Most businesses at this time of year are putting together action plans for how they will stay competitive, gain (and retain) mind share with customers, and other internal strategies that help them run a profitable business.
Then the discussion about marketing starts. With technology and customer expectations changing the landscape on a daily basis, where does a business focus its energy?
Do you chase down every change in online marketing? No, unless you are a consultant or coach who sells products related to those channels.
(Side note: remember that all the advice you read online about marketing, especially social media, has a context behind it, and a goal you can ultimately trace back to why you would use that advice in your own strategy. If the context or strategy don’t match, you don’t have to listen to the advice. Use it as a benchmark perhaps, but not as gospel. I see this happen too often, especially with small businesses who are doing most of their online marketing by themselves).
Do you pull an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality? No, because at some point, you will find yourself too far behind the curve, and it will become too expensive to catch up.
Nearly every prediction post I read these past few weeks said the same basic thing: Relevance, relevance, relevance. With a side of value, a shot of be human, and a personality chaser.
This is the way we’ve done business pre-Internet, now the Internet finally caught up!
What does this mean for your online marketing strategy?
Focus on quality not quantity. The platforms want more relevance for their users, so they’re actually working in your favor to send the right eyeballs your way. However, it also means you’ll need to cultivate any relationship that comes your way. If one person comments on your Google+ or Facebook post, they are your best friend today. From a search marketing standpoint, improvements in voice recognition and
Tell your story. The B2C Content Marketing 2015: Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report, compiled by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, published some fantastic insights from their annual study that support several key trends for 2015:
With regard to the next 12 months, the highest percentages of respondents [to a question about content marketing initiatives] said they are focusing on a better mobile strategy (38%), marketing automation/lead nurturing (38%), and measuring content marketing ROI (37%).
What does this tell us from a tactical and strategic standpoint?
- Better Mobile Strategy – recognizing you are interacting with your customers in more places, and that messaging needs to be adaptable as someone moves from device to device.
- Marketing Automation – recognizing that there’s so much to juggle, you have to automate, but in a way that’s personalized and focused on the customer.
- Measuring ROI (Return on Investment) – recognizing that your overall investment in online marketing assets is rising, not to mention the channels in which you can invest, and that you need to get the best bang for your buck.
A quick note about ROI: Remember that much of your content marketing should be integrated with all areas of your web presence, so tracing a specific sale or number of visitors back to a single channel or initiative is very difficult (in most cases). Advertising is much better for this type of direct measurement, whereas content marketing has a longer shelf life and, as a result, a brand building effect which is measured in different ways.
Customer experience. Looking back at my point above about relevance, focusing on the customer experience should be a big part of your mindset for the coming year. A positive customer experience will translate to brand ambassadorship, word of mouth, stronger semantic ties to your brand, and higher conversions. Who doesn’t want these things?
Conversion optimization. It’s high time your business starts looking at data, if you aren’t already. Little tweaks to button text, call to action placement, engagement on emails, etc. can not only improve revenue and profitability, but also lead to better customer experience (which leads to all the things I just mentioned, which we can agree are great to have).
Your action plan for 2015
- Take stock of your online marketing channels – list them all out, logins, page managers, branding. Everything should be buttoned up and in your control, even if you have an agency managing it.
- Create a content strategy – look at the knowledge of all the things you do really well in your business, and create a strategy that puts the right content in the right places for customers to find them.
- Identify what you want to measure – don’t focus on follower counts, traffic, or any vanity metrics. Look at what those numbers lead to next, and implement goals for yourself that you can check against with every marketing idea and campaign.
Be smart this year, your customers are expecting it.
Stephan Hovnanian is the owner of Shovi Websites, a web strategy company located outside Boston. Stephan has spent his career helping companies overcome the challenges of maintaining their online presence effectively by developing and executing strategies unique to them.
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