October, November and December are months during which plans are begun for the following year. Growth strategies, product development, infrastructure changes – all of it is important, but one thing that shouldn’t be overlooked is the marketing strategy. Chris Surridge, marketing director at Kent SEO agency Whitefish Marketing offers some useful tips on how to make sure you’re prepared to present your products and build your audience in 2016.
It’s difficult to work out what you’ve achieved from your marketing campaigns if you don’t benchmark, track and analyse them. The first step on your journey to good business marketing is to look at your current campaigns and determine what worked and what didn’t. Analyse your marketing channels, devices, browsers and demographics. By identifying the popular avenues that your existing clients find you by, allows you to apportion more budget in the right places for the future.
Hone your channels
Many marketers know that different channels are effective in different industries. There are two tiers to this. The top one covers your channels: where are you getting the best response rates? Perhaps your key demographic is 60+ and responds better to direct mail and print advertising than email and online display ads. The second tier drills down a little more: it may be that your audience thinks Facebook is for their parents and will engage more with Instagram. Use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and phone tracking software to determine what channels people are coming from and where your levels of engagement are highest.
Get the message
Campaign success depends partly on the messaging you use. Whether you’re launching a new product or targeting a new demographic, you need to ensure that you get the tone and style of your communications right. Ensure your copy, imagery and video for each campaign fit with the brand guidelines and can draw in the desired audience. Also consider how to speak to consumers at various points in the buying cycle to ensure you get maximum coverage.
Make the plan
When you’ve thought about all of the above, it’s time to start putting the plan together. Consider how you’ll schedule your campaigns and how consumer behaviour or seasonality may affect their launch or end date to help you avoid mixed messaging. Secondly, set metrics and goals to ensure you can measure success, and thirdly, decide how you want to allocate budget. Channels such as email and social media marketing may be less expensive than activities like Pay Per Click or SEO, but the latter may bring better results. The key is to find the right balance between spend and ROI.
Communicate
It’s easy to get so involved in the preparation of your business marketing strategy that you forget to do one important thing: communicate it to the rest of the workforce. Ensuring that everyone is aware of your objectives enables the whole team to work towards the same goals. Keep sales staff and contact centre agents abreast of campaign content and launch dates so that they can prepare accordingly and feel involved in the process.
Marketing Strategy Advice
For more advice on marketing strategy and planning ahead for your campaigns, contact Whitefish Marketing in Kent.