There are a few times a year that marketers tend to rethink and improve their marketing strategy. It may be at the end of Q3 as they are planning marketing initiatives for the next year, it may be in the time leading up to “busy season” (whenever that may be) or around the time of an annual event like a conference, trade show or product release.
It’s always smart to review and improve anything you’re doing in your business. Things change frequently in business—they are an evolving thing. Competitors launch new products, customers interests shift, new platforms emerge, and the economy is constantly in flux. With all of those variables evolving and an ever-changing competitive atmosphere, you’d be silly to just assume your marketing program is working as effectively as it could be. And there is always room for improvement and adjusting – the nature of how fast information moves has pushed marketers toward this new normal of balancing tried-and-true tactics with new and fun ways to reach your audience.
If you’re finding yourself thinking about your marketing strategy this fall, (like because your favorite LinkedIn Marketers told you it was time 🙃🙃🙃), here are some “marketing cleaning” tips to keep in mind:
Review Your Marketing Assets
Most marketers have various marketing assets—from social media profiles to video and cut sheets—that they set-and-forget. Make them once and begin using them while they get to work on making new assets for upcoming campaigns.
The thing is, these assets often act as the face of your brand. Your social media profiles often are the first thing that people see, your cut sheet slicks are left behind after a sales meeting and your video is front and center on your website’s hero banner.
Ask yourself—do these assets speak to our company and our overall strategy? If not, this is the perfect time to revisit them and get them where they need to be. Are they also reflective of any new messaging, branding, and positioning that you have been using lately? If you’ve changed at all, even something as simple as a new mission statement, make sure this is reflected in your assets.
This is also a good time to revisit or create your brand guide. While intensive and time-consuming to create, brand guides are an amazing and clear way to get anyone creating “things” for you on the same page. More to come on branding and brand guides soon – don’t worry!
But before you go all-out on redesigning and updating your marketing collateral and assets:
Think Like Your Customer
Before ripping into everything like a mad-marketer and redesigning everything from your perspective, take a look at everything through the perspective of your ideal customer. Are you answering their questions and speaking to their pain points or are you just listing features and harping on what is important to you? Are the pain points you are speaking to still relevant? COVID has certainly changed the way consumers and buyers do….well…..everything…. so it may be time to ensure that the pain points you speak to, and solve for your audience, are truly pain points that your customers have.
Think about your messaging, or how you outwardly speak to your audience. How’s your messaging? Are you speaking their language or is everything filled with jargon and language that your audience doesn’t use or understand? Does your messaging make sense, and resonate? Is there emotional buy-in happening because they connect to your story?
What about your imagery? Are your stock images starkly different than what may be familiar for your audience? Or maybe those expensive photos you commissioned (eight years ago, mind you) are looking super outdating and old nowadays. Just like in messaging, your imagery should feel “right” to your audience. Try to look at things from their perspective.
Tip: Check out UserTesting (https://www.usertesting.com/) to have real people review your website and get feedback. This is great for completely unbiased opinions on things like messaging, user interface design, and content.
Don’t Work Off Assumptions: Check (and Don’t Check) Your Analytics
Marketing is evolving. Today, marketing is as much about data and metrics as it is about sales, art, and communication.
Take this time to look at your marketing metrics. Dust off that Google Analytics account and see how your website is performing. Learn what marketing avenues are driving the best (not just most) traffic. Is it social media? PPC? Content marketing/blogging?
Take that a step further and look at what kind of content does best—the topics, the format, everything—so you know where to spend your time in the future.
Also look at your engagement and see – what is working for shares, likes, bookmarks, and saves? What is that valuable content that is helping and connecting with your audience? These can give you a little insight into where people may be beginning their journey with you and the content you are producing. This valuable content can get someone into your line of sight and work to gain traction in the #dark. (Yes, more content on #darksocial is coming from us too, don’t you worry!)
Audit Your Best Campaigns
We’ve all had a campaign that outperformed our expectations or that is the stand-out winner in terms of ROI or leads gained. Dig into the why. What made that work the way it did? Chances are it was a mix of the “right time,” great content, and filling a gap in the marketplace, but you should look into specific reasons that it performed the way that it did. What can you learn from that?
Try Something New
Fall is the time for reflection and realignment, but it doesn’t mean you can’t play with a new idea…. especially if you see more traffic around holidays or in the winter. Perhaps it is time for you to finally try that thing you’ve been kicking around. Maybe you have an idea for a video series or a podcast or have wanted to finally launch a specific PPC campaign or speak at a conference. Now’s the time to give it a real go.
Who knows, next year you may be auditing that campaign because it worked so well. But the first step is trying!
What are you waiting for?
Make the most of the fall and set up the rest of the year for marketing success that can easily roll into 2023. Every great branding and marketing campaign started out as a small idea that grew into what it became.
If you’re finding yourself stuck and needing some marketing assistance, grab a free call here or using the form below. We’d love to help you get where you’re going.