We all start out the New Year with aspirations for improvement personally and professionally. Here are five ways to build in structure to your high hopes for business success in 2010:
Evaluate Your Goals
How has your business changed in the last year? What’s 2010 going to look like for your industry? Do current sales meet your expectations? Are you making a compelling case for your product or service to a targeted enough audience? What have you learned? We all work hard every day to keep the little gears grinding, but it’s crucial to take a step back periodically to tweak your overall course. Sit down to restate what you want for 2010, assess what worked in 2009, and imagine how you can shake up those pieces that need more focused attention or an entirely new tactic.
Listen to Your Audience
The best source of advice is often those people you are looking to please the most: your clients. They can offer valuable clues to engage them if you’ll just listen. Now, listening doesn’t involve just our ears anymore; there are many tools marketers can use to better understand their audiences. If you haven’t already, install data metrics & tracking software like Google Analytics on your web site to audit geographic demographics and behavioral patterns of your site’s visitors. What pages keep your visitors’ attention the longest and where do most flee the site. Research tools like Quantcast can be leveraged to get an interesting picture of the internet trends for your target audience. And get on board with digital word-of-mouth by staying involved with social media sites.
Audit Your Methods of Communication
Remember when people used to just talk to each other? Like face-to-face? Yeah, well there’s an increasing number of ways to interact with your clients and the most successful efforts are those that integrate several modes of communication, proportionate to the habits of your target market. Your options these days are in-person, phone, HTML email, your website, ads on other Web sites, social media, and traditional forms of advertising like mailers, print ads, television, and radio. Do you have the right mix? Are the tools you’re using having effect? Are you cross-promoting (i.e. social media links in email blasts)? Is your website too content heavy? Consumers respond more to visually engaging experiences online rather than a page of text. Are there any opportunities to convert paragraphs into interactive media like video, slideshows, etc?
Rethink Your Budget
Some businesses think they should axe their marketing budgets when the economy goes south, but there are more responsible tactics to trimming expenses. Strong, effective marketing campaigns don’t always mean dropping big bucks. Consider the return on your investment, which is highly trackable these days. Strategically targeting and communicating with your audiences can help grow your business. Can you redirect resources from an underperforming activity to one that’s working? Is the underperforming activity failing because your approach is not quite right or because it’s simply not a smart way to reach your audience? Ask these questions before making cuts. And marketing cuts may be unavoidable, but the most critical imperative is for you to prioritize. It may take more planning, but as the economy rebounds, your business will have remained relevant and visible in the public eye. And you’ll outperform those less savvy competitors.
Be True to Yourself and Your Business
Be authentic. People are often smarter than we give them credit for and many can see through a false façade. We as consumers appreciate authentic, heart-felt communications. And in this digital age, anyone can try their hand at the latest new-fangled gadget or digital idea; but those who succeed in digital media approach it with careful planning, research and strategy. Does your brand adequately reflect your company’s values and culture? Avoid hyperbole. Sure, find the magic in your company’s story, but don’t over-promise and under-deliver. Good branding (and by extension, marketing) is about defining an identity and purpose of being that everyone can unabashedly embrace. Create an organization in 2010 that you, your employees, and your clients can all be proud of!
