12 Marketing Resolutions for 2012

Twelve for ‘12

Apart from completing my tax return, I usually take the time over the Christmas break to analyse my overall business strategy.  Although I’m accustomed to fine tuning my marketing tactics as I go along, I always use the pre-New Year period to assess my overall marketing strategy in some detail and to see where I need to make any changes.

As you may well be doing the same for your business, I thought I would give you a helping hand with some New Year’s marketing resolutions you can easily implement:

  1. Hone your marketing strategy.  First things first, make sure your objectives are still relevant and that they are SMART.  You can’t get to where you want to be until you know where you’re going, so get this bit right before you embark on plans for the year ahead.
  2. Get blogging.  Did you start a blog and then abandon it?  If so, you’re in good company – lots of companies do the same.  So this year, resolve to blog and to blog regularly.  It doesn’t have to be frequently – maybe only twice a month is enough in your business – but it needs to be regular.  Brainstorm plenty of subjects and ideas in advance, write up some pieces when you get a chance, agree a schedule for publishing the blog posts – and then stick to it!
  3. Ramp up your social media presence.  Did you ever add that Facebook business page you were going to?  Did you set up a personal or business Google+ page?  Have you neglected your Twitter account?  Did you add information to your LinkedIn company page and update the status for it?  Not all the mainstream social media may be right for you, but you would do well to be out there somewhere at least!
  4. Get some client love.  Ask your clients to recommend you on LinkedIn.  Use those testimonial quotes on your website, or write case studies that demonstrate how your services have helped your clients.
  5. Reach out to your customers.  Implement a regular email newsletter.  You can tell them your news, link to your new blog pieces and showcase client case studies.
  6. Assess your on-site SEO.  Are your keywords still relevant?  Have you even checked your Google Analytics to see what search terms visitors are using to get to your site?  Make sure your website copy is relevant for your users and includes your keywords.
  7. Engage more.  Stop telling and selling and starting listening and conversing.  Social media allows us to speak one-to-one with our markets now, so use this to your advantage.  Find out more about your customers and prospects, their likes, dislikes, needs and pain points.  Then you can react accordingly with products and services that meet their needs, or promotions and offers that will encourage sales conversions.
  8. Give your website a makeover.  If it hasn’t been changed for a few years, then your website may be in need of an update.  Content management is a must now, so that you can add blog posts and change your site easily yourself.  There are several content management systems available, but you can’t go far wrong with WordPress as it is the most popular platform, so is well supported and updated.  It’s also excellent for SEO, with many integral features and free plugins that improve optimisation for search and for users.  And it’s great for social media integration, for bringing in a Twitter feed or displaying wall posts from a Facebook account.
  9. Make your website mobile friendly.  Mobile share of internet access in the UK is about 7% – and is growing rapidly.  Mobile access to the internet is predicted to exceed desktop usage by 2014.  Make sure you’re not putting off those 7% and get a mobile optimised site now.  [OK, so this is me giving advice I haven’t taken myself!  While my website has been changed for mobile use, it doesn’t really work how I would like it to and I need to sort it out.  So this is one resolution that’ll be on my list this year].
  10. Get visual.  With more than 3 billion views every day, YouTube can’t be ignored.  You can create videos of customers giving you testimonials, or introductions to your products or services.  If you have a technical product or services, then support videos will help your customers and reduce the burden on your technical staff.
  11. Create useful content.  Content marketing is a great way to show your expertise and to engage with clients and prospects.  Apart from blogging or using video and social media, consider some other ways you can create content that your audience will want to consume.  You could run a webinar series, or write and issue a white paper.  Or why not approach a magazine or popular blog with an idea for an article you could write?
  12. Don’t forget your employees.  Internal marketing is just as important as external marketing.  Make sure you communicate with your staff and let them know what’s going on with the business.  PDF newsletters or emails are great for imparting information and meetings and events can encouraging feedback and engender staff loyalty and motivation.  You can even include your staff in your marketing efforts by asking them – or incentivising them – to write blog pieces for you.

Happy New Year!

Categories

1 Comments