Is your business day driven by what is urgent instead of what is necessary and most important? There are all kinds of urgent little things that are time stealers in my day. I think to myself, "I should take care of this very important thing I need to do, but I could fit a couple of these urgent requests in before I do.” And before long, the urgent has usurped the important and my day is gone…poof!

The same thing can happen to your marketing if you are not careful and have a plan. The other day, I had a client that sent me a message from an advertising source that dangled one of those too good to be true advertising opportunities, but they had to respond immediately if they wanted to get in on this incredible offer. My advice was to stay clear of the urgent request and stick to the marketing plan. First, the price was only for the placement of the ad, not the creative work behind it. Those costs are considerable. Second, my client has a tight budget. Where was the money coming from? Likely from something already approved and planned for within the marketing budget. Urgency is a sales tactic that often paints us into a corner we should have never wandered into in the first place. It steals from your budget and leaves the well thought out strategies without any funding. Think about this before you give in to an urgent request that will ding your budget.

Are there legitimate urgent requests in marketing? I suppose there are, but most of the time, no there are not. Urgency is more a product of procrastination or poor planning. So if you want to keep your business free of the pressure you feel every time you get an urgent request for marketing opportunities, create a plan with a timeline. This is about time management. Leave enough time to build up to a task and see it through. This is also about creating a roadmap that will guide your marketing efforts. Unless you have firm evidence that the marketing plan you created is not working, stick to it. A good plan takes into account the target market you are trying to reach, how you are trying to reach them, what actions you want them to take when you do reach them, and measurements that lead from marketing to sales. Put together such a plan and then put action points on a calendar.

If you want to be free from the urgent marketing requests that steal from your time and your budget, falling back on a marketing plan is a great strategy. It keeps you from getting off course and it helps you to say no to the urgent.