A two-hour monthly marketing routine

Marketing works best as a habit, not a burst. This lesson gives you a two-hour routine to run once a month: read your numbers, keep your Google profile current, ask for reviews, publish one useful thing and send one email. It comes with a checklist and a log, so you always know what you did and what to do next.

Why a monthly routine works

Many owners do marketing in bursts. A rush before the busy season, a weekend of social posts after a slow week, then silence for two months. A fixed block of time once a month works better, because it turns marketing into an appointment instead of a mood.

• It is small enough to keep. Two hours fits into a month, even a busy one.
• It matches how the tools work. Google itself suggests checking Search Console around once a month, and your numbers need a month of data to mean anything.
• It builds a record. After six months you can see what you did and what changed.
• It removes guilt. When the work has a place in the calendar, you stop feeling behind.

Pick a day, put it in your calendar as a repeating appointment, and protect it the way you would protect a meeting with a customer. The first Monday of the month works for many people, because last month's numbers are complete.

How to protect the time

The plan only works if the two hours really happen. Prepare the night before by opening the tabs you need. Work in the same place each month and silence your notifications for the session. Stop when the two hours are over, even if you are in the middle of a task, and write down where you stopped. If you miss a month, do not try to catch up on two months at once. Just do the next session.

Get ready once: ten minutes

Before your first session, gather everything in one place so that the two hours go into the work and not into searching for logins.

• Your record. The spreadsheet of five numbers from lesson 10-2.
• Your logins. Analytics, Search Console, your Google Business Profile, your email platform and your website.
• A notes page. A running list of ideas for things to publish, fed by customer questions.
• A photo folder. New photos of your work, your place and your people, saved as you take them.
• A list of recent customers. The people you will ask for reviews.

The two-hour plan

The plan has eight parts and adds up to exactly 120 minutes. Set a timer for each one. When it rings, write down what is left and move on.

1. Read your numbers: 15 minutes

Start with the facts, before you form opinions. Compare the last full month with the month before and with the same month last year. If a number surprises you, write it down and move on. In this part you are collecting information, not solving problems.

• Open Analytics for the last full month.
• Fill in your record: visitors, top channel, top pages, actions and customers from the site.
• Write one sentence about what changed and one possible reason.

2. Check Search Console: 10 minutes

Search Console shows what Analytics cannot: the searches that made your pages appear in Google, and how Google sees your site. Look for queries that are new this month, and copy any question that people type, because it may be the topic of your next article.

• Open the Performance report and note your top five queries and top five pages.
• Look at the Page indexing report for new problems.
• Check that your sitemap shows no errors, and that the Manual actions and Security issues reports are empty.

3. Test your site: 10 minutes

Do this as a customer would, on a phone, with your thumb. You are looking for the small failures that nobody reports: a button that does nothing, a form that does not send, a page that still shows last season's hours.

• Open the site on your phone and tap your phone number.
• Send yourself a message through the contact form, and confirm it arrives.
• Click through the main menu and look for broken links and old information.

4. Update your Google Business Profile: 15 minutes

For a local customer, your profile is often the first thing they see, and sometimes the only thing. It should agree with your website on every detail. Fresh photos also tell visitors that the business is active.

• Check that your hours, address, phone number and website are correct, including holiday hours.
• Add a few new photos.
• Read the profile as a customer would, and fix anything that looks stale.

5. Ask for reviews and answer new ones: 15 minutes

Ask soon after a good experience, while the customer still remembers it, and make it easy by sending the link. When a review is negative, stay calm. Thank the person, say what you will do about it and offer to talk by phone. Never argue in public, because future customers read your reply as much as the review itself.

• Choose five to ten recent customers and send each of them a short, personal request with the link to your profile.
• Reply to every new review, the good ones and the bad ones, politely and briefly.
• Ask for honest reviews only. Never pay for reviews or offer rewards for positive ones.

6. Publish one useful thing: 35 minutes

This is the biggest block, and it is where your site grows. Choose one of these.

• A short article that answers a question customers ask you.
• A new or improved page, such as a service page with better photos and a clearer button.
• A project or a case, with photos and a few honest lines about what you did.
• An update to your FAQ. Add the three newest questions you received.

Look for ideas in the questions customers send, in the queries in Search Console and in the seasons of your business. Keep it short and useful, and finish it in the time you have.

7. Send one email: 15 minutes

A short email with one idea and one link is enough. Write it for one person, a real customer you know, and send it only to people who asked to hear from you. The series on email and customers who come back goes deeper on subject lines and lists.

• Write to your list about one thing of value: a tip, an update, a seasonal reminder or a new project.
• Include one clear link or button.
• Check that the message carries an unsubscribe link and your postal address, as lesson 10-5 explains.

8. Plan next month: 5 minutes

• Write down the one thing you will do first next time.
• Put the date of the next session in your calendar.
• Save your notes in the log.

A log that keeps you honest

After each session, add a short entry to your record. It takes three minutes and it is what turns a routine into learning.

• Date. When the session happened.
• What I did. A line for each of the eight parts.
• What I noticed. One or two observations from the numbers.
• What I will try next. One change to test, as lesson 10-3 explains.

Read the last three entries at the start of every session. They remind you where you left off.

When you only have forty-five minutes

Some months are busy. Keep the short version rather than skipping the month.

1. Read your numbers: 10 minutes.
2. Test your site and your phone number: 5 minutes.
3. Update and review your Google Business Profile: 10 minutes.
4. Publish one small thing: 15 minutes.
5. Write the log and plan next month: 5 minutes.

Once a quarter, go deeper

Every third month, replace the content block with a bigger job.

• Review your top pages. Is each one still true and clear?
• Refresh your photos.
• Look at your budget. Lesson 10-9 explains how.
• Check your goals. Are you on the way to the numbers you set?
• Review the privacy page and your tools, as lesson 10-5 explains.

Twelve ideas for the content block

If you run out of topics, use this list. It is not tied to any industry, so adapt each idea to your own business.

1. Answer the question customers ask you most often.
2. Show a recent project, with photos and a few honest lines.
3. Explain how your work happens, step by step.
4. Introduce one person on your team.
5. Share a checklist that fits the season.
6. Describe a common mistake customers make and how to avoid it.
7. Rewrite your most visited service page.
8. Tell a customer's story, with their permission.
9. Compare two options you offer and who each one suits.
10. Prepare customers for your busy or quiet season.
11. Look back at the year and thank your customers.
12. Announce next year's plans, hours or changes.

What to leave out

A small business does not need to be everywhere. Skip these until the basics run smoothly.

• Posting every day. A few good posts beat a long silence broken by noise.
• Every social platform. Choose the one or two where your customers are.
• Complicated reports. Your five numbers are enough.
• New tools for every task. Learn the ones you have.

Sharing the work

You can hand part of the routine to someone on your team or to a professional. Give that person the checklist, the log, a few examples of past work and the access they need, and keep ownership of the logins yourself. Review the log together once a month. Keep the checklist and the log, so you can see what was done. Some parts can also be added to your site as monthly services: Care maintenance, Google Business management, email marketing, a 24/7 chat assistant, review requests and a landing page of the month.

The routine and the site behind it

A routine needs something to work on: pages to improve, forms to test and content to add. Every site we build includes contact forms, a mobile version and texts written for you, so there is a solid base for your first session. You can see finished sites in our designs.

Questions people ask