Who doesn’t get excited when holidays are approaching? Your body is glued to the chair and laptop, but your mind is already somewhere far, far away and warm you can almost taste that pina colada.

Being a marketing manager has lots of perks, but being able to completely disconnect from work during vacations is definitely not one of them. Small business tend to have have some uncertainty about whether they should adopt marketing automation, but using task automation tools will allow you to save time, enhance productivity and delegate tasks.

Now, which tasks to delegate and programs to use? Let’s take a look at some useful tools that will allow you to focus on 2 for 1 happy hours during your vacations.

Automate your projects 

Photo Credit: Lifehacker

When you go away, you and your marketing team will need to access data 24/7 across multiple platforms. Task management programs like Asana, a multifaceted and multilayered tool that allows you to assign different tasks to any team member and make sure everyone is on schedule in just one look. Is free to most people, only need to pay once you get up to 15 people on the same project. Big plus, when you complete tasks, you get a celebratory unicorn across your screen.If you’re worried about your blog posts, Evernote is a nice tool to gather huge amounts of information in notebooks and organise your writing and publishing. You can sync your notes across all devices for an easy access. After a couple of cocktails, inspiration can knock on the door.

Automate your marketing

Marketing automation is awesome, but you need to be smart and choose carefully what parts of your marketing strategy go on auto-pilot. Don’t make obvious your customers are talking to a machine.

Email is a great option to put on hold. Autoresponders are emails sent out automatically in a determined sequence. MailChimp, for example, has free versions that keeps customers engaged by sending segmented autoresponders.

Automating social media comes handy since you can set and forget. There are lots of free tools to simplify your social media marketing and manage all your accounts in one place, schedule posts and track engagement.

HubSpot is a useful all in-one tool for small-to medium-sized businesses that are looking to elevate their online presence and generate more traffic, leads and sales. It allows you to monitor and automate your social platforms, setting streams and alarms for social interactions. This means that you have control over your content and your customers connection with the business.

Buffer is also a great option that allows you building a queue of information for share and scheduling for optimal time. You can also assign up to 25 team members to specific accounts and privacy, so you still manage who can access to what.

It does sound easy, but don’t forget social media is all about communication. Be sure your team is ready to answer questions and comments. The last thing you want on vacations is a social media disaster.

If you can't automate, delegate

There are things that only humans can do. Not many, but some. Having a trusted team you can delegate tasks that require immediate attention and handle customer services issues is a useful option. If you don’t, create a vacation autoresponder telling the exact dates away and provide an assistant information for urgent help.

With great power comes great responsibility. Smart choosing your team and your tools, will make your work stay while you leave and enjoy that well deserve mojito - cheers!

Anyone else feel an inexplicable craving for a cocktail?