As we near the end of January you’re probably already tired of the phrase that we love to hate, “new year, new me!” The coming of a new year prompts a barrage of personal improvement tips and tricks that are bound to fall flat after a few months. While we’re all for improving your habits, when was the last time you took a deeper look at the marketing strategy and media habits within your business?
Just like personal habits, marketing strategies take time and work in order to improve and show results. Here are a few steps you can take in the right direction!
Get Organized
Holiday downtime towards the end of the year is a great way to start organizing internally. Take a look through files (both physical and digital!) and get rid of what you don’t need. Comb through your contacts to see who’s going with you into the new year. Organizing before the new year starts can start you off with a fresh mindset and get some of that busy work out of the way. If you got too caught up in the stuffing and presents, don’t worry. The passing of new year’s day doesn’t mean that you’re behind or incapable of getting started!
Conduct an Audit – Decide What to Focus On
Something that will keep you busy for a while is an internal audit. Classic tactics like SWOT and NOISE can get the ball rolling but can sometimes be affected by bias. Pulling numbers and data can aid in combating bias but you may also want to consider an external analysis from a marketing firm to strengthen your results. Once you’ve got the results, decide what to focus on. The decision isn’t always as easy as it seems, sometimes the lowest performing marketing tactic isn’t always worth building. Consider what you’ll be getting back (ROI) from each tactic.
Determine a Budget
Easier said than done, right? Determine what is right for you and your business, how much you want to spend in order to meet goals. We’ll talk about those next.
Set Goals
Ask yourself, what do you want to get out of restructuring your marketing strategy? Sales is an obvious answer but there’s always more to it. Do you want to drive sales in-person or online? Think about how to measure your success, last year’s numbers will usually give you a good idea of where to aim next. Good goals are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.
Can You Do it Yourself?
Okay, so you’ve spent all this time researching and crunching numbers, and you’ve finally decided on what you want to do, Hooray! Now it’s time to really assess whether it’s something you can handle on your own. Preparing, rolling out, and maintaining new marketing strategies on top of your existing strategies and tactics can be a heavy load and easily skipped (like those new year’s resolutions!). Any step of the process or the whole enchilada is no small feat, be proud of your new you and your new challenge! Or feel free to reach out to Royle Media along the way.
Written By: Cassedy Biri – Social Media Coordinator at Royle Media