As we rapidly approach the end of another calendar year, many reflect on the past twelve months in business and start to consider the areas that they must improve in 2013.
For some it’s a good time of year, looking back on a string of successes in 2012. But for many the unfortunate reality is that they’re just not where they want, or in some cases need, to be.
Marketing is often the first thing to consider: what needs to change and improve in 2013? How do we make the most of the new media technologies; social media, blogging, mobile, online and e-mail?
For many this is a yearly occurrence, they create and devise a brilliant new marketing plan to kick off in the New Year, but what begins with a wave of excitement and enthusiasm soon falls by the wayside as the day-to-day running of the business gets in the way. Before they know it, the plan is forgotten and they resort to what they know: advertising, cold calls and mass direct marketing campaigns.
Marketing is often the ‘gym membership’ of the business world. Many people start, few actually stick to it, and most dip a toe in and out when it suits or when time allows.
Let’s be honest, marketing can be really tough. It's always going to be a challenge. It’s a task, sometimes arduous, always challenging and never easy. It requires a consistent focus, month in, month out.
But it doesn’t have to be complicated and/or expensive. It doesn’t have to involve continually throwing money at advertising, something that most find unsustainable over the long term. It also doesn’t have to take up hours of your time each week.
Marketing is no longer about who shouts the loudest or has the biggest budgets. Size and reputation will only get you so far. It's about connecting and maintaining relationships with your community of prospects and clients, whatever-sized business you have.
It's about having more to offer than just goods and/or services. It's about having a commitment to making my experience of doing business with you a good one, and not just at the point of sale either.
Finally, it’s about using the tools at your disposal and more importantly, learning how to use them properly.
Here are my top 5 tips for 2013;
1) Try Social Media, properly
Social Media is big, really big, but few are using its full potential for business.
To bring this into your marketing mix, firstly consider your audience. The posts that you share must be interesting and relevant to your client s and/or prospects.
Updates or posts about having a coffee, being stuck in traffic or on your latest purchases from the weekend should be constrained to your personal on-line profile. They'll soon lose the interest of most business focused connections. Keep it relevant.
Start to share things: Links, videos, pictures, news, advice, articles, tips, competitions, promotions—anything! Just keep it interesting.
To retain people’s interest, you have to work at it. The basic rule for any business-related social media is 85% sharing and 15% selling.
If you aim to post 3 times each week, that’s only 12 pieces of information you have to find each month. Challenge the staff to recommend, create or find something. This will not only help spread the workload but it will bring new and fresh ideas to the fore. In some cases it will give your profiles another voice, and perhaps a slightly different 'take' on things.
When sharing an article, link, photo or video, add a personal message. Better still, add your own thoughts and comments, if they're relevant.
Look out for what your contacts are posting, and where applicable share these on your profile. This not only helps keep your own profile fresh and up to date, but it may also encourage others to return the favour.
Whatever you do, give your business social media activity proper focus and do it consistently. Otherwise, what’s the point?
If you’d like a little more guidance on how to develop your business social media, see my recent article
‘The Real Value of Social Media in Business’.
2) Join a business networking group
Do your research and go along to a handful of meetings in your area. Most groups will allow you to attend one or two meetings before you need to decide on permanent membership.
Consider how often they meet, what is required of the members, and the value of the potential relationships within the group. What will be to the return on your investment of time and money? Remember to include any breakfast, lunch or drinks costs that may accompany the membership as this will also be an ongoing cost.
Join one or two different groups. Why? Two is probably the most you'll be able to manage (unless your actual business is networking), but you'll find the atmosphere varies with the personalities in each group, and the variety of contacts can be more than twice as useful as just one. Also, things you prepare for one group can be used in the other, giving you twice the reach for minimal extra effort.
Just signing up doesn’t mean an instant passport to referral business – you have to work at building those relationships. You may not be able to do business directly with every person in the room, either. But, as with any circle of friends, they will prove a valuable resource when growing your business and they will have contacts and connections that could be a route to your next client.
Networking does take time, but it’s the foundation for building strong, local, long-lasting and reciprocal business relationships.
3) Build a qualified e-mail database
A qualified database contains those contacts who want to hear from you, who enjoy reading your e-mails and who value in reading what you have to share.
It’s much better to have only twenty qualified contacts who read your e-mails than hundreds who don’t. It may take time to grow and develop the list, but as long as you are sharing interesting, informative and relevant content you will see it grow.
There is some downside risk to purchased lists and unsolicited emails. People generally don't get upset by adverts they didn't expect to see, but unwanted emails can actually annoy them and have exactly the opposite effect to the one you want!
Generally, the same rules apply as to your social media: what you share will determine the success or failure of your e-mail marketing.
If you’re going to struggle for time, commit to one just e-mail each month. Remember, the content can also be broken up into smaller pieces and "recycled"—used as posts and updates for your social media and blogs. This will save you time in other areas of your marketing.
The best place to start is with your current clients. Tell them about your plans to develop a regular e-mail campaign and ask if they would be happy to receive it. I have done this for many of my own clients in the past and almost always there is 100% sign-up.
Start a monthly article/e-mail/newsletter and ask for their feedback. Find out what they find interesting and how they think it could be improved and developed over time. When people like what you write they will soon start to share it with their own contacts and hey presto! Your mailing list will start to grow.
Building a qualified database of prospects and clients is an ongoing and gradual process, but as with anything, if you stick to it you’ll reap the rewards.
4) Work on converting more of the visitors to your website
There’s little point in spending time and money driving more people to your website, "search engine optimization" and the like, if you’re not converting the visitors you get.
Look at your current website statistics.
Google Analytics is probably the most common tool, it’s easy to use and it’s free. You will be able to drill down in detail to see where your visitors are coming from, the pages, products and services they're most interested in, and crucially where you're losing them, too.
Use this to adapt and change your site, simplifying it if need be. Try a different landing page, take things out, add things in, and make the content compelling and engaging.
The purpose of most websites is to begin a relationship with the visitor. Ideally this would be an immediate ‘sale,’ but what if they don’t want to buy right now? Are you giving the visitor a reason to come back, to stay in touch or to sign up to your communications? (E-mail, social media, blogs)?
If your website is business-focused make it easy to navigate. Make sure people can find what they want quickly and easily. Ask your longstanding clients to take a look and give you feedback – take action on what they tell you!
Your website will always change and should be kept fresh and up-to-date. If it doesn’t give people a compelling reason to ‘stay in touch’ or buy, changes need to be made.
See my article
‘Top Tips for Creating an Engaging Website’ for more on how to improve conversions from your website visitors.
5) Keep working at it – don’t give up!
Quite simply, whatever you do and whatever options you choose, stick to them.
As with anything in life, what you put in is what you get out.
Success in marketing takes time; it requires a consistent focus and the ability to try different things.
Best of luck for 2013 and beyond.
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IT plays a key role in effective, easy-to-manage marketing strategies, so next week I am featuring a guest blog from
Bristol IT Company on their top tips for ‘IT in Marketing’ in 2013.
IT in Marketing
Publish date: Thursday 27th December
