"Do you like to do it, yourself?" - Andy, 40 year Old Virgin
DIY, or Do-It-Yourselfing, is a staple in both the modern home and small business workplace. Thanks to YouTube, blogs (such as this), subreddits, and that damned Pinterest, learning how to do it yourself (or "do-it-yourselfing" if you prefer) has become increasingly easier to accomplish.
The tricky part about incoporating a DIY approach to digital marketing, however, is answering the question: "What is your time worth?"
While I certainly can't answer that for you without a lot of information, what I can do is help you grasp what DIY digital marketing asks of you, and more importantly, your time.
Social Media:
Typically, you want to focus on the 2 or 3 social platforms that your artist or client not only has the most succsess on, but is most comfortable using. You shoud be posting on these socials every day, at around the same times of day for each social.
For Example:
Facebook - 1x daily between 6-8pm
Twitter - 4x daily between 8-10am and 6-8pm
Instagram - 2x daily between 2-7pm
These numbers will be based on the findings in your social media insights/analytics dashboards, so make sure you factor monthly time into that as well.
*These estimates will certainly change depending on the scope of your business and digital marketing efforts. Adjust accordingly to your own capabilities and desired outcomes*
• Daily Estimate: 15 - 30min (5-10min per social)
• Weekly Estimate: 1.75 - 3.5hrs
• Monthly Estimate: 7.5 - 15hrs (based on a 30 day month)
Blog:
Blogging requires a minimum commitment of two per-month in order to be effective, and we've found growth grows in a positive correlation with amount of content released (as opposed to length and quality, per se). If you have the ability to publish 2-3 pieces of content a week, then we highly suggest you do.
That being said, you can't be throwing darts in the dark with your blog topics either.
Follow these three steps:
To start, proper research is needed to find your ideal buyer personas.
Next, we advise you to find keywords that your personas would be searching for and build content around those keywords. Tools such as SEMrush.com work well for this task.
Then, fit good content and titles and get to writing!
"All forms of digital marketing require three things to be successful: time, research, and consistency."
Your blog topics should be geared towared meeting the needs and answering the questions of your buyer personas.
You want your blog to come up first on the list when your buyer persona is Googling the very questions that your newly crafted blogs can answer for them, don't you?
Monthly Estimate: 6-10hrs (2hrs per blog + 2 hrs monthly research)
E-Mail Marketing:
This is another one that requires consistent effort in order to be effective. Your mailing list should be engaged bi-monthly at the very least, if not weekly.
- You should come up with a similar list of content that you did with the blog, but ones that are centered around an incentive with a specific Call To Action.
- Research is needed to measure open rates, click through rates, and then user behavior once they land on your site.
- Time is needed to craft the layout and verbiage of your emails based on your findings (try some A/B testing).
- You may find that taking the time to design CTA graphics for your emails leads to increased conversions. If that's the case, put it on your tab.
Monthly Estimate: 2-4 hrs (2 emails a month plus graphics creation)
You may have noticed a pattern here. All forms of digital marketing require 3 things to be successful:
1. Time
2. Research
3. Consistency
Let's call it T.R.C., and you should use it to determine the true cost of DIY marketing for you and your artist or client.
Find the value of your time, add up the hours, and make your decision to keep it in-house or outsource it depending on your findings.
Hope this helps.
