2022 Marketing To-do List

It’s on everyone’s lips, “Let’s hope that 2022 is better”. Lockdowns and levels (and now lights) brought obvious change to business, and the New Year often brings a fresh perspective on goals. Once you’ve had a restorative break, a reset of your motivations, it’s a great time to assess what is working for you, what’s not, and what can be improved.

We’ve created a checklist for you to work through. And if you’d rather not, then we do provide a marketing audit service where we take a look on your behalf and provide our recommendations.

We believe strongly in word-of-mouth marketing – it is the rise and fall. Making sure that your marketing is on point is usually for the person who has heard of you and has set out to find you. So how easy are you to find? And when they do find you, what do you think their first impression is?

1. Brand

• Are you happy with how it looks? Or is it time to refresh?
• Have a look at your printed materials: business cards, brochures, stationery. Are they working for you, or could they be better?
• Do you have an email signature?
• Does it reflect your organisation’s culture, values, voice, and personality? Does it stand out from the crowd?

2. Online Presence

• Go to a browser (Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.) and open a ‘new incognito window’ and then google your business name, your personal name, and the product/service you provide. How hard was it to find yourself? How many ads are appearing in your search results?
• Take a tour of your website:

- Imagine a product/service you are wanting to purchase. How easy is it to find and enquire/buy now?

- How fast does it take to load? And is it secure (check for a padlock at the top left of the domain name/URL)?

- Is there any out-dated content?

- What year does your website’s copyright say?

- Do you need to update your awards/qualifications/contact details?

• Visit your social media channels:

- Are there regular posts that provide value or is it all sell, sell, sell?

- What does your branding look like – are you easy to recognise?

- Do the graphics need an update due to new layouts?

• Do you have a ‘Google Business Listing’? Does it need to be created or updated? What other business listings could you be on?

Another viewpoint of reviewing marketing materials is for the customers you already have. What are you providing that creates loyalty to your product/service?

3. Existing Clients

• Once someone has become a client, other than managing the product/service they’ve already bought, how do they keep connected with you? Would it be worth doing a regular newsletter? How about a promotional and branded gift (not just at Christmas time) to keep you top of their mind?
• When was the last time you received a testimonial or review? Can you get some new ones and then show them off to the world? These build trust and are highly valuable.

4. Boosting Products/Services

• What has been your best seller? Which one makes you the most profit?
• Easiest: Existing products/services to existing clients – can you cross sell or up sell?
• Easier: Existing products/services to new markets – who else could use your products/services?
• Easier: New products/services to existing clients – how else can you help your customers?
• Hardest: New products/services to new markets – the hardest of all possible opportunities, but if you’ve already worked your way through the list, this task can be very rewarding once achieved.
• When you looked at the possible ‘ads’ in your Google searches (see first bullet point under No. 2), if there’s one or none, it might be worth starting up a pay-per-click campaign.
• What about remarketing advertising? This is when someone who’s visited your website looking at a product/service start seeing your ads “follow” them online reminding them of you and your brand. Was there any high performing content from the last year that could be repurposed?

5. Covering the holes

• In content, there can be ‘holes’ in what you have provided the online world with. You might sell rabbit hutches but have zero content about hay.

- Review your pillar content – this is a page that provides a comprehensive overview on your product/service (rabbit hutch). This page links to…

- Review your cluster content – these are pages/topics that lead off the main product/service (best hay for a rabbit hutch).

• A great way to review this content is to create a flow chart of your products/services and then what topics they lead to.

If all of this is overwhelming, focus on one thing at a time and start crossing them off the to-do list. Otherwise help is a phone call or an email away and we can do as much or as little as you and your budget allow.

This article was originally published on the Gilligan Sheppard website here . If you would like to receive our monthly newsletter, you can subscribe here .