors understand their roles. And that should mean less re-work on the back end.

So, yes, we all have a lot to do. But when we pause to think, we might be able to streamline the doing and make what we do more impactful for our organizations.