You may be a highly skilled writer but if not enough paying people know about it then that’s not going to do you much good. Still, the more efficiently you market the better your results will be. And you will have the added bonus of taking less time to do it. One of the best ways to do this type of marketing is to use templates to speed up repetitive communications.

When you are endlessly composing new emails to send yet another set of clips – or you are AGAIN printing out a stack of clips to send via USPS — stop. Ask yourself if the process is as efficient as it can be. Probably not.

Whether email or print, use templates to help you to produce marketing materials and responses quickly and pretty painlessly. You will not only save time doing these tasks, you will probably do more because they won’t be such a time sink. So stop reinventing the wheel and use templates.

Make templates of all your marketing communications. For example, make a template of emails and letters out of various parts of your sales cycle. Have a letter that introduces you and your business, one that responds to a request for information, one that requests the sale, and a follow-up to ask for a testimonial. Then when you need a letter from one of these stages, you merely make a few changes to personalize it and off it goes. Note: This idea works for both email and for print letters, but let me urge you to print your initial outreach letters. You really have no business emailing out of the blue to businesses anyway. (CANSPAM anyone?) And honestly, a print letter will get far more attention anyway. Once communication starts you can email.

The template idea can extend to related areas. For example, store your clips in easily accessible folders. Most of this communications is electronic these days, but the same principle holds for print. Organize your clips by type (white paper, brochure, sales letter, etc.) and/or by industry. This way you can copy print communications or attach digital ones and send them off with your letters and emails.