5 Marketing tips that will take your business to the next level in 2016/17
For all of Australia and New Zealand, we have just started a new financial year. Companies that are strategic and have long-term goals, often already have a marketing plan in place, while other's may have been busy getting their last set of figures in for the year, and missed doing the planning that is necessary to catapult their businesses in 2016/17.
Marketing is instrumental to business growth. It provides the forum for sales to occur. Without it, sales people have a hard job. There have been many changes over the past 12 months and it is becoming increasingly hard for CMO's and Marketing Managers to stay abreast of changes.
While there are many tips we can give you for the new financial year, here are 5 tips that you cannot live without:
- Marketing Strategy: If you don't have a marketing strategy in place, you will have nothing to measure your performance by, or to drive marketing activities. Adhoc as we all know, doesn't work and is ineffective. With the rise of disrupters, don't fall by the way side and end up out of the game all together. Make sure your marketing strategy has key business objectives, along with tactical outcomes. Include a work in progress report with weekly deliverables and give responsibility to key personnel. Meet each week to ensure that you are achieving your marketing goals.
- Mobile marketing is here to stay and while wearables is becoming a new norm, it's not quite there for 2016/17, so make sure you put all of your efforts into an effective mobile marketing strategy. Ensure that customers can connect with your brand on mobile and that it clearly represents your brand on all levels. Keep it simple, yet effective. Communicate via mobile on all marketing mediums including social media, e-marketing and through other digital platforms.
- Facebook is a beast. Whether you love it or hate it, it now represents 1.65 billion users. In a professional services firm, paying for sponsored event posts or blogs is worthwhile, but followers are not necessary. It's more targeted marketing. However, for B2C marketers, you have no choice. You have to be actively involved in facebook in everyway, delivering shareable content, sponsored advertisements and drawing people to your facebook page. Creativity is key. Don't forget how big video is on Facebook in the next financial year and as Facebook Live Streaming goes mainstream, you really need to be at the top of your game. Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp also poses a problem for marketers. It's great for messaging and calls - all of which is free, but now comes at a cost as WhatsApp now needs to deliver upon revenue goals.
- Snapchat away. If you are focused on millennials then you cannot afford to not be on snapchat but give this job to a 20 year old. There is no sane 40 year old marketer capable of connecting with the audience that has filtrated this much-loved social media tool. Be creative. Don't be too serious. Post regularly and take a lesson from Hootsuite founder Ryan Holmes like I did on how it actually works.
- Instagram is the second most popular social media tool. It cannot be ignored and needs to be used with "kid gloves on". Cracking the new code for Instagram is no easy feat as the old chronological order model made a dramatic change to a new algorithm that prioritises content based on its relevance to the users interest and of course, advertising. Posts are now elevated based on popularity as well and is becoming more and more like Facebook, and less like Twitter. There are ways you can survive the algorithm apocalypse though:
- Humanise your content
- No commercialised content
- Be more creative
- Stay on brand
- Stay away from digital bots that promise the world but de-humanise your brand. They are a killer.
- Like multiple target audience posts so that it shows up on their notifications.
- Follow targeted users
- Unfollow those not following you within 3 days.
- Ask to repost pictures that are relevant to your brand.
- Look at the leaders (not those who have purchased followers) and see what makes their audience tick. Learn from the best.
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comments ( 6 )
Tommys
23 Mar 2017Thanks for your insights. You articles are very informative. These marketing tips come very handy to me, I might be able to use it in the future.
ReplyHelaina Berry
16 Nov 2016This will be a big help for every company to reach or accomplish their long term goal and to make their company still competitive for the upcoming years. It is very important for the company to have their own strategy, as stated in the article, a company without a marketing strategy cannot measure their level of performance and a man behind will find the worked hard.
ReplyGuru Priyanka
13 Sep 2016I think that you have highlighted a really important aspect of using social media, in particular Instagram, in marketing businesses (big or small). While, marketing on social media is a great idea to communicate in an era where more and more people are connected with each other online, it is often easy to miss the humanness of interaction when communicating a brand, and fall into displaying commercial content. I personally then feel that the brand blatantly appears as though it is "trying to hard" and forcing its content on its target market. Since target markets also have more expertise and access information in this era, we as marketers, need to pay more attention in customising our communication with our target market so that they feel more involved and connected with our brand.
ReplyP.S. Your writing is really insightful and it has given me more depth in the marketing field. Thank you!
Sik Yan Leung
25 Aug 2016Thanks Mellissah for this great piece of writing. It is totally an absolute "all-in-one" marketing strategies article i've ever read in this year. No doubt, nowadays, all human-beings are concentrating on new technology. this industry is booming in an unusual way. i believe being a creative yet practical marketers are now a tough job as businesses wanted to snatch as much as attentions from the clients, customers or even competitors. To keep up in this dynamic environment, i cannot agree more with your suggested four major media tools. As i know that, customers/audiences love interactions, they always enthusiastic in taking part of the ads or campaigns, merely to gain some self-recognition. At the same time, "SHARE WITH THEIR SOCIAL CIRCLE"
ReplyRefer to your Snapchat idea, it is great to show "your own community" to the world like what the others did. I'm not sure whether Marketingeye has its Snapchat account or not but i'd love to see how all the busy marketers' work life are in the company.
P.S
I'm a huge fans of Instagram too
Nicola Beavan
15 Aug 2016Good tips on the Instagram update, the switch away from chronological posts has taken a while to get my head around, but you're right, conveying one clear message is the key thing.
ReplyWhat do you think of Instagram Stories v. Snapchat?
Hady Souki
19 Jul 2016Great article! Need to try get onto Snapchat as this could be a great way to promote and advertise the pizzas I make at my fathers independent pizza shop in Cheltenham, Vic.
ReplyThanks!