When you run a small business, you’ll know how important it is to ensure that everything is managed efficiently. However, you’ll also know that with a small team, and smaller budgets, you can often run into issues when it comes to building your brand and getting your message and product out there.
While this is largely done through marketing, it can be difficult knowing where to focus your attention to make the most of what you have, which is where resource management comes into the equation.
What is resource management?
Before we get into the world of marketing resource management specifically, let’s take a look at resource management in general.
Simply put, resource management is the process of pre-planning, scheduling and allocating resources to maximise the efficiency of your business.
When it comes to your resources, this is anything used to help execute a particular task or project, meaning it could be anything from employee skills to the software.
Why is resource management important?
When you know what resources you need and where they’re being used, this helps to optimise efficiency and reduce time-wasting, which is key when running any business, but is particularly important when running a small business.
Therefore, ensuring you have effective resource management will help the business to run easier and more successfully.
When it comes to marketing your business however, it can be difficult at times to know where to apply your resources and focus your attention. This is where marketing resource management comes into play.
What is marketing resource management?
With so many marketing activities out there for you to take advantage of, you’re probably wondering which ones are best for your business. After all, print will work for some, whereas digital will work for others and social media may only be applicable for a few.
However, marketing resource management is several processes that can be used to help optimise the channels you’re using. This can be particularly handy when it comes to your team, as it’ll help to lift some of the pressure off team members straddling several jobs. So, let’s take a look at what you could use to maximise your marketing activities.
Automation
Technology has helped to change many aspects of our life, and automation is helping businesses of all sizes make the most of their marketing efforts. Defined as an application created to monitor and control the production and delivery of various goods and services, there are many companies out there offering software to help with everything from email to social media.
Therefore, using marketing resource management will help your company to:
- Plan and budget all of your marketing and communication campaigns and projects based on the various channels
- Create and develop all of these projects, alongside the content needed for each one
- Put content and resources into one place, making project management much easier than before
- Produce and distribute content such as images
- Measure and analyse the content continuously to see where it can be optimised to get the most out of your marketing activities
However, despite the benefits of automation which can help to remove pressure and open up time in an employee’s day, you’ll still need a human touch.
Hiring
Making sure you employ the right people when it comes to your marketing is key too. This, however, will all depend on the type of marketing you’re looking to do.
Someone who concentrates solely on marketing may be more aware of traditional methods, whereas someone who focuses on content marketing may be more digital-focused. However, if you only need to do one or the other, this could be hugely beneficial to you, but, given the ever-switched on world we live in, chances are, you’ll need someone who knows both.
While the individual and the software could work perfectly, there could be another option too.
Using an agency
Hiring a full-service agency will provide you with all of the marketing tools you’ll need. From print to digital, an agency is filled with many abilities, helping to create great print and SEO campaigns at the same time, meanwhile, you’ll be able to work with them through various automation tools. They essentially become an extension of your team, ensuring you’re using the right channels and spending your budget best.
At Relative Marketing, we provide a full range of services designed to help you get your business to where you want it. Whether it’s online or print, we can do it all, get in touch today and find out how we can help you.
