As the new year approaches, there are a few marketing initiatives you need to launch and to have well in hand moving forward. Such initiatives will allow you to become leaner and meaner if your company isn’t already. These are not easily broken resolutions. These are actionable initiatives that will drive your company, and your bottom line, forward throughout the coming year.
- Bringing in new business, new clients and customers, is always an admirable goal but too many small businesses lose site of the customers they already have in favor of attaining new ones. This is a huge mistake. Customer retention always needs to be your number one priority. Start launching referral and bonus programs for your customers to retain their loyalty and to continue to spread the word about your through their social networks. If you don’t make your customers loyal fans, someone will be glad to take them from you.
- While your SEO and social media marketing efforts seem to be working well, you must uncover new ways to reach your demographic. There tends to be a trio or rarely employed tactics for spreading the word that will cost you little but could result in huge new customer gains. The first is to attack your social media platforms with a new seriousness. Encourage your users and visitors to spread the word. Make it somehow worth their while with contests and discounts. Next up are your employees. They are a natural outlet for spreading the word. Train them, however. Make them an extension of your sales teams. Finally, it is time you started to track down those influencers in your profession or industry. It will take some concerted effort and time, but getting a few to fight for your cause will be well worth the effort.
- Personalization will become more than just the latest buzzword in the coming year. Retargeting campaigns are a perfect place to start. The more personal your content gets this coming year, the more you will see your bottom line swell. Finally, you must be prepared to employ far more video that what you have been doing. Video has become far more important to web users and searchers these days and even Google has begun to make serious SEO allowances for it by giving it greater play and credibility.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
