The New Year is full of resolutions, many of which have to do with improving your personal health: get more sleep, fix your diet, renew that gym membership (and actually go this year) and so on. But what resolutions have you made to improve your business’s health this year?
While slimming your waistline might be on your yearly to-do list, you should make expanding your business’s bottom line a priority as well. One of the best ways to grow your business is by developing a focused and effective marketing plan.
Here are a few resolutions you can incorporate into this year’s growth strategy:
Planning
An effective marketing plan requires focus, and that focus comes from having a fully fleshed out marketing strategy. Don’t be afraid to start at the beginning and try to get a clearer picture of the basics. Think about why potential customers would need your products or services, think about who your target customers are and consider how your business will fit into the competition. These basic insights work in concert. For example, if you know that your target customer uses your product to improve their everyday life, their demographics and can anticipate how your competition will respond to your offering, you can stay several steps ahead in developing a more effective marketing plan.
Trying New Things
If you try to put yourself in the place of your customers, it helps to take the guesswork out of marketing. What products or services do you like? What is it about them that gets you excited? Chances are—like your customers—you appreciate and respond better to change. Rather than using the same methods over and over again to sell your product or service, branch out. Bundle what you’re already offering with something new, throw in a new and improved service, whatever it takes. This sort of spontaneity helps to keep the fires of interest burning, maintaining customer loyalty while attracting new ones.
If email marketing has never worked well for you, maybe it’s time to build an effective email list.
Following Through
Execute and measure. You’ll never know if a particular marketing strategy was effective or not if you don’t first let it run its course and then take the time to assess its effect. Track your metrics. What helped generate leads? What percentage of those leads were converted to customers? Then look at each aspect of the marketing strategy and see if it needs refining or to be shelved and taken back to formula. Whatever you do, however, don’t completely trash your marketing strategies. Not only is it wasteful, but what may not have worked for one particular product or service might be the silver bullet you needed for another.
If you need help getting your marketing plan off on the right foot, feel free to give us a call today.