Now that the Holiday season is over and we have all survived our turkey hangovers; it’s time to focus on 2017 and the New Year’s resolutions that always come at the start of a new year. These resolutions usually involve eating better, exercising regularly or kicking a few items off the bucket list. However, rarely do we see resolutions created for a business. To help with this, we’ve come up with 3 resolutions that are sure to increase your marketing results in 2017!
A lot of people still opt for traditional marketing channels such as radio, print or YellowPages as their main means of marketing. While these marketing channels project to a large audience, they are usually quite costly and do not provide the level of consumer insight, effectiveness and marketing segment accuracy as their online counterparts. Even more than this, the number of online marketing channels has exponentially increased due to rapid advancements in technology and there are now countless outlets that businesses can use to increase their reach.
Some examples of emerging marketing channels include Snapchat, which allows you to send photos and videos to your followers that disappear after a short amount of time. This outlet is great for younger demographics and for communicating visual products, services or live events. Another example of an emerging marketing tactic is sending consumers texts of time sensitive promotions that they can redeem in-store or online. This tactic is a great way to keep your brand in the minds of consumers and introduce new products, services and promotions.
It’s important to be on the appropriate outlets that best identify with your brand, but it’s just as critical to focus on the content that you are driving through those mediums. Sending out relatable, captivating and relevant content to your target audience is critical because it ensures that your target audience actually cares about what is being said and increases the possibility of consumer interactions.
It is also important to gauge how often you are sending out content across your marketing channels. This should vary depending on the outlets that you use as well as your primary target market. For example, sending out 3-5 tweets/day on Twitter is typically a good amount, however, this would be considered too many posts on Facebook and could result in consumers unliking your page. When looking at your target audience, it is important to also determine how active they are on each channel. For example, a younger target audience may enjoy viewing daily snaps on Snapchat from a brand that they identify with whereas they may find daily texts about offers annoying. At the end of the day, it’s important to use the marketing channel and target audience to determine the best mix for your business.
Now that you’ve increased your reach and improved your content it’s important that those users translate into actual sales. So how do you convert consumers into clients? You need to simply connect with them. Reaching out and connecting with someone is a bold move, but chances are that if you’ve done well in the previous steps then the consumer should be at least willing to listen to you. This gives you a much better chance at converting them into a client. It’s also important to realize that it usually takes several instances of exposure for a potential client to be converted into a customer so be patient and follow up every once in a while.
A new year gives each of us an opportunity for a fresh start to reflect and improve. Keep these 3 resolutions in mind as you plan your marketing for the year and you’ll be sure to see an improvement! If you get stuck and need some help we’d love to sit down with you to help share in your success story!