The year is coming to a close. As a marketing executive, you should step back and ask yourself: How did 2015 go? How does 2016 look? Once you start assessing your previous efforts, you must determine which strategies work and which ones didn’t. You should have a better sense of where your business is headed come next year.
Multiple researches have shown that just 29% of marketing leaders come up with the right strategy. If you want to be part of that 29% and start 2016 strong and profitable, here are the most effective New Year marketing tips around.
- Learn from your mistakes
One of the best marketing tips for 2016 is to learn from your mistakes. In order to succeed in the future, you should know where you went wrong. Could you have better allocated your budget? Should you have outsourced other tasks? Should you have invested on better software?
The best thing about mistakes is you learn from them. Once you’ve identified this year’s weaknesses, you will have a much better idea on how to proceed next year.
- Identify your strengths
Cut yourself some slack. Go back to those marketing strategies and campaigns that yielded significant amount of profit and won you over a ton of customers. When you know what you’re good at, you know exactly how to approach your target market.
Don’t force yourself into strategies that you personally believe won’t work for you. Identify your strengths and go from there. Work would feel much less of a pain and more of exercising passion.
- Establish your goals
After you review your efforts for the past year, it’s time to set your priorities. This is where you start to establish your goals so the next year would be much more focused and driven.
Remember, goals shouldn’t be vague and abstract. They should be solid, specific and measurable. For example, a marketing goal is aspiring to be part of the first page of Google Results by March 2016.
When you fail to envision your business ahead of time, you’re going to continue crafting untargeted campaigns and waste valuable resources.
- Create a calendar of activities
A calendar is both a to-do list and a timetable. It provides you a specific direction on where you are bound to take your business next year. Once you have established your goals, it’s time to give it a better sense of structure.
Round everyone up and create the calendar together. From the creative team to the accounting department, make sure each employee witnesses the various phases, landmarks and important dates.
Not only does it make everything else organized. It is also a good reminder on where you are going and how you presently doing. Plus, it will assist you in case there are unforeseen circumstances.
- Work with the right people
If your business relies heavily on collaborative work, then ensure you are surrounding yourself with the right people. Sometimes, a poorly selected team is the culprit as to why a campaign didn’t work. There is a lack of unity that crumbles projects to the ground.
Be better this time around. Work with only the ones who motivate you; those who drive you to become more productive. Successful entrepreneurs swear by the effectiveness of the right team, particularly tech mogul Steve Jobs.
- Align strategies with sales
Often, the failure of a campaign is attributed to the lack of collaboration between the marketing and sales department. Since both work separately, there are major issues surrounding resources and results.
Do things differently next year by integrating both teams. Align your future marketing strategies with the sales department. Make sure both teams share the same perspective and the desire to achieve the same goals. Only then will every marketing campaign be worth the investment.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate
We can’t stress this enough. Communication is the building block of any company. From internal to external, how people interact with each other determines whether business is booming or not.
First things first. Communicate with your team. Take the time to meet with them and brainstorm all together. This shouldn’t only consist of coming up with future marketing ideas. If there are any internal issues that must be aired out, it should be done. Make it clear how you intend to allocate resources, how you intend to improve operations next year and how you expect everyone to be on top of their game.
Second, develop the way you communicate with your customers. Study which online and offline campaigns yielded the most engagement. From here, you will know which approach works best.
Remember: When you have a rock solid team behind you, everything else will follow.
The New Year is an opportunity to start fresh. Make it a point to make each day count. It won’t be long until you improve your numbers in more ways than one.
