It’s been a strange couple of years!
2020 and 2021 have been the sorts of years that not even the best business continuity plans saw coming. We do have a bit of a better idea of the challenges and opportunities that businesses of all sizes are going to be facing in 2022 though, including:
- Domestic tourism increasing with Aucklanders being able to travel
- Potential for international tourism (both ways) to start up again
- Ongoing issues with international supply chains and shipping/freight in general
- Uncertainty around traffic light settings across the country, especially with the Omicron variant knocking on the border
- Getting to grips with vaccine pass requirements.
With all that in mind our first piece of advice to everyone out there is to try your very best to have a good break over the Christmas period. Getting some rest and relaxation is not just good for you, it’s good for your business too.
Coming back to work in the new year de-stressed and with a clear mind means you’ll make better decision and deal with problems more easily.
Our top 6 hot marketing tips
While we have just told you to get a break from business over the Christmas holidays, having ideas rolling around in your head while you are doing other things is often the best way to come up with good plans and solutions. Alternatively, it could be that you set aside a small amount of time when you get back from holidays to work on some of the marketing tips below before you dive into business as usual.
1. Document the process
We track EVERYTHING in marketing. It’s how we’re constantly improving and staying ahead of the competition. We write out our sales and marketing processes as it’s a great way to make sure the whole team is on the same page. This consistency within the team makes it easier to train future employees. Not only that but using a document that everyone can edit means that we can pool information within the team.
When you’re doing this for yourself, encourage your team to keep the document updated each time they learn how to make your processes more efficient. Ask each staff member to name and date each update so they can chat about it afterwards if anyone has more questions.
2. Audit 2021 results and current assets
Look at last year’s results including campaigns, your current collateral, resources, events attended, your customers etc. From here you can do more of what you did well and change those marketing activities that didn’t work.
Also try work out how your marketing for the year related to the bottom-line results that you saw. Now keep that in mind as you start thinking about setting your objectives for the coming year.
3. Set clear objectives
What do you want to achieve in 2022? Make sure your objectives follow the SMART rule. Your objectives need to be:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time bound
Try and keep your objectives simple, such as ‘Increase overall company profitability from 15% to 18%, by the end 2022′, or ‘Increase sales by 10% in the first quarter of 2022.
4. Plan ahead
We talk to our clients about setting up a content calendar. It’s really helps to think ahead a few months, work out the key times for your business to do marketing campaigns (this could be holidays, long weekends, change of seasons etc.) and plan what you are going to do, and which channels you are going to use.
Things change pretty fast these days though, and that’s part of why we suggest you do content calendars for smaller chunks of the year, depending on how much marketing you do. For a lot of our clients we do their content calendars quarterly.
5. Spy on your competition
Great job, you accomplished a lot in 2021! But your competitors probably did too, so why not figure out what they did well and how you can do better. Write down a list of your top competitors. Grab your trench coat and fedora and start documenting your competition’s activities.
A great place to start is online.
- How does your competition’s online presence compare to yours?
- Do an audit of your top competitor’s websites. Are their SEO keywords and rankings lots better than yours?
- Are your competitors using Search Engine marketing and Social Media Marketing really well?
- Who is doing the best on social media and why?
More generally you could look at:
- What were their wins or losses last year?
- Are they positioning things differently?
- What business strategy are they using? e.g. a new product, pricing model, positioning or target market.
6. Measure everything
The only way you can tell if your marketing is working is if you measure the results of the marketing activities that you try. Luckily this is very easy to do for a lot of marketing these days, especially anything that you do online.
Online marketing is often highly targetable, and relatively cheap. This means that you can afford to try different things, and then measure the results against the objectives that you set, fine tune your approach and repeat.
This process lets you spiral in on particular types of marketing, to specific customer or clients, delivered through individual channels that really works for you. Once you have one that works well, keep using it, and start developing the next. The relatively small outlay to achieve this means you end up with marketing activities that have good return on investment.
Need help with your marketing?
Here at Synthesis we know only too well that running a successful business is hard work and requires a lot of very different skills and expertise. If you are good at what your business does but your marketing isn’t as strong as it should be, we understand.
If any of these six marketing tips sound like exactly what you and your business need to do to kick start your marketing in 2022, but you need some help to do them, give us a call or email us to discuss how Synthesis Marketing might be able to help you out.
