Like many things in business, marketing has a shelf life. Despite the effectiveness of an outstanding campaign, everything must come to an end eventually.
Once that catchy jingle becomes repetitive, or your poster has been papered all over the city for the umpteenth time, it’s about time you got on top of your marketing again.
The best companies stay on top of their marketing to make sure that their campaigns never become tired. They keep their finger on the pulse when it comes to innovation and constantly think about how they can access their target demographic.
However, ‘the best’ companies, also have a marketing budget that far exceeds what most businesses could ever imagine. Those that don’t are prepared for every eventuality in the marketing world. We aim to make your business one of those businesses.
In this blog, we are sharing our tips for staying on top of your marketing. Whether it’s the plans you put in place or the action you need to take to make sure your business gets in front of your audience.
So, let’s go!
Prep and planning
We suggest asking yourself one question at the start of your marketing project. ‘How long do you want to be successful for?’ Easy answer, right? All the answers are easy if you know them!
Despite the answer to this question almost always being, ‘as long as possible’ or ‘a long time’, we still see businesses regularly pull away from marketing. We see people fire out of the blocks like a steam train, producing great marketing content at the pace of Usain Bolt before eventually falling off to no more than a whimper.
Or maybe they have one good marketing campaign so they just keep churning it out for years, changing the text and dates but nothing else.
There’s a famous Henry Ford quote, ‘A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time.’
Keep at it
Our first tip to you would be, and we can’t stress it enough… Consistency. Trust us, we understand how challenging being consistent can be, but finding the level at which your business benefits most will allow you to optimise your marketing efforts throughout your business journey.
Learn to plan your content and approach in advance; that way, time and money can be saved. If you are a small business, you may choose to batch create your content which is a fantastic way to optimise time and effort and provide an extra focus on your weekly, biweekly or monthly plan.
Expect failure
OK, negative heading alert, but even from the most optimistic minds, sometimes it helps to be realistic. In our marketing experience, that first idea you have, the one that you think will weed all of your audience out of the masses and put them right in front of you, might not be the best idea. Take some time to think of a handful of ideas before storming ahead with the first one that comes to mind.
Finding a specific needle in a haystack is a complicated process, and it will take some fine-tuning along the way. Therefore, our second tip is: expect failure, but don’t give up.
We stress that giving up on marketing because of failure isn’t an option; in many cases, your failure will be a lesson.
The beauty of marketing going wrong is that you will be able to take the outcomes and use them elsewhere. For example, if your marketing campaign produces leads looking for a service you don’t currently offer, this may suggest that you widen your offering. Once you do, guess what, you already know how to access those looking for your new service…win/win.
At Create8, we offer our marketing expertise in a range of different ways. We cover all facets of digital marketing and make sure that each project we produce is entirely bespoke to the individual company. Follow the link below to see all of our options.
Testing, testing
So you’ve learnt that your first try won’t be your last, so now it’s time to keep trying new things. A/B Testing is one of the critical attributes of most digital marketing platforms, and it’s one you should definitely be using.
An A/B test will allow your business to compare two different campaigns and assess both whilst they run side-by-side, enabling you to analyse success and draw conclusions about the best path for your business to pursue.
Testing will also help you optimise your digital marketing by testing out different layouts, wordings, and content to assess what your audience best receives.
Testing your hard copy marketing may be a little different; however, there are plenty of accessible ways to find out what your audience prefers. For example, running a classic survey can provide you with all the necessary information to tailor a product specifically to your target audience.
Getting out and amongst your potential customers and spreading the news about your product or service also builds up that much-needed word of mouth and brand recognition. Think about being active if you think something works: test, test, and test again.
What’s new and what’s next?
Let’s jump back three years; despite TikTok being in existence, had any of us used the app? Very few of us had, and even fewer had thought of the app as one of the go-to marketing opportunities of 2021.
However, one of the CEO’s of a huge social media company had suggested TikTok in passing as the next big social media platform. It was gone in the blink of an eye; as quick as he had said it, it had been forgotten. These days many companies will wish they held on to that information and learnt the app inside and out.
In hindsight, that’s what great marketers do; they can see trends that others haven’t even considered yet. They attribute value to them and start planning for how they can optimise their business by integrating that new trend.
This is precisely what you need to start thinking about if you want to stay on top of your marketing. Stay in front of the curve, understand what is being developed and how you can leverage it, and best of all, if it lands on your doorstep today, run with it, don’t waste time, get ahead whilst you can.
As you continue to plan your way to marketing success, we understand that the weight of creating different forms of content for various platforms can become incredibly difficult. So, why not let us take care of your content marketing for you?
Adapt for your audience
The final key in this blog of marketing secrets is adaptation.
It’s a common mistake in the marketing sector that businesses put out content and marketing because they like it. Being proud of your content is, of course, important in any walk of business; however, if something isn’t working, this will usually be the reason.
It’s time you take a step back from your business and look at yourself from your audience’s perspective; those are the people you want to spend their hard-earned cash with your company.
So, what do they like? Do they have the same needs as you as a consumer? Because if they don’t, why would they be interested in the same type of marketing? The short answer, they won’t.
This is where adaptation comes into it; as a marketer, you need to be willing to adapt your offering to suit the wants and needs of your audience, not your own personal preference.
So, if you see your brand as overtly bright and colourful, but your clients purchase more from your dark and dingy ads, guess what? There is a choice you need to make. Stick and survive or adapt and thrive.
Marketing and us
As an agency that specialises in digital marketing, it’s fair to say our sector knowledge is vast, and we enjoy sharing our expertise and know-how with each of our clients.
We are a group of mould-breaking individuals who each bring a varied set of skills to the table. Each Create8 project gets the eyes of the entire team, meaning more ideas, and in turn, more bang for your buck.
When it comes to marketing projects, we offer total flexibility, meaning you can sculpt a job that suits your business. Whether you are looking for an influencer marketing campaign and content creation, or if you are looking for a PPC and SEO based campaign – at Create8, we’ve got you!
So, you know what to do! Send us a challenge and let’s chat about all the ways we can work together, or if you prefer, send us a message; we can’t wait to hear from you.
Take a look at some more of our blogs for helpful tips, tricks and advice:
