In the past 10 years, marketing has gone through a lot of changes. The tools required to bring in new clients keep changing, with a new lexicon and new social media popping up daily. But don’t despair! These tips can help you deal with marketing without getting overwhelmed. 

1. One step at a time. Even if you can multitask with one hand, if you try to do too much marketing at once you end up doing none.

2. Outsource. Consider passing tasks such as preparing blog content, running online marketing campaigns, and using social media to your staff members. If you don’t have any, find yourself a virtual assistant through a site like O Desk (odesk.com) or Elance (elance.com), where you can post jobs and review applicants.

3. No excuses. If you’re not getting around to marketing, it’s not for lack of time. It’s because you’ve made something else a priority. What’s more important than sourcing your next customers?

4. Dip a toe in. In this age of measurable, accountable marketing, you don’t need to spend a lot to know if something works. If we promote an e-book, for example, we will test the ads on a small sample to see if interest will convert to sales before we go all out spending more money on running more ads. You should do the same.

5. Be the overview. Your primary marketing job is to ensure the plan gets implemented and to analyze the results. Try to avoid implementing the plan directly (see point No. 2); you’ll fail to get the proper perspective to measure and tweak your strategy. That means you need to find staffers to handle social media posts, source blog content, set up marketing emails, and proof materials.

6. Test and measure. We’ve covered this already with point No. 4, but the reality is that marketing is a dynamic industry where you won’t necessarily get results the first time out. The important thing is to get feedback and make changes, which is why you need to…

7. Know the game has changed. Customers have a huge amount of information at their fingertips. On the bright side, you don’t have to risk large sums of money and hope that the marketing pays off. Guerrilla warfare is more effective and less costly than rolling in the tanks. The customer is able to seek you out more easily than ever. The key is to take advantage of that.