Marketing game up, stress levels down
It’s safe to say that this year has been one of the oddest on record, and now we find ourselves in various geographical versions of lockdowns, firebreaks and tiered systems! While we’ve all been dealing with massive adjustments to our day-to-day lives, businesses and how they operate have been massively impacted too.
If you’re reading this as a business owner or marketeer, you’ve probably seen huge shifts in customer behaviour, and all those trends that you are used to seeing have gone out of the window!
But panic not, we’ve got some key ideas on how you can get back on track.
Look after the customers that you have
(even better than before)
Right now, it’s prime time for customers loyalty to waiver, so to make sure that competitors don’t swoop in, it’s important that they see you in the best possible light.
Start by reviewing your marketing strategy and see how it’s performing. Take stock of what areas could be improved to better engage with your customers. Are you making the best use of all channels?
For example, how are those email campaigns performing? Could they do with hearing from you more at key times, or are you in their face too much? Identify what has changed with regards to their needs and see if your email communications are up to the task. Review the analytics, work out what drives the best engagement and then use that as a basis to adjust your email marketing strategy.
Is your customer base aware of all the products or services that you offer? Now is the perfect time to ensure your existing customer base is aware of everything they might be interested in. Don’t just assume that they know all about you. If they only buy one product or service from you, there’s a good chance they are completely unaware of your full range! Do you get good engagement through your social channels? Fantastic! Leverage this and get creating posts that get the message out to your loyal following are aware of everything you have to offer.
Reduce spend but maintain engagement
There’s a good chance you're having to reduce spend right now, and that’s ok, but do it in the right areas by investing only in channels and content that resonate with your customers.
For example, do you spend time and money creating content or ads for Facebook that doesn’t get a whole lot of engagement? Or is your Google Ad bill running away with itself without seeing any significant return? Stop. Scrutinize your insights, and double down on the efforts that bring you the biggest rewards. Maybe you have a great loyal base on another social channel that you can focus on?
Up your content marketing game
There will no doubt be tonnes of valuable expertise within your business. Draw it out and start creating credible and useful content for your audience.
How about creating a series of planned content that shows an area of the business that hasn’t had the spotlight before? Make sure you pick a topic that your customers will resonate with, and then go for it. Not only are you sharing valuable content with your audience; but one idea can provide you with multiple pieces of content that can be shared across multiple channels.
1 x blog can give you:
New content for your site (happy Google)
An email to customers (feeling loved)
3 Instagram posts (feed that algorithm)
1 Facebook video (engaged audience)
Deliver a consistent visual brand experience
Customers need to know that it’s YOU. You need to be instantly recognisable on every single marketing channel you use, so now's the time to up your game in certain areas if they aren’t hitting the mark and supporting your brand’s messaging.
Bring together all the content that you have put out in the last few months and spend some time reviewing it. What has worked well, and what jars with your key values, messaging or brand identity? Identifying and weeding out those things that don’t align with your brand will serve you well in the long run. Things to look out for are:
Tone of voice - Make sure it always reflects your brand personality
Image style - Consistent image styles are quite often overlooked, but they really allow an audience to visually recognise it’s you
Colours - Have your colour palette set up so that you have main key colours and then a sub set that can be used more minimally.
Correct use of fonts for headings - Similar to colours, you should have core fonts that are used for headings, sub-headings and body copy.
Remember, consistency is king. It’s not a mistake that we can instantly tell an Ikea advert from 20 paces.
If you have multiple teams or suppliers delivering into your marketing strategy, producing a brand guideline document that everyone in the business reference is perfect for providing guidance on how you need your brand, campaigns and communications to be delivered.