5 Marketing Actions to Implement Now Before Year’s End

Effectively use your remaining budget as the year comes to a close

How should you use the remainder of your marketing budget before the end of the year?

The SPIN Ideas team sat down and outlined five marketing activities to help you get the most out of your marketing budget and help you start 2023 on the right foot, especially given this uncertain economic environment.

If you are an SME targeting the B2B or B2C market and decided to stop some of your marketing activities this year because of costs or maybe you were not happy with the results, your sales are probably a bit behind. You might feel pressured to quickly get back on track Take a look at the below ideas and see what resonates with you.

1. Do a SEO check-up

Increasing visibility and driving people to your website is imperative for generating leads and sales calls. That may be what places you ahead of your competitors. The online space is so crowded that you must be creative and innovative to stand out.

You can do that by improving your website's organic search score and securing a top position on the results page of relevant search engines.

If you are interested, our SEO services start from 600 EUR + VAT for a site audit.

2. Create content that people want to read

If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to focus on content creation. When we say content, we mean creating something that your audience will want to read, showcasing your expertise and thought leadership. Not everyone is good at or comfortable with writing; sometimes, you just need help identifying the right topic for the audience. Others need help clarifying and fine-tuning the content, in addition to ensuring the right keywords and backlinks are included.

You are not the only one struggling with creating good content. In this age, where a big chunk of the content is created by AI, it is harder and harder to do. That being said, it is not impossible!

Based on our work with various clients, we created several procedures to help create the right content depending on the goals as well as find the right distribution channels to spread the messaging and generate leads.

This service ranges in price from 500 to 5.000 EUR + VAT, depending on the number of articles, topics and length.

3. Build a December campaign

The winter holidays are a great time to remind your clients that you are there, you care about them and can help them grow. Maybe you fulfil one of their needs or just reassure them that their life will be better with your service or products and to do so in a unique and creative way.

We pride ourselves on being able to come up with a different approach based on our diverse nationalities and experiences. That can make the difference between a brand standing out and just blending in with the rest.

A campaign is a mixture of content creation, social media, and audience activation with the end goal of increasing your audience database, generating leads and engaging clients. Consider involving some external party to help you plan and/or run the campaign and stand out.

The cost starts at 1.500 Euro + VAT and can increase as you build on it.

4. Launch a newsletter

If you don’t have a newsletter, now is the perfect time to create one. You can use the December campaign to invite people to register.

If, when asked how you communicate with your audience, your answer is social media, we invite you to think again. Social media platforms have full control over your accounts, including what you can post (for instance, it needs to fit their rules and policies or they can suspend or block your account at any given moment; there have been numerous cases of this happening). Sometimes social media platforms can just close.

When that happens, you lose your audience.

A great way to take control is by having a newsletter.

If you feel this is too much for you to handle at this point, several companies can take over this task at a reasonable price. For example, at SPIN, a newsletter program that includes the design, creation, and delivery is 750 EUR + VAT. This includes the development of the newsletter’s concept, as well as content creation.

5. Marketing activities annual calendar

If you feel that you have all the marketing activities for this year covered, then consider investing your extra budget in planning and preparing the next year.

Start working on your annual content calendar. You can do it by yourself, and we have a?free resource?you can use, or you can involve a professional team to help you. Sometimes a fresh perspective, someone who was not involved in the previous discussions, is what you need to come up with something new and improve your approach.

Here is what you need to include in your annual plan:

• all your marketing activities: content, newsletters, social media, events, strategic partnerships, online campaigns, advertising
• who is responsible for the implementation
• deadlines by which everything needs to be delivered
• budget(s)

This is a popular service we developed, especially for small-to-medium-sized companies with one or more persons responsible for marketing. The annual marketing plan offers a clear overview of what needs to be done, the desired timeline, budget and who is responsible for what.

This type of service is approximately 5.000 Euro + VAT budget.

Bonus activity: Invest in yourself.

In January, we are launching a four-week workshop, during which we help guide you to create your own annual marketing plan. At the end of four weeks, you will clearly understand what you need to do, desired deadlines, and the cost involved to reach your marketing and business goals for 2023.

We work in small groups of six, so each of you gets one-on-one time with me while benefiting from the group's accountability.

The normal price of the workshop is 1.500 Euro + VAT, but in the spirit of the winter holiday, if booked before December 15th, the price is 995 Euro + VAT.?Book a call with Veronica?if you want to learn more about the workshop.

We hope these ideas help you improve your marketing efforts and better utilize the remainder of your budget. If you have any questions or are interested in working with us, book a virtual coffee with?Veronica?or?Stephanie.

Happy holidays!