In this time of New Year’s resolutions, why not set some resolutions for achieving marketing success?
Following are 5 key initiatives that can help marketers crush the competition and get that promotion. Commit to these modern marketing new year’s resolutions to improve your bottom line.
1. Customer Insight
The more you know about your customers, the more effective your marketing can be. Do market segmentation and sales analysis to identify top customers by sales and profit. Determine purchase criteria and decision-making process. Understand keyword search volume that drives website traffic. Conduct frequent surveys, and invest in market research.
2. Marketing Plan
Larger brands do planning months before a fiscal year. But, even smaller companies should develop and implement a marketing plan. Establish a marketing calendar with events, marketing initiatives, and budgets identified. Identify project plan with action items and work backwards to determine start and milestone dates. Importantly, budget adequately for marketing using 5% of revenue as a reference point.
3. Improve That Website
A site more than 3-5 years old could be obsolete! Get up close and personal with your website traffic statistics using Google Analytics. How do you rank in search engines for top keywords? Run search engine diagnostics like SEOmoz and Broken Link Checker to identify issues and problems. Do you have a mobile version of your website? If not, get it done. Duda mobile has a low cost option. If your category is too competitive to achieve organic search, consider paid search.
4. Assume Thought Leadership
Customers don’t want to be sold, they want to be educated. Take leadership with educational content. If your product, service or brand is business-to-business (vs. consumer or retail), then case studies, industry surveys and research, training videos and whitepapers are great content types. A blog can be an excellent tool to disseminate your content, while contributing to search engine authority.
5. Develop Sales Leads
All marketing should be focused on generating leads. But first, you must build awareness with advertising, publicity, and networking. Develop a referral program with existing customers. Conduct email campaigns to customers and prospects. Use that great content from #4 above with registration pages to capture leads. Purchase customer lists and use telemarketing qualification to build or improve lists.
Following are some additional resources to help you achieve great marketing success in 2013.
Additional Resources:
Search Engine Optimization – SEO – Top Priority For Modern Marketers
Marketing Planning Best Practices
Content Marketing – What’s the Big Hype?
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