Social media was the topic of our most recent breakfast, hosted by the founder of Naturally Social and #iAlso100 Natalie Sherman. It was a fab session and Natalie talked about how, as small business owners, we can harness the power of social and here she has kindly shared her Seven Tips To Fix Your Marketing Strategy with us – thanks Natalie!
Should we focus on offline or online marketing? Is there a point to social media? Do we need a Content Writer or a Copy Writer? When it comes to marketing, there are a few things to consider but despite these, the first thing you need to ask is ‘What’s our strategy?’
All the above questions fall under elements of a marketing strategy, so what happens when your marketing strategy has hit a stumbling block? Here are our seven top tips for fixing your marketing strategy!
1. Deliver Diversity:
By diversity, we mean don’t be afraid to change up your marketing strategy’s approach every now and then. Doing the same things over and over won’t look appealing to the audience, and it won’t be fun for you and your employees if you can’t change things up a little.
However, don’t stray too far from what your target audience affiliates with your brand. Your marketing strategy should still focus on channels that you can deliver on and reach your target audience and the rewards should justify the time spent on the delivery.
2. Create Consistent Customer Service:
No matter whether your marketing strategy has an online or offline focus, you need to keep your audience feeling valued. Customers will respect a brand that presents itself as knowledgeable and trustworthy.
Having a presence online and offline will benefit your marketing strategy by expanding your catchment area, meaning more new customers. And more new customers could lead to more sales.
Consistent customer service doesn’t just mean replying to comments. It also means routinely presenting yourself as the brand and as a professional. If your customers don’t feel respected or are unimpressed, they aren’t likely to do repeat business with you.
A good hint for your marketing strategy would be to audit it on a regular basis. You can then see what has worked best when providing customer service, such as the level of jargon.
3. Paid Promotion:
Social media networks frequently update their algorithms so if you don’t adjust to the algorithm, it may affect your content’s reach. Paid promotion can be an essential part of your marketing strategy. Taking the paid route would be more than ideal if you want to become more visible.
Audit your marketing strategy so that you regularly check how well your content is doing on the paid promotion side, as well as the organic side!
4. Engaging Community Connection:
Do you know what could be your business’s most powerful resource? Your own customers! If your customers are happy with the service you provide, they are bound to promote you to people they know.
Engaging with them online is an easy way to do this, such as replying to comments or retweeting posts. Your marketing strategy will benefit from making sure you communicate with your customers. Make sure to audit your strategy to assess how the engagement is doing.
5. Building Business Relationships:
Expanding your network should absolutely be a part of your marketing strategy! This can increase your audience size by collaborating with other businesses. It could further prove the social presence of your business which will present your company in a professional light.
For when you audit your marketing strategy, look at the methods for building these relationships and see what has worked well and what hasn’t worked well. Or maybe see how to incorporate building business relationships into other parts of your marketing strategy.
6. Craft Compelling Content:
This is the most important part of your marketing strategy. You can’t get engagement or reach if your customers have nothing to interact with! But you shouldn’t just throw anything out there.
Crafting compelling content will not only show your dedication and work ethic, but it can be beneficial for your audience. They could learn something they didn’t know, they could be provided a route to your website, or they could get a laugh out of the picture of the office cat doing a funny face.
Of course, content isn’t exclusive to the odd Facebook and LinkedIn post. You could use the diverse approach and try a podcast or write a blog on your website. If you keep writing quality content, that’s relevant to your target audience, and your marketing strategy, you will reap the rewards.
The best content are the ones that are both memorable to the audience and inspires them to engage with the content; whether that’s liking a post, sharing an article, or leaving a comment.
7. Regular Reviewing:
Something that needs to be a part of your marketing strategy is to keep reviewing the statistics and the experience of the users coming to you. Regular reviewing will allow you to assess what parts of your strategy are going well. Where something isn’t doing as great, you can then investigate what is working (such as trends or what kind of content rival companies have been posting.)
If you don’t update your marketing strategy, there’s a good chance your business could start falling behind others – and that could lead to a decline in both customers and sales.
