As well as being a good time for some personal reflection, you often can’t help yourself but to walk into the office at the start of a new year with a fresh perspective and some goals for change or progress there too. With that in mind, I thought I’d put together a list of some healthy resolutions for marketers to take into 2020, in order to achieve more and leave fluffy marketing which doesn’t have meaning in the past.
Focus on marketing with meaning
That leads me ever so nicely and neatly into my first marketing resolution. I think we’ve covered more than enough times on our blog the importance of using marketing as a tool for growth, not just making noise for the sake of it. That being said, it’s becoming increasingly important for marketers to focus on creating meaningful content and enabling meaningful interactions. As I’ve covered recently, Google is continuously evolving to better understand user intent. This is a massive call-to-action to digital marketers to obsess over their audience, what they want and how they interact with your content. Away from content marketing and SEO, the constant evolution of marketing tools and technologies and their ability to gather, store and understand meaningful information about your customers and prospects really leave you with no excuse but to create experiences that are tailored to them, their challenges and goals. What I’m saying is, stop guessing what your customers or your target audience want, or how they understand and interact with your content – start collecting solid evidence and using it to maximise engagement.
Evaluate your martech
Speaking of technology – now is the time to make sure you’re getting what you need out of your marketing tools and technologies. Are you using a marketing automation tool? Is it doing everything you need it to be? Are you using a basic email marketing tool, and could actually massively benefit from marketing automation functionality like nurture programmes and lead scoring? While the core strategy, focus and goals of your marketing is also number one priority, with the availability, capability and affordability of powerful marketing tools nowadays, I think evaluating the tools you are using and whether there is a better solution and blend out there for you is hot on its heels at number two. Streamlining your marketing tools and automating time-consuming processes can save so much time, as well as improving your engagement and conversion rates. Another one we see often as well is websites – perhaps you’re kind of happy with the front-end of your website, but it’s important to ask yourself – is the content management system (or lack thereof) helping you achieve what you want to achieve? Is it time to invest and get more flexibility and more control over what you can do, and content you can share? Definitely worth considering.
Cut the crap
Just like me with my starchy carbs, it’s time for us marketers to do less of the things that seem to add a lot of value, but don’t really work or are actually bad for us in the long term. It’s time to evaluate your marketing activity and tactics, and the ROI you get from them. If something’s not stacking up, it’s probably time to move on. There’s little point keep blasting emails to the same old data list if you don’t get anything from it. Don’t keep forking out thousands on a tradeshow just because your competitors still attend, if you struggle to demonstrate the return. Refreshing your marketing approach is as much about getting rid of what it isn’t working as it is about adding more stuff. Marketers, particularly those in house, can very easily be sucked into the habitual, “well this is the way we’ve always done things” approach, afraid to upset the status quo and steer the business in a new direction. But if you can combine the right insight, tools and evidence of effectiveness (or ineffectiveness), you can paint a very compelling picture to the business on why a new approach is needed, and why some tactics are best left on the shelf.
I hope this has inspired you to reflect on your marketing approach, what you want to take into 2020 and what you want to leave in 2019. All that being said, reflecting on the effectiveness of your marketing approach isn’t just one for the New Year – you should constantly and consistently be reviewing your success against sensible objectives you’ve agreed on the wider business. If you’re feeling like mixing things up – get in touch. We support a wide range of businesses marketing that helps them achieve tangible goals – whether it’s inbound, ABM, content marketing, SEO, branding and creative, or more tactical projects.
