The new year is full of people making and then (maybe) breaking New Year’s resolutions, but one thing to make sure you follow through on in 2016 is your marketing presence and branding. Here are our top 3 marketing resolutions for you for the coming year…
Polish your image: Pinterest and Instagram accounts will be full of tips for the body beautiful in January, so check your company image. How long has it been since you looked at your visuals with a fresh, unbiased eye? Things can get stale, no one is immune, so take some time to evaluate what your company wants to portray and take a good honest look – are you delivering? Things to check on will include your online real estate, your website. Your online presence says a lot about you and you can’t take back first impressions so make sure your website tells visitors what you do succinctly and beautifully. In our business image is everything. The same goes for any of your printed collateral too. Make sure your branding both online and offline is consistent and up to date with your products or services.
Assess your social skills: it’s surprising the number of companies that have redundant social media profiles. There are so many channels, with more emerging all the time but don’t feel pressured to sign up to all of them. A redundant social media profile is akin to a poor credit rating. If the channel is not working for you and there is no way of reviving it then delete it! Finding that a company’s last post was more than 6 months ago does not send out positive vibes. Most platforms have their own inbuilt analytics that will help you to keep an eye on how well your content is performing. If you don’t have one already, create a social media calendar to help you post consistently. Check up on your stats regularly and make tweaks as and when you need.
Do the maths: This is not as scary as it sounds, we promise. It takes effort to keep up with a full on marketing strategy that’s full of content, it can be exhausting in fact, but you cannot sit back and relax after you hit the publish button. Just as it is important to create great content, it is equally as important to monitor what you publish on your website or blog, or what you send to your clients and prospects through email marketing. Understanding which content is most popular on your website tells you a lot about what your visitors enjoy about your site, so it would make sense to create more of it! Similarly, if you are using email marketing to reach out to leads or prospects, keep any eye on open rates and click through rates and compare them to industry averages, as well as your own historical stats. If your unsubscribe rate keeps climbing, something isn’t right and if your open rate soars then keep at it.
These are three really simple ‘health checks’ that you can perform to keep your marketing efforts in good shape in 2016. If you need help with a re-brand, marketing and social media strategy or understanding analytics then we are here to help. We have expertise in all of these areas and we want to make 2016 the best year it can be.
Put down that last mince pie and give us a call…
*Image from www.learningtocook.co.uk
