Although your New Year’s resolutions may have already fallen by the way side, don’t let this happen to your marketing and communications strategy. It’s a great time to; review the past year and identify what worked well and what didn’t, research upcoming trends or channels that you can incorporate into your plan and understand how to capitalise on every opportunity to make it your most successful marketing year yet.

Here are our top tips to stand out from the crowd:

Test different ideas in the market

Entering new territory can often seem quite daunting or intimidating. Although you might not be an expert in every field, we recommend testing different offerings and ideas to reach new audiences. For example, you may want to introduce an EDM that is sent out to your subscriber base every month or start posting on your LinkedIn page more frequently. You may not always achieve the desired result, but you will start to learn what converts or interests your audience and target market, so you can go deeper on that channel as you move towards success.

Explore new content mediums

It’s likely that you have trialled some of the social media channels or new content mediums available. If you haven’t, we urge you to! And if you have, we urge you to take that next step into the unknown. Research new content platforms and see if your audience engages. A medium that has exploded over the past couple of years is podcasting. Many brands and even media outlets are capitalising on this trend and their results look promising. If you don’t have the appropriate infrastructure and financial capabilities to set this up, pitch your spokesperson so they can be featured on someone else’s. Other mediums to explore could include Instagram TV, Weekly YouTube Content and Facebook Messenger Chatbots.

Create integrated campaigns

It’s important that you connect the dots between PR, digital and social to achieve cut through. A fully integrated campaign will take your brand awareness and engagement to exactly where it needs to be. So, what does this actually look like you ask? You could create clear, consistent content that can be easily repurposed to suit different media or owned channels. For example, a press release can then be adapted into a blog post for your website and you can then post this in short-form to your social media channels.

Less is more

Today, businesses have more choice than ever when it comes to marketing their product or service. It’s important that you don’t spread yourself too thin and invest in multiple activities at once. This will leave you with a confused audience due to the lack of consistency and will also lead to watered down use of funds. It’s important that you are focused and measured in your approach, with strong KPIs attached to these activities.

Adopt new age technology

If you incorporate new age technology into your strategy, you will not only streamline your activities and increase efficiency, you will stay ahead of your competitors. Technical innovation has transformed the marketing landscape and many companies are simply not adapting fast enough. Look into options such as Virtual Reality (VR), automatic chatbots, data-driven campaigns… The opportunities really are endless. If you’re cowering in the corner in fear of advanced technology and innovation, we encourage you to combat this today and you might just thank us.

To find out about how we can assist you with your marketing and communications plan, visit https://agent99pr.com/contact.

Agent Amelia