I’m known as the “Organization Ninja” at Bluleadz. I’m very organized about pretty much every aspect of my life, but especially when it comes to my role as an Inbound Marketing Consultant (IMC).
As an IMC, it’s impossible to keep track of every weekly task that needs to be done for each of my clients between client meetings, email correspondence, reviewing content, and everything else I try to get done in a single day. For this reason, I’ve put my organization ninja skills to work.
The tips listed below are some of the ways I stay organized in my day-to-day life as a digital marketer:
1. Keep a Notebook or Checklist of Weekly Tasks
Let me start out by saying that I would be totally lost without my Bluleadz notebook that keeps me organized every day. Using the agile marketing methodology, we work in weekly sprints with allocated points for each client based on their budget and needs. Our sprints start every Monday morning and end the following Monday morning.
In my notebook, I dedicate a side by side page spread (think an open notebook) to each weekly sprint with the starting and end dates at the top of the page. Then, I list each of my clients across both pages leaving about 10-12 lines of space between each one as well as a note of how many weekly points each client gets.
I like to put all the tasks for each of my clients into our project management software, Jira, at the end of the day each Friday or over the weekend, so I’m ready to go on Monday morning. First, I automatically write down any ongoing activities like weekly meetings, social media calendars, blogging, etc.
Then, I refer to client quarterly strategies to fill in the rest of the tasks for that week based on their strategy timeline. Since client priorities can change, extra revisions to a content offer come along, and other client requests, I add additional tasks/items as they come up throughout the week.
As I add client tasks into Jira, I put a check mark next to it in my notebook so I know it’s in the sprint for the following week.
2. Create Agendas & Recaps
In the role of an IMC or account manager, every marketer should user client agendas to stay organized and efficiently run client meetings. Client recaps are equally as important to recall any key notes from meetings. They also provide a rundown of what my team needs to do and what my clients need to do.
Here is an example of how I set up my client agendas:
Review Metrics
This is where you link to any sort of metrics dashboard you use to keep track of KPIs, website visits, leads, etc.
What We Did The Last Week
This is where you list out all of the completed tasks from the previous week as a recap of the work that was done.
- Weekly meeting
- Social calendar & publishing
- Wrote 2 blog articles
- Design new homepage
- Wireframe for new about us page
- Design new ebook
- Write campaign content for new ebook campaign
What’s Going on This Week
This is where you list out all of the tasks that are being worked on during the current week of your meeting. I like to include status updates to indicate what has already been completed and what’s currently in progress at the time of the meeting.
- Weekly meeting
- Social calendar & publishing
- Write 2 blog articles
- Develop new homepage - IN PROGRESS
- Design new about us page - DONE
- Setup new ebook campaign - DONE
- Launch new ebook campaign - IN PROGRESS
What’s Up Next Week
This is where you list out all of the tasks that are in queue to be worked on during the following week.
- Weekly meeting
- Social calendar & publishing
- Write 2 blog articles
- Launch new homepage
- Develop new about us page
- Promote new ebook
Review/Approvals Needed
This is where you would list the items you need review and approval on from clients and include links and note of any attachments to the email.
- Review/approve social media calendar for next week
- Review/approve design for new about us page
- Review/approve the following blog articles:
Now, here is an example of how I set up my client recaps:
Notes:
Most times I don’t have many notes, as most items in my recap are action-oriented so they wind up being included in one of the to-do lists below.
Client X To-Do:
I usually put my client to-do list in order of priority so they know where to start in terms of what I need from them first, in order to move forward with a particular project.
- Review/approve design for new about us page to move to development
- Review/approve social media calendar for next week to schedule
- Review/approve the following blog articles to schedule:
BZ To-Do:
I don’t usually put my to-do list in any particular order as the tasks can range from IMC to design to copywriting.
- Schedule social calendar once approved
- Finish developing new homepage
- Develop new about us page once design is approved
- Complete launch of new ebook campaign
3. Filter Your Inbox
We all have those days where endless emails seem to flood our inbox, which can be both overwhelming and stressful. Filtering your inbox by client will help you keep your inbox organized and efficiently respond in a timely manner. When I go through my emails, I start with one client and go through those emails before switching gears and going through emails from another client.
This helps prevent me from being inefficient by reading and replying to an email from Client X, then switching gears to Client Y, then back to Client X and having to switch back and forth between not only emails, but also websites, agendas, recaps, file managers, etc. for each client.
4. Organize Your File Manager
Whether you use Google Drive, Dropbox, or another type of file manager, it’s crucial to keep your files organized in folders. Not only does this make it quick and easy to find a particular file or image, but it also helps keep the rest of your team organized.
Numbering or ordering conventions can be helpful, too, rather than sorting by most recent or from A-Z. For example, creating a blogging folder and organizing by month or week can be helpful if you’re writing a bunch of blogs each month.
Creating a content offer folder for design and numbering the first as 001-Content-Offer-Name, the second as 002-Content-Offer-Name, and so forth, is useful as a numbering option.
Here are some examples of parent folders to create, in which you can then add sub-folders to categorize even further:
- Agendas & Recaps
- Client Assets
- Content
- Design
- Images
- Reporting
- SEO
- Video
5. Keep Logins Handy
This may sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many digital marketers overlook this simple detail. How many times have you gone to log in to a social media account but can’t seem to find the login information? Probably more times than you want to admit to. You end up spending 20 minutes going through 6-month old emails searching for that one thread that included the login information.
Creating a private, internal document with this information is crucial to getting work done efficiently and maintaining a good rapport with your clients so you don’t have to email them saying you lost their login information and ask them to send it again.
I hope these digital marketing organization tips will be as beneficial to you as they have been to me. Do you have any other tips to stay organized? If so, please share them in the comments below!
Jackie Wiley
I joined Bluleadz in 2014 after graduating from the University of Tampa. I enjoy building client relationships and helping them transform their business through inbound marketing, sales, and service. Born and raised in Naples, FL, I enjoy watching Friends re-runs, exploring the outdoors with my husband and our golden retriever, and spending time with family and friends.