While some people would argue that it’s a little early to start playing Christmas music on the radio, now is the perfect time to start preparing your business’s marketing plan for 2017.
These last months of the year are a prime time to revamp your small business’s marketing strategy and set new goals for the new year. Sure, marketing your business isn’t exactly something that should be limited to an exclusive time frame, but many people naturally look toward the upcoming year as a fresh start, both personally and professionally.
Start preparing your 2017 marketing plan for your small business and make this upcoming year your most successful one yet!
Reevaluate Your Audience
The foundation of an effective marketing strategy is ensuring your products/services are grabbing your audience’s attention. That being said, it would be wise to reassess your market and make sure your strategy is in line to appease them. Ask yourself questions that will help shape your new marketing strategy and execution. How big is your market? How frequently do they buy your products/services? What does your market opportunity look like for 2017? What leads them to purchase something from your business?
After you’ve answered all your questions, thoroughly refine your ideal target market and customer. Study their demographics and take them into consideration. You may discover a pattern about them that you can take advantage of.
Content and Social Strategy
Content and social media marketing is becoming more and more important for businesses and should be a big part of your marketing strategy. In today’s digital age, there is no alternative for high-quality content.
If you are currently not active on social media, 2017 is a great year to start. With your audience in mind, choose to be on channels in which your target customer is spending their time. If you are unsure about how active to be on these channels, here’s a post to help you out.
Your content marketing strategy for next year will need some serious attention. Think about ways to start the year off with a bang. For example: If you’ve been interested in writing about a certain topic, break it up into three parts and turn it into a blog series. End the first and second post with teasers for the next one, and maybe add video content to a post to elevate your readers’ attention.
No matter which way you choose to create content, you should create an editorial calendar. This allows you to create your content well in advance and help save you time coming up with topics. It may help to review your Google Analytics and note what kind of content/topics you should revisit in 2017 based on views and shares. Remember, when it comes to content marketing, quality always trumps quantity.
Digital Marketing
Traditional marketing like radio and TV ads television have decreased in importance over the past decade due to the growing significance of digital marketing. We are, in no way, telling you that traditional marketing should be abandoned next year; we’re simply suggesting you should explore the power of digital marketing in 2017 if you haven’t already.
The fact is, whether you like it or not, digital marketing has become the modern way to reach an audience, and it’s something smaller businesses need to recognize. In fact, it’s estimated by 2020, around 85% of all business communication will be conducted through social media or video channels.
The best part about digital advertising is how easy it is to track and measure your digital efforts, whereas traditional marketing can be difficult to get exact numbers on.
By going into 2017 with a solid plan for how to effectively market your business using a combination of digital and non-digital channels, your business will enter the new year with a plan to improve.
Don’t let next year’s marketing strategy be an afterthought for your small business; plan early and enter 2017 with a plan of action!
To learn more about marketing strategies, contact GreenMellen Media today!
