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2020 is over (Hallelujah!) and it’s time to look ahead to the new year. Maybe your business should revise its 2021 marketing strategy, maybe your advertising messaging needs to shift completely. After a year full of surprises and unexpected changes, we think it’s fair to say that it’s time for a fresh start. Let’s hit the ‘refresh’ button, cut out the ‘toxins’, create healthy habits, and approach the new year with renewed marketing vigor!
Good health matters – even for your business! Having a healthy business means you have a healthy marketing strategy. So, before embarking on your 2021 marketing strategy cleanse, think of the deeper ‘why’. Your ‘why’ is the driver and purpose of your strategy. It’s the reason you power through even when things get tough. When you have a clear ‘why’, everything else becomes more manageable. But without it, it’s easy to lose track of your ultimate goals and veer off course, or worse, give up.
So, start this New Year by writing down your ‘why’ and always keep it at the forefront of your goals! If you’re new to “cleansing” your business, we’ve made it easy for you by providing a step-by-step actionable guide below:
Detox
In 2020, many marketers found themselves doing a “crash” marketing diet. The diet included an unhealthy balance of mixed-messaging, a lack of focus, and possibly a reduced advertising budget as they witnessed unexpected shifts in consumer behavior. Some found themselves failing to reach marketing objectives as they struggled to adapt to the digital economy.
This year, your marketing diet should take on a more enjoyable marketing approach that includes all of the right ingredients in the right proportions to remain flexible, but focused.
Detox Tip: Detoxing and picking the right “ingredients” for your marketing strategy can give you a new outlook. To help, limit your focus on these 5 essential ingredients for a successful marketing plan: a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats), target audience, a clear objective, defined strategy, and financial plan.
1. By examining your SWOT analysis, you’ll create a clear profile of your customers and their expectations
2. From there, you can turn what motivates them into realistic goals
3. Determining your goals and targets will allow you to formulate a strategy
4. Once you have a strategy you’ll be able to better allocate marketing expenses
Together, these ingredients will become foundational elements of your perfect marketing mix and help you achieve your projected income and marketing goals while also cutting out unnecessary work that doesn’t provide nourishment to the health of your campaign.
Reset
2020 taught us all to not get set in a routine. We live in a dynamic time where we no longer can be comfortable with “business as usual” and consumers are much more conscious of the messaging and values of the businesses they support. No longer are traditional marketing strategies, such as billboards, radio ads, and newspapers the best way to get in front of your audience. With more people working from home and social media now a prominent media source, it will be critical for you to recalibrate and hit the marketing strategy ‘reset’ button and focus primarily on digital ads.
Reset Tip: This year, when serving ads across social platforms to consumers, keep public opinions and current events in mind. Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Email are marketing streams that are easy to adapt and allow you to maintain flexibility in your messaging strategy. They are also affordable ways to capture your audience’s attention, showcase your awareness and sensitivity to certain topics, which will be beneficial as the pandemic continues or any other flashpoint event occurs.
By staying connected to your ‘why’ and monitoring consumer behavior, you’ll limit the risk of unhealthy habits, such as blind marketing (not knowing your audience) or talking more than listening.
Restore Balance
To thrive in the digital age of consumer marketing you need a measured and thoughtful method to achieve performance. Instead of focusing your marketing on a client’s products and simply regurgitating talking points, concentrate on understanding consumer preferences.
Create a strategy, strive for high quality, and then link your marketing strategy goals with long-term business goals. By planning and taking a measured and thoughtful approach to strategy, long-term business goals can be achieved through an objective set of KPI indicators.
Restore Tip: It’s time to bring out the “secret sauce” and focus on restoring your digital marketing strategy. While consumers have a lot more power in the digital age, you can use this to your advantage! Take this time to reach out to new customers through popular social platforms. Use this time to double down on customer service and responsiveness to their needs. You can also refine processes and create high-quality and valuable content. This is the perfect time to reflect on your 2020 strategies to create better ones that embrace new trends to reach better results. You can learn more about 2021 trends, insights, and predictions here with our Social Media Guides.
Don’t Lose Track
If you aren’t measuring it, you aren’t managing it. And if you aren’t managing it, you can’t improve it. You need to commit to sustained measurements so that you can adjust in a responsive manner rather than reactionary.
Tracking Tip: Reporting can be one of the more tedious parts of a marketer’s job, but it’s also one of the most fundamental and important. Always ensure your goals are measurable and include metrics that evaluate your success. Your metrics prove your value and your work’s worth: How much traffic are you driving to your website? How many customers did your marketing efforts generate?
We collect data to measure performance, interaction, and engagement, but it can be easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed by the data. If this occurs, we can lose track of what metrics are truly important. Eliminate superfluous information, like removing junk food from the cabinet, consolidate your data in one place, and focus on specific healthy data that truly matters.
At Envision Creative, we’re all about working smarter, not harder! We believe the new year is an exciting time for a fresh start and a new beginning! Talk to our experts to learn how we can detox your business and recharge your marketing strategy for a year of healthy and sustainable results!
