Tips For Being More Strategic With Your Marketing
Many small business owners find that time is elusive and as a result of this marketing tends to fall to the back burner and is not given as much thought as what is required to help your organisation succeed.
Owners are so busy running their business, honouring family commitments and the million other things they need to do on a daily basis that the importance of marketing becomes forgotten. For businesses who are not investing much time into their marketing strategy it is crucial to remember that if you’re not marketing a business, you are probably not growing it.
Here are some important tips to improve your marketing strategy.
Set Some Goals
Take some time to ask yourself what are you trying to achieve? This will help you better understand where you need to spend marketing effort. Do you want to drive more traffic to a website? Do you want a better conversion rate? Are you trying to create more brand awareness? By knowing exactly what you are trying to accomplish will make it easier for you to figure out the appropriate marketing strategy.
Tailor Your Message to The People You Are Targeting
In order to create a successful marketing campaign, you must generate content that is relatable to the people who you are hoping will purchase your products or use your services.
Due to the way Search Engine Optimisation works, people have a better chance of finding you if your content is relevant to them. Ask yourself are you targeting, and what words are they using when they go online and start searching for products or services? What are their interests? What are their struggles? Which social media platforms do they use the most? Are they using Instagram or YouTube or Twitter? How do they like to consume content? Would they rather listen to a podcast, watch a video or read a blog post?
The next step of this process is to determine your unique brand message? What makes it different and why should they choose your products or services? Being able to articulate this quickly and effectively will create results.
It is important to be aware of who your ideal customer is. then communicate with them in a manner that resonates with them and will likely entice them to want to consume your products. In the busy online world, people have limitless options, and are looking for connection, transparency and help with their problems.
Create a Schedule and Stick to It
For example; you could spend the first week of the month running an analytics report for the previous month which would consist of looking at numbers and keywords for content to drive engagement.
The second week of the month could be the week where you work on your online blog and write social media posts and then figure out dates to schedule them.
The third week of the month could be the week where you create an email newsletter that consists of blog content, industry tends, upcoming events and other topics that are relevant to your customers and target audience. Most important pick a date to schedule when your newsletter will be sent out to your contacts.
For the fourth week of the month you could aim to brainstorm topics for next month’s content (events, seasonal ideas, common questions and so on) undertake keyword research for content topics. Write or order one blog post to the website, create social posts.
Furthermore, every Monday it would be wise to schedule your social media posts for the week via Canva, Buffer or Hootsuite.
Furthermore, everyday you should aim to go online for 10 to 20 minutes once or twice a day to engage.
Every month you should run analytics report for your website, social media and email. Review overall performance, growth and engagement.
Every three months you should re-visit and update your SMART goals which stand for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Check your speed and links, and update CTAs (calls to action) if needed. Create one piece of custom content (infographic, fact sheet, video, checklist, etc.) to be used as a lead magnet on the website. Keep in mind that visitors, in order to access it, should be asked to give their email so as to grow your email list.
Every six months you should check online listings and make sure they are still accurate (Google, Bing, Apple Maps). Change if needed.
Every 12 months you should aim to evaluate and update your messaging and branding. It is important to ask yourself does is it still resonating with the persona of your customers? Does it need updating? Are there other opportunities to incorporate into your strategy? Is there anything that is not working and what can be done to fix it and make it work?
Automate Your Marketing Tasks
Thankfully, we live in a world with amazing tools to quick-track marketing tasks. You can automate your social media with platforms like Buffer, Hootesuite or Sprout Social, or make it super easy and get a Canva pro account so you can create content and schedule it right in the platform.
Furthermore, it is a good idea to schedule out emails for the month on Mailchimp, Constant Contact or Hubspot. But even as you enjoy these time savers, don’t neglect the tasks listed above; you still want to hop on daily (even if it's just a few minutes) to engage, like, comment and share. People, as well as algorithms, will notice if you put everything on autopilot. Just set an alarm on your phone (or Todoist) once or twice a day to hop on for a few minutes and answer them. By using content in different forms gives it more life, and saves you time.
Track Analytics
Keeping track of your websites data will enable you to understand what is working and what is not working in your marketing strategy. You will begin to notice trends, dips and red flags, so adjust content and strategy accordingly. If you notice more engagement on certain types of posts, by all means do more of those for example your videos might get more views than your blog articles.
Get out your calendar and schedule a 30-minute brainstorming session with yourself and your employees. Make it fun and buy some coffee or a nice bottle of wine and spend some time working on the business as opposed to working in it. Then start applying this information into a workable strategy, starting with goals and messaging. It’s vital to schedule time into your calendar to brainstorm and review content and analytics.
Reuse and Repurpose Content
If you have written a blog post that turned out to be hugely popular with your clients you could consider turning it into an infographic or record it as a podcast or even expand on the blog post via an email that people can download and consequently grow your email list by doing so.
