It’s the end of the year. Hooray. While you might be ready to throw in the towel on 2020, not so fast. There are a few marketing housekeeping items to take care of first. Here are a few ways to get your digital house in order.
Brand audit: After a year’s worth of projects, certain brand elements can, understandably, become a bit a watered down. This becomes increasingly true as the number of people who have collaborated on or touched a project increases. Spend some time analyzing various marketing campaigns to determine if they truly reflect your brand in an authentic way. If you’ve veered off course quite a bit, a brand rediscovery process can be a helpful exercise to get back on track.
Reevaluate your presence: Are the platforms you have a presence on serving your business well? Review metrics for any social media platforms where you have a presence, paying extra-close attention to new platforms you rolled into your marketing mix. For example, if TikTok was a bright and shiny object that you jumped on because of its popularity this year, consider what value it’s bringing you. If there are crickets without an opportunity to grow authentically, either launch a new content strategy or shift your team’s energy to platforms that are working for you.
Polish your website: Take an hour or two to click around your website, looking for outdated content that may need a refresh. Is blog content still relevant to your customers’ current needs? Has staff changed this past year? Do any policies need to be updated? The list goes on, but those are some good places to start. Don’t forget to do a deep dive into your analytics to see where improvements need to be made. In some cases, it may make more sense to kick off the year with an entirely new design and structure.
Revise your ad budget: One of the tricky things about advertising is that you don’t have a ton of control over how you allocate your budget. The best barometer for measuring your ad spend, aside from the actual business it brought in, is gauging your budget and cost per each acquisition compared to other businesses in your industry. Do some comparative research specific to your market.
Celebrate your wins: When you’re looking back on the year, be sure to review all of the content and campaigns that really wowed your clients or customers and identify what made these stand out against the others. The ones that got your clients talking and phones ringing. There could be many factors involved in the success of them, such as the timing, medium or budget, but, in general, it’s likely they all have similarities. This is a great starting point for fresh ideas and brainstorms for upcoming campaigns.
There are many moving parts that go into a successful marketing strategy and we would love to help you come up with a winning one for 2021. Contact us for a free one-hour consultation.