Time (or more accurately, a lack of it) can often feel like one of the biggest challenges when running your business. The to-do list seems never-ending, and day-to-day firefighting takes your time away from the very activities that grow your business.

So, how do we get more done with our limited time? How do we become more productive?

An industry of ‘productivity gurus’ might lead you to believe there is an easy solution to being more productive. Just use their software, read their book, or buy their app. A quick fix to a complex problem.

However, the reality is that productivity is not easy to improve.

Productivity in the UK

If we zoom out to the wider British economy, low growth in productivity has become an embedded problem.

Productivity growth has stalled since the 2008 Recession, and by 2023, the UK’s productivity (when measured as GDP per hour) was 19% below the US, 16% below Germany, and 10% below France.

Source: House of Commons Library Productivity: Economic indicators, Published Thursday 20^th February 2025 – Daniel Harari

So, what is the driver behind this? Why is the UK simultaneously performing worse than a highly liberalised economy such as the United States and a highly regulated economy such as France?

Many of the causes of the UK’s low productivity growth are macro - underinvestment at a national level and the geography of business - outside of the influence and control of most of us.

However, looking at where the growth in UK productivity is coming from (and correspondingly what is holding it back) is revealing.

According to the ONS, over half of the growth in mean labour productivity between 1998 and 2019 was generated by the top 10% of workers when measured by labour productivity.

In other words, top UK firms are highly productive. But the technology, working practices, and innovations are not filtering down to other businesses and workers.

A productivity gap has developed between the top businesses in the UK and the rest.

Productivity in Marketing

So, let’s take it back to marketing.

If there is a productivity gap, and we are not fortunate enough to be one of those top productive firms, what can we do to help close this gap from a marketing perspective?

As we mentioned, this is not a simple fix.

However, we do think that when it comes to marketing productivity, there are a set of themes and principles to follow that can play an important role in making your marketing resources go further.

5 Ways to Boost Your Marketing Productivity

Be Specific in Who You Are Targeting with Your Marketing

Establish who you are targeting with your marketing activity and be precise.

Don’t try to be everything to everyone. This is the path to spreading your marketing too thin.

Think about exactly who is going to buy your product or service. Then separate yourself from the noise generated by your competition by focusing on a niche within this market.

This could be by targeting companies in a particular sector or area. Your competitor might focus on marketing their product to manufacturing firms in general. You, instead, could define your target niche as manufacturing firms in the automotive and aerospace sectors.

A sector-specific marketing approach may sound counterintuitive – after all, won’t this limit your appeal and the size of your potential market?

However, you’ll quickly find that being more specific in who you target lets you make more of your marketing resource. Your marketing message can speak directly to the individual and business you are looking to sell to.

Your marketing can answer their pain points and ‘speak’ their language. Rather than speaking in general language, you can directly address the concerns that are going to stop your potential clients from converting.

This can allow your marketing to be more productive. It lets you use your time more efficiently and reduces marketing investment being lost amongst the clamour of your competitors.

Review Your Marketing Systems and Processes

Marketing does best when it is not in a silo.

Your marketing is everything where your business interacts with a customer or a lead. This means every consumer touchpoint in your business should be aligned. It should reflect your brand values and communicate the message you want your customer to take away.

Beyond direct marketing communications, this could be the tone of voice used on the phone or the way a customer is treated when visiting your office or when dealing with your accounts department.

Marketing processes and systems therefore need to exist horizontally across the business, not locked away within your marketing department.

The challenge here is then how you build these marketing processes and identify the friction points that are going to reduce your marketing productivity.

What are the actions that are taking up much of your team’s time and how could they be done differently?

Building out efficient processes and getting buy-in across the business is hard. But taking the time to do it can lay the groundwork for an improved marketing approach.

Just like preparing for a marathon, setting yourself a target time does not get you there. It is the process of training that will create results.

The important part to remember here is that progress isn’t linear. Investing in your marketing process and systems does not always bring instant gratification and results, but will almost always set you up for long-term success.

Think About Which Marketing Processes You Can Automate

Leading on from looking at your systems and processes, an important part of reviewing your processes is identifying which ones you could automate.

The temptation here, with so many powerful tools available, is to automate everything you can. Be careful though, and don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. If personal service is a key part of your business offering, then it is certainly not something you would want to hand over to the machines.

Instead, think about what is taking time and doesn’t directly add value to your clients.

In marketing, this could be your market research, lead management, or marketing emails. What of these marketing tasks are taking up your valuable time – then ask can these be automated or outsourced?

Is managing your leads is eating your time, then implement a CRM tool to help you keep track of them. Is finding a time both you and your prospect can meet taking multiple emails to organise, then use a calendar app to allow leads to book a time that suits them.

Small fixes, to build up to big productivity gains.

Use Marketing Tactics Together to Amplify the Impact

Marketing works best when multiple tactics are used together. Marketing tactics, when used individually, can produce great results – but the best results are almost always from different marketing tactics amplifying the impact of each other.

Ensure that you have a well thought out annual marketing plan, which breaks down each key marketing campaign into specific activities for each month - this will help your marketing investment in budget and time go further.

Take this example, maybe you are attending an industry exhibition (nicely targeting the sector you wish to focus on) – are you planning to just collect leads and follow-up or do you have a holistic marketing approach?

You could also organise a post-show webinar to re-engage any leads that are on the fence, additional eBooks and online guides to support your message, and an effective email and social campaign to distribute this content.

The impact of each of these individual activities will be greatly amplifed if a range of communication methods are used throughout the business (email, social media, advertising, telesales, customer services) work together.

An alternative example of ensuring that all your marketing levers are working together might be if you have a large catalogue of products that need promoting.

• Are all your product website pages fully optimised so that they can be found via search?
• Can your product range also be found on a range of appropriate digital platforms perhaps such as Amazon, Sainsbury’s, Boots?
• Do you have a planned programme of email marketing throughout the year that promotes particular products or ranges etc.?

By taking the time to develop a well thought out marketing strategy, with the tactics for each campaign defined is an important way to structure your marketing to ensure you optimise the impact of each campaign and help make your resources go further.

Be Open to New Ideas

Good marketing is not about resting on your laurels – now, more than ever, the business environment is in a constant state of flux.

Success is about being continually inquisitive, asking good questions to better understand your target niches, identifying any unsatisfied needs and communicating to your target market, using the appropriate channels, in a manner that resonates.

Be open to experimenting with new ideas, processes, and tactics, then make peace with the idea that failure is the price of innovation.

Don’t be afraid to put a bit of money behind testing new concepts. If it works, double down, and if it doesn’t, move on.

A key part of this can be looking at what your competitors and sector leaders are doing. As we saw, the most productive firms in the UK are highly concentrated. So, identify who they are, what they are doing, then borrow ideas and ways of working with pride.

Testing and learning is at the heart of finding new and better ways of marketing your business, and being more productive.

If you are thinking about how you could improve your marketing productivity and would like to discuss your options - get in touch and book a complimentary consultation with one of our marketing experts. We will be able to chat through possible approaches to your content marketing and advise you on next best steps.

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