3 Simple Steps to Creating an Annual Marketing Review
Guest Blog: Citrus Web
Our clients can always be certain that their marketing performance will be measured every month. It’s the best way we can ensure that the marketing activities that are happening every month are working. Whether that’s raising brand awareness or generating marketing leads.
However, from experience, we know that not everyone has the time to do this or realises the opportunities this can provide. So here are 3 simple ways you can carry out your own Annual Marketing Review.
1. Identify your moments of brilliance!
As a first step in your marketing review, take time to identify your very best blogs, events and your busiest months. This is a very quick, easy and effective way to get a feel for what to do next year. Ask yourself, what were you doing at these times, or just before, to make things go so well?
Blindingly brilliant blogs
Just by examining your successes, you can start to see what resonates with your audience. What language works best in your blog titles? How long are the most successful blogs? Perhaps your audience is time-poor, so they prefer something quick and easy to read like a top ten list. Perhaps your most popular articles are long-form blogs, where you really get to the heart of an important problem for your clients? What action did you want them to take after reading your blog and did they do it? You can measure this by examining, the Click Through Rate on your Call To Action.
Once you have measured all these things, either from Google Analytics or your website reporting tool you are armed with the information to hone your marketing tactics and improve your marketing plan for the following year.
Effervescent Events!
What was the event of the year that took your audience by storm? Make sure you’ve already secured your stand for next year! Why was it so good? Was it great because it was brimming with plenty of your ideal prospects? Did you run a brilliant promotion that gave you the best month of sales for the whole year? Did you have loads of fun and engage with your prospects, thus helping to really raise your brand awareness? Whatever it is, write it down and make sure you offer an even better idea next time around.
Performance Peaks
I’m sure most business owners know which their busiest times are each year. Why not, see if you’re right. You can run a Google Performance report from Google Analytics and very quickly see which were the busiest months for your business in terms of web traffic, web enquiries or online sales. Why were you so busy that month? How can you be even more prepared and make it busier still next year?
2. What were your 2021 marketing clangers?
Every company has them. But the sooner you accept them and try to understand why that is when you start to turn the tables and make next year more successful.
Abominable Blogs!
Yes, you read it correctly! Let’s be honest, sometimes we completely miss the mark. Perhaps we’re thinking too much about what we want to say, as opposed to what our clients need to hear? Perhaps the title is just well, yawn, boring! Sometimes for very little cost, a quick blog review from myself or the team can add the zing, back into your blog marketing!
Expensive and exhausting events
I often hear how companies have dabbled with events, but they’ve been a waste of time. But have you ever asked yourself why? Perhaps you spent loads of money preparing for an event and your stand looked amazing. But no one came! This is often a sign that either you or the event organiser didn’t do enough advance promotion.
Important key metrics to measure for events include: How much it cost? How many new leads were collected? What was your cost per lead? How much revenue did you make from those leads?
But remember, it’s never too late. If people came onto your stand at a show this year and were interested in your products and services, you can still get in touch. You could offer them a special deal as a thank you. Or you could simply remind them about your company by sending them a Christmas E-card. Have you followed them on your social media accounts? Have you added them to your CRM? These are just a few ways you can start maximising your expo ROI.
Where did everyone go?
Look at your worst month or months for web traffic and analyse what you think might have gone wrong. Maybe you didn’t do enough promotion that month. Perhaps you forgot to update your blog. What was the newsletter topic, perhaps you could review what needs to go into your newsletters for next year?
The good news is we can all learn from our mistakes. Identifying what went wrong actually gives us opportunities for improvement. By taking stock and measuring what doesn’t work, we won’t waste our time repeating that same activity next year. That’s the whole purpose of conducting a marketing review!
3. Teamwork is dream work!
If you’re planning a Christmas Team Meeting before everyone breaks up for a well-earned break, why not seize the day! Many companies have an informal festive meeting eating mince pies, having a mulled wine and perhaps answering a fun quiz. If so, this is the perfect opportunity to grab people while they’re relaxed and in a creative mood. Why not ask your staff what they think went well during 2021, after all, they are your “business ears”, they’re the ones answering queries and hearing client feedback. How do they think we should be marketing in 2022?
What are the hot topics for 2022?
Start with monthly themes, these often start with a good solid blog. Most companies only update their blog once a month, so you only need 12 different topics. Is there a logical or practical way you can talk about something different each month? 12 different products or 12 different services maybe? What questions do our clients ask most? Could you share more photos, videos, or behind the scenes from the office? Maybe you could take more photos of your team doing their day-to-day work, so that your clients have a better understanding of how their money is being spent.
Don’t undervalue Corporate Social Responsibility.
Corporate Social Events and Campaigns are a great way to demonstrate your company’s personality, its generous and caring nature. What are the main CSR campaigns your company is involved with each year? Who will be on the social committee to ensure these don’t get missed? Don’t forget your hashtags to join the rest of the community who will be doing the same in their businesses.
Celebrate together!
Now more than ever, people are hankering for opportunities to celebrate togetherness. Which holidays we can celebrate together on our social media? Don’t forget these are opportunities to wish your clients well or let them know if your support cover is changing at all?
In summary!
Here you have 3 simple ways to take stock of your marketing successes from 2021. Hopefully, it also gives you loads of ideas for how to attract, engage and convert your audience in 2022!
Need some help?
If you decide you need some professional help and support with your marketing, or even to conduct a marketing review in the way we’ve discussed, then please get in touch. Perhaps you want more consistent results across the year. Perhaps you want to make 2022 your best year yet and focus on delivering your services?
If this is the case, why not outsource all of your marketing? This way you will have peace of mind that your clients are receiving the communication they need.
Monthly blogs, monthly newsletters, and consistent, professional and compelling social media. Sound interesting? Please give Helen at Citrus Web a call on 07704105954 – she’d love to help.
We work on a number of collaborative projects with Citrus Web. We believe this offers our clients both effective Marketing Strategy and access to lots of creative ideas and professional social media management.
