By Ron Marcus, Marketing Cheerleader
Greetings fellow marketers. As 2015 draws to a close, now is a great time to refocus on the core activities we’ll all need to perform in 2016 to strengthen our brands, attract more qualified leads, and increase revenue for our businesses. Think of the following as a simple action check list for the coming year.
Your Brand
Brand Audit: Once a year, you should perform a brand audit and reassess:
Download the Shindy Media Brand Audit Questionnaire »
Brand Consistency: How will you ensure that your brand looks and feels exactly the same to all customers at all touch points? This is critical to maintaining trust in your brand.
Search — Organic and Paid
Content Marketing
What will you offer in 2016 that will inform, educate and entertain customers?
Content Marketing provides these benefits:
Types of content:
Lead Nurturing
(A.k.a. “inbound marketing,” powered by marketing automation)
When prospects first start to visit your website for content, they’ll likely not be sales-ready for some time (if at all). Instead of turning them away with an intrusive sales call, nurture these leads. Capture their contact information by offering helpful, stimulating content (see above), then periodically “drip” an offer of new content to them via email. Track lead activity and automate communications to them with marketing automation software. When leads have accumulated enough “activity points” on your website and proven to be a good demographic fit for your offering, you can safely engage them with a sales conversation.
More about Lead Nurturing »
Social Media
If you aren’t already posting links to your own content as well as curating links to content from complimentary providers and pundits, what are you waiting for? This is a low-cost and effective way to build brand awareness and credibility as an expert in your space. It will also boost your search engine rankings. Make sure to constantly update your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.
Additional Marketing Tactics
Budget allowing, you can should consider engaging in the following tactics to increase brand awareness and lead flow:
Action Precedes Motivation
The foregoing may seem obvious, but it's a challenge to get it all done. However, these are the top priorities. Put aside the other interruptions and distractions and get these done first. Do them routinely. Make them your daily mantra. And watch your sales grow in 2016.
Looking forward to sharing the journey with you,
Ron
Greetings fellow marketers. As 2015 draws to a close, now is a great time to refocus on the core activities we’ll all need to perform in 2016 to strengthen our brands, attract more qualified leads, and increase revenue for our businesses. Think of the following as a simple action check list for the coming year.
Your Brand
Brand Audit: Once a year, you should perform a brand audit and reassess:
- Positioning statement (a.k.a. brand promise — “We solve ____ for ____ by providing ____ which does ____, and is better than ____ because ____.”)
- Target market(s) definition, with personas
- S.W.OT. analysis
- What your brand must stand for — your brand values
- Brand personality and character — how people should feel when they interact with your brand
Download the Shindy Media Brand Audit Questionnaire »
Brand Consistency: How will you ensure that your brand looks and feels exactly the same to all customers at all touch points? This is critical to maintaining trust in your brand.
Search — Organic and Paid
- Organic Search — what is your SEO strategy? How will you continually add content and value to your website, which will benefit both your search engine rankings and the very visitors to your website that you’re trying to attract?
- Paid Search — how will you advertise online to drive more traffic to your website and convert more visitors with your offers?
Content Marketing
What will you offer in 2016 that will inform, educate and entertain customers?
Content Marketing provides these benefits:
- Positions you as a subject matter expert and thought leader — i.e. someone to seek out for great information
- Gives customers more opportunities to connect with your brand
- Can be traded for prospect information (e.g. prospects filling out forms to receive white papers)
- Supports your lead nurturing »
- Supports search. More content = more pages on your website for search engines to index, boosting your ranking.
Types of content:
- White papers and eBooks
- Webinars and seminars
- Videos
- Newsletters
- Blog posts
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Case studies
- Research and surveys
Lead Nurturing
(A.k.a. “inbound marketing,” powered by marketing automation)
When prospects first start to visit your website for content, they’ll likely not be sales-ready for some time (if at all). Instead of turning them away with an intrusive sales call, nurture these leads. Capture their contact information by offering helpful, stimulating content (see above), then periodically “drip” an offer of new content to them via email. Track lead activity and automate communications to them with marketing automation software. When leads have accumulated enough “activity points” on your website and proven to be a good demographic fit for your offering, you can safely engage them with a sales conversation.
More about Lead Nurturing »
Social Media
If you aren’t already posting links to your own content as well as curating links to content from complimentary providers and pundits, what are you waiting for? This is a low-cost and effective way to build brand awareness and credibility as an expert in your space. It will also boost your search engine rankings. Make sure to constantly update your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages.
Additional Marketing Tactics
Budget allowing, you can should consider engaging in the following tactics to increase brand awareness and lead flow:
- Events and trade shows
- Advertising — print, broadcast, outdoor, online
- Public Relations
- Direct mail
Action Precedes Motivation
The foregoing may seem obvious, but it's a challenge to get it all done. However, these are the top priorities. Put aside the other interruptions and distractions and get these done first. Do them routinely. Make them your daily mantra. And watch your sales grow in 2016.
Looking forward to sharing the journey with you,
Ron
