Memorial Day is the unofficial kick-off of Summer.
As the Summer arrives so does BBQs, pool time, cold frothy drinks and of course vacations!
With vacation time around the corner how do you stay ahead of the game and on track with your business and goals?
Here’s some help to make the transition smoother for you and your business.
As blog (and keeping in front of your tribe) rules go, the golden rule is CONSISTENCY.
It’s important for many reasons:
- Builds trust with your tribe. People come to expect that content is shared on a regular basis because you’re dedicated to your business, to them and because you simply care.
- Continues to keep traffic coming to your site from various sources.
- Search engines love it. Regular content helps promote your ranking. More new content, the more they like you.
- The discipline of consistently is simply a good habit to keep while building your business.
When you’re about to step away here are some tips to make it successful so you can fully enjoy your time off!
Plan
One of the most important things to do is to plan ahead. I’m sure you’re no stranger to this concept. It is easy to have your vacation sneak up on you and you find yourself scurrying to write blog posts at 11pm the night before you leave.
Begin the planning a month before and do a little bit each week so you’re not rushed the days leading up to your much-needed time away.
Sit down a month before and plan out everything you need for the time you’re away and then begin to plan how you’ll get everything done between now and then.
Give yourself a bit of a buffer so you can transition back from vacation and have some items already done for the first week you’re back (blog posts and social media). That way you can focus on responding to emails and other communication that might have piled up.
This is also a great time to invite guest writers to contribute to your blog. This will take the load off of you for creating a lot of content prior to your trip. You have to plan ahead (month or more) to give them time to create an awesome piece for your site. Make sure to set a deadline for the article to give you plenty of time to queue it up.
Schedule
Technology is a glorious thing. You can have blog posts, Tweets, Facebook posts, your weekly email and other communications scheduled weeks in advance.
Schedule posts in advance. It is so easy to do and you can have several weeks worth already in queue.
To schedule in advance in WordPress specifically create a post like you’d normally do. Then go to the “Publish” section in the right hand side of your writing screen. Where it says “Publish immediately” click on “Edit”. You will be given an option to select the exact date and time that it will be posted. On your dashboard page you’ll see all the posts scheduled so don’t forget to double-check that it’s in queue.
Schedule posts and Tweets in advance.
Become friends with Hootsuite and Buffer. We love both these tools and you can schedule posts, article shares and images in advance.
Automate
Don’t forget to get your regularly scheduled emails and correspondence scheduled and ready to go.
Whether you use Mailchimp, Infusionsoft or Constant Contact (too many to list them all here) – all of them allow you to schedule your emails in advance.
Automate your email by setting up auto-responders. If you’re concerned that people will be upset that no one is responding to incoming emails, set up a auto-responder stating that you’ll be happy to respond once you’re back online. Make it funny or show some of your personality here as well. Bonus points: Have a link available to direct them to your, FAQ, favorite blogs posts or even your opt-in.
Review your opt-in offers, product pages, shopping carts to make sure they don’t require you to be present to respond. If you have a product that you sell and manually process the order, make sure you either hire someone to handle and mail the items or note after purchase that items will be delivered after a specific date. (You can also highlight on your site that delivery will take a bit longer than usual).
This isn’t exactly automation in the true sense of the word but it’s a great idea to take this time to delegate and outsource some of your minor tasks.
I wouldn’t suggest hiring someone new at the last minute to take everything over but if you currently work with a VA you could delegate more tasks to them during this time. Test the waters of their skills and capabilities. Just make sure you give them the heads up and give them thorough directions so you set them up for success.
Vacation is meant for rejuvenation, relaxation and time with family and friends. Make sure you set yourself up so that you can thoughtfully step away and truly have a wonderful time off!
The post Plan, Schedule, Automate. How to Successfully Step Away! appeared first on LearnSavvy.