Tag : new year

Your Marketing Checklist for January 2020

Your Marketing Checklist for January 2019

23Dec

There’s a lot going on at the start of a new year! When January rolls around, you’ll probably still be recovering from the holidays, which puts you in a bad position for kicking off your 2020 social media marketing. That’s why I’m here!

I’m sharing my marketing checklist that’s going to get your business off to a great start in January. If you want to improve your 2020 marketing and stay ahead of your competitors, check it out!

The Checklist:

1. Evaluate your 2019 marketing results to identify areas in need of improvement.
Look back at how your social media campaigns performed in 2019. Most likely, some of them were more successful than others. If you want to improve those results in 2020, look for trends. Maybe your blog content performed well, but users weren’t as engaged with your ads. This tells you what to improve in the new year!

2. See how you compare to your competitors.
Spying on your competition is a key skill for any marketer, but it’s especially important at the start of the year. What’s working for them? What areas are they missing that you can fill? Figuring this out early is going to be a key part of creating a 2020 digital marketing strategy.

3. Create S.M.A.R.T. marketing goals that align with overall business goals.
S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. This means they’re things that you can track and check on throughout the year. Otherwise, you’d just wait until next December to find that you hadn’t reached them! They should also tie into your larger business goals. If your business goal is to increase sales, then a marketing goal could be to increase traffic to your catalogue page by February.

4. Determine if your 2019 target audience is still accurate.
Did your business undergo some changes last year? If so, it’s a good idea to make sure that you’re still appealing to the right audience. Even if you just expanded your offerings, that could open you up to a new market that you should be targeting!

5. Consult with a social media expert to create a strategy for 2020.
You don’t want to take chances with next year’s marketing strategy, so talk to someone who knows what they’re doing. Once you’ve gathered all your information, talk to an industry professional who can give you real, actionable advice on how to achieve your marketing goals in 2020.

6. Create a content calendar to better plan out your strategy for the year.
After you have goals and your plan outlined, assign everything specific dates! Laying out a plan for the year is a great way to make sure that your strategy is cohesive. Each month should flow into the next. When you take the time to make a content calendar, it makes the rest of the year so much easier!

7. Double-check that you’re on the same social media platforms as your target audience.
Social media platforms come and go, and so do their audiences. Whether you didn’t check this last year or your audience could have migrated, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re still on the optimal sites. The last thing you want is to be marketing on Facebook when your audience decided they preferred Twitter!

8. Share your social media channels on your website.
This one is a no-brainer, but you wouldn’t believe how often I see people who don’t have their social media on their website! It’s not that hard, so just link to each of your channels on your “Contact” page. Otherwise, you’re making it too easy for people to ignore your social media presence!

Plan Ahead
If your social media strategy doesn’t get a great start, it’s going to be harder to see the results you want. So get moving! Use this checklist to make the most of January! By following the above steps, I’m sure you’ll be able to create a strategy that serves your business’ goals and sets you up for success in 2020.

Do you want some individualized help with your social media marketing? Just set up a free consultation with The Go! Agency!

How to Create Business New Year’s Resolutions

By Christopher Tompkins

16Dec

Business

A lot of people use the new year as an opportunity to get into some good habits — and that’s great! The only problem is that less than half of those resolutions actually happen. So while I’d like to say that you should set these kinds of resolutions for your business, the truth is that you should only bother if you can actually commit to them.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m going to show you some of the best new year’s resolutions for your business, then I’ll explain what you can do to stick to them. Keep reading if you’re dedicated to improving your business in 2020!

Resolutions:

1. Revamp Your Marketing Strategy
Like anything else, marketing strategies have an expiration date. Don’t carry the same marketing strategy into 2020! Use January to craft a well-thought-out strategy, then implement it throughout the year!

2. Stay Active on Social Media
The number one mistake I see businesses make is not engaging with their social media audience. No amount of strategy or planning will be worth much if you’re not talking with your audience on a regular basis.

3. Delegate Work
At some point, you have to accept that you can’t be responsible for everything. Take a step back! If you have your hands full, assign tasks to people who are qualified to handle them. Why stress yourself out when you could just have an expert handle the task?

Sticking to Your Resolutions
Once you’ve set a goal, you need to make sure it lasts longer than the first couple weeks of January. The only way you’re going to keep up with your goal is if you have steps in place to make it happen!

Regular Check-Ins
Don’t let things get away from you! It’s easy to lose track of your goals when you’re not thinking of them, so the solution is to have set intervals where you check on your progress.

Let’s say my new year’s resolution for my business was to post twice as often on social media. If I’m checking that goal every week, I’m much more likely to stick to it because it’s always on my mind. Without that schedule, I could forget about that goal until mid April, when I’ll be discouraged by my months of slacking.

With the weekly check-ins, even if I do slip up on a day, I can take note of it and get back on track before it becomes a major issue! The lesson here is that, whatever your goal is, establish these checkpoints to make sure you’re where you need to be.

Have a Reason
This goal is for your business, but what is it doing, specifically? Why is this your goal? When you’ve got an answer, keeping it in the front of your mind will make it so much easier to stay focused once the new year excitement has died down.

For example, maybe my goal is to drive more traffic to my company’s website. If I’m focusing on that, it’s going to be easy for me to become uninterested. After all, tracking numbers every month to find ways to boost website traffic isn’t the most fun thing in the world. But if I contextualize it differently in my head, I can make myself more motivated.

Maybe the reason I set my goal is to increase sales, which would mean better margins in 2020. So then, instead of focusing on my goal of increased web traffic, I might focus on my goal of more profit for my business. I don’t know about you, but as a business owner, profit is a pretty good motivator for me!

In short, remember the reason that you chose your goal. Reminding yourself to make your business better is going to be infinitely easier than convincing yourself to do the same repetitive task over and over!

Work Toward Your Goal
Whatever you decide is the right step for your business, your goal is only worthwhile if you can accomplish it. Don’t be like the majority and set a new year’s resolution that you have no intention of following. Make it count! Let the start of the new year be a turning point for your business, and I’m sure you’ll find even more success in 2020!

Do you want some individualized help with your social media marketing? Just set up a free consultation with The Go! Agency!

How “New Year, New Me” Can Help Product Businesses

By Christopher Tompkins

19Dec

Business

You’ve probably heard “New Year, New Me” a lot over the past few years, but it isn’t just for Instagram captions from New Year’s Eve parties anymore. It’s also a viable marketing strategy for late December/early January! Well, if you do it right, anyway.

Every business could use a boost in the new year, so let’s talk about how this strategy can give you that extra attention!

Who Should Use It?
For a product-based business, you need to (as always) demonstrate how your product will improve your customers’ lives. But “New Year, New Me” brings in a potential for a fresh angle, if you’ve got the right business for it.

Let’s say that your business sells haircare products to older women. While your marketing strategy throughout most of the year might be geared toward turning back the clock, the new year is a great time to switch it up. Instead, you might say that you can give women a chance to create a new, youthful appearance to tie in the “New Year, New Me” angle.

Note, however, that this angle may not be for you if it’s going to majorly disrupt your brand’s voice. A seasonal change is nice, but a complete 180 is disorienting and will weaken your brand’s identity.

On the whole, though, this approach can work for any product-based business with enough creativity. How will your product change your buyer’s life? Will it give them more time, more money, better looks? If you can answer any of those questions, then odds are that this is going to be an effective strategy for you.

Why Should I Use It?
As a product-based business, it’s especially important that you appear to be constantly improving. If you hire a lawn mowing service, you’re not going to expect them to be constantly innovating or finding new, better ways to cut your grass. But if you were looking at buying a new lawnmower, you would certainly expect the manufacturer to have new models every year that are better or solve some new problem.

That same standard will be applied to your business, and you need to be ready for it.

It’s not always reasonable to roll out new and improved products every couple of months, though. In that situation, you only need to give the appearance of newness, and this is exactly how you can do that. You don’t say that you’ve got a new product—you highlight that it can make a new version of your customers. This gives buyers the impression that something new is going on while giving you some breathing room between the holidays and your next product launch!

“New Year, New Me” doesn’t just save you time and effort, though. It’s also a way to draw in customers for the rest of the year. If you can make a sale now, then you’ve got that buyer’s email address for marketing during all of 2019.

You’ll be able to target them with email marketing and get in touch when you have new products rolling out—just because you made a sale early in the year! How you start your 2019 social media marketing is going to impact your business for the rest of the year, so make sure you’re starting off on the right foot!

Make a Fresh Start
As you wrap up the year, start planning for how you’re going to make 2019 work for your business. The “New Year, New Me” strategy will keep you on the pulse of current events and offer an effective way to communicate with your audience at the start of the new year. Use my advice to make sure 2019 is filled with success and growth for your business!

Do you want some individualized help with your social media marketing? Just set up a free consultation with The Go! Agency!

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