The marketing industry is always moving and always evolving, with each new year bringing with it new opportunities and challenges. With competition putting a premium on creativity and fresh ideas, it’s important to review your current strategy and revise it for 2015.
Recently, I had the pleasure of talking with Shannon Byrne, Content & PR Manager for the social listening tool Mention, who has valuable insight on marketing challenges that businesses are facing as they enter the new year.
One of the biggest challenges is finding a way to stand out from the crowd in an increasingly cluttered space. With so many brands touting their messages, how are you going to make sure your message is heard?
It takes more than simply identifying your audience. It’s important to engage them, listen to them, and develop meaningful connections with them as often as possible. Byrne says the first step to doing this is finding out the answers to the following questions:
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Who are your customers?
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What are their interests?
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What role do they play within their companies?
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Are they entrepreneurs?
It is vital to your marketing strategy, as well as the success of your business, to know the interests of your customers. You must know the specific needs of customers to build your brand and then communicate how your tool or product solves those problems for them.
Once you know who your audience is, then it best to listen and observe. What kind content they are creating? How is your audience communicating with you? Now you have a better understanding of who your customers are, and how you can create content that will resonate with them.
More recently, companies are finding success through repurposed content instead of creating something new. For example, a podcast can be turned into a blog post, and a blog post can be made into a slideshow. Customers today consume content in a variety of ways, so brands must use a variety of mediums to communicate their desired message. However, that doesn’t mean repurposing content is as simple as cut and paste. The message needs to fit the medium.
The amount of repurposed content to original content is often decided on case-by-case basis. For Mention, the company spends approximately 30 percent of its time creating new content and 70 percent repurposing content, then distributing the content in new ways.
Byrne believes brands must always be taking action and trying new strategies to find better ways to connect with their customers. For 2015, she says there are two key areas every brand should explore — if they aren’t already:
1. Look at your numbers and do something with them.
If you do not use analytics, use tools such as KISSMetrics, Google Analytics and A/B testing. Gathering data through these platforms and strategies will help you decide what is working and what is not working. Look at your most popular posts and repurpose those. Whatever your most popular form of content, be sure to use it in your marketing automation software.
Diving into data analytics can get extremely overwhelming and complex, but there are basic steps and solutions every company can implement to start tracking essential basic data that can lead to more informed business decisions.
2- Hone your mobile strategy.
Do not neglect it or treat it as an afterthought. Your mobile strategy is very important. Treat mobile marketing as one of the primary objectives in your marketing strategy. Your audience likely consumes your content on mobile, so give them a fantastic experience.
You can hear more of Byrne’s thoughts and tips in the full interview above.
Have you taken the time to map out your 2015 marketing strategy? What do you see as the important trends and challenges facing the industry. Share your thoughts in the comments below.