Top 5 marketing tips for 2016

January tends to be when most marketing experts consult their crystal balls and make bold predictions for the year ahead.

Chances are, however, you’re already up to your elbows in planning for the next fiscal year. Before you finish your marketing plan or submit your budget for approval, consider these marketing tips for 2016:

1. Mobile

Honestly, this should go without saying by now, but we’re often surprised by the sheer number of desktop-only websites out there. Experts have been encouraging companies in all industries to optimize their websites for mobile devices for years.

Face it, folks, smartphones aren’t going away anytime soon.

With more and more people shopping online for products and services, you have to make sure your information is not only readable on smaller screens, but also organized in such a way that your customers can find what their looking for quickly and effortlessly.

At BrownBoots Interactive, we leverage responsive web design to ensure your new website looks great and functions flawlessly on a wide variety of devices.

Bottom line: Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly are neglecting a major percentage of potential customers.

2. Personality

How do you distinguish your brand from everyone else’s? What makes your marketing stand out? What can you do to avoid being seen as just another (fill in the blank)?

The answers to all of those questions center on your brand personality.

Branding can’t be an afterthought. While many businesses tend to put their best foot forward when it comes to on-site marketing and promotions, overarching branding can take a backseat. That includes digital marketing channels, such as websites and social media.

A company’s brand personality should permeate all touchpoints with existing and potential customers. The message might change, but the core tone shouldn’t. If you don’t know your brand personality, then community perception analyses, customer surveys and other branding exercises are probably needed.

Bottom line: Figure out who you are, what you have to offer and who your target audiences are. Then be consistent in all of your touchpoints. Don’t be afraid to accentuate the human dimension.

(And, yes, that might mean freshening up those old staff portraits on the website.)

3. Personalization

Showing off your brand personality is only half of the equation. The other side is treating your customers like people.

Personalization can be as simple as an e-newsletter addressed to that specific individual. Better yet, it could be an email marketing piece spotlighting a service that person expressed interest in while visiting a specialized landing page.

Or how about a targeted homepage marketing message based on the last product page he or she visited on your website?

It comes down to content — more specifically, useful content that will help your potential and existing customers make informed decisions. That means creating website text that allows “scanners” to pick up the gist of a topic in a matter of seconds while simultaneously providing “researchers” with the robust details they need.

And don’t forget imagery. If a picture is worth a thousand words, video probably clocks in close to a million. Whereas an online video featuring your employees will give customers a taste of what you have to offer as a business, a video that showcases the success story of a customer could convey a lot more.

Bottom line: Put yourself in the customers’ shoes. If you were in their situation, what would you want to know? How would you like to be treated?

4. Data

Let’s step away from the “soft side” of marketing for a moment. At the end of the day, it’s all about results, which means you’d better have some way to measure the ROI.

Offline marketing channels can be awfully difficult to quantify, but the beauty of the web is the assortment of tools one can use to track incoming traffic, movement throughout the site, calls-to-action and, ultimately, conversions.

Augment those analytics with a comprehensive search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, and you’re well on your way to achieving continuous improvement.

In addition to the website, most e-marketing products, including MailChimp and Constant Contact, also provide a broad overview of your recipients’ behavior. And don’t forget about search engine marketing (SEM).

Bottom line: In order to determine if your efforts are effective, you have to put metrics in place and then track and review the numbers. Keep doing what works; fix what doesn’t.

5. Tools

Marketing plans need constant attention. Whether you’re a full-time marketing professional or in a position where spearheading marketing is just a part of your role, you’ll want to find shortcuts to accomplish everything that needs to get done.

If you’re still relying on a vendor to make your website updates, it’s time to upgrade to a content management system (CMS) that will allow you to take control and make changes to your site easily and instantly.

Beyond simplifying the process for adding and removing pages; replacing text, images and other files; and altering the site navigation, BrownBoots’ proprietary CMS can incorporate custom-built tools, such as calendars.

Bottom line: Marketers, make your lives easier by investing in the tools that will help you keep those plates spinning. And if you need a hand, don’t hesitate to contact us!