I don’t know about you, but I have received countless email campaigns so far this year offering to “increase my sales in 2016” or “improve my website” or “increase my rankings.” Now I know that these are from companies playing the numbers game and blasting thousands of emails addresses from some sort of purchased list, but I am curious to know whether they actually get engagement.
Have you received these types of emails and, if so, what action do you take with them? My inclination would be to say that they get deleted fairly quickly. However, what would happen if you were wanting to improve any of the marketing areas the email you received suggested; you were “in the market” so to speak?
A lot of marketing in January contains some sort of resolution or objective for 2016 so if you were in the market, the category of the email would suddenly change from being junk or spam to being relevant and may well hang around in your in box. It is unlikely that it would be acted upon, but it may well get you thinking.
Now apply this sort of approach to your own business. Do you email your clients and prospects offering to do something for them or promoting a new service you are offering? If you’re not doing this, then you could be missing a trick. For 2016 instigate some sort of plan to market to your targets. Email marketing is all about relevance and timing. It shouldn’t be a numbers game that becomes a spamming exercise. Construct a clean database and categorise the recipients and tell them something relevant and useful. If you’re not doing this, then you can bet your competitors are!
Another marketing consideration for 2016 is to make sure you have a consistent brand and reputation online. For example, are all your social networking platforms up to date and displaying the correct information? With regards to messaging and tone, are you just spouting a monologue from Twitter full of facts or are you engaging with people and connecting with them?
Customers these days are able to huge amounts of due diligence online before they make a decision whether to contact you or not so make sure your website looks modern, says the right things and can be viewed on all platforms including tablets and smart phones. It is also worth asking for reviews from customers (providing the experience was a good one!) and displaying these reviews on Facebook.
Finally, if the turn of a new year has re instigated your enthusiasm and you want to expand or reach a certain new goal, invest in marketing yourself and your business. 2016 doesn’t mean that you can just do what you did last year with the same website, logo, advertising etc and expect the market to change. My suggestion would be to try and get a totally independent view on where you are in your marketing activity. Engage a marketing professional if need be and work together to construct a realistic and fully costed plan.
By looking at these marketing areas, I am confident that 2016 will be a great year!
