What are you going to do differently in 2013?- Checklist for New Year
The Mayans were wrong, we are all still here, your clients and prospects still need you, but
they are increasingly harder to communicate with; grabbing attention is more difficult and
keeping it is even harder.
Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is not only the definition of insanity but
it also means that today you will NOT get the same result, but one that is substantially worse
– you will be going backwards.
For your convenience we have prepared a summary of Hubspot’s 27-page Marketing Trends
and Predictions for 2013 and one we have turned into a simple Marketing Action Plan
Checklist.
1. Inbound Marketing (Get Found*, Convert, Analyse) will become more important and both
small and large enterprises are dedicating more of their budget to online / digital and away
from Outbound / Traditional Marketing.
*Get Found = Social Media+SEO+Blogs+PPC
Checklist:
a. Do you have a costed Marketing Strategy Plan for the year?
b. Have you established your KPI’s, e.g.: Cost Per Lead, Cost Per Sale
c. Are you being found by enough new prospects?
d. Are you getting enough referrals?
e. Do you have a Referral Strategy?
2. Marketing Communication is moving away from Campaigns to Real Time Communication
thanks to Social Media and immediacy of client expectations. Prospects are increasingly
contacting / finding (Inbound Marketing) prospective suppliers / sellers and they want
answers NOW! Technology will keep driving these changes with new widgets, gadgets,
readers and scanners, RFID tags, and of course apps! Gamification will also grow as a
marketing tool beyond product placement to improve the delivery of content in a more
enjoyable way.
Checklist:
a. Do you have all of your Social Media profiles set up correctly; do they reflect your
company and personal brand?
b. Do you know which Social Media channels to focus on?
c. Are you interacting with prospects and customers via Social Media?
d. Do you have a Content Marketing Plan so that you can be “active and successful” on Social Media?
e. Have you personally or your company carved out a niche that you are known for?
f. See how we deliver Content Marketing for our clients
3. CRM and Unified View of the customer will become more and more important, and some
of the new systems are now integrating Social Media information for their client records.
Action:
If you are thinking about these issues please give us a call. Choosing the CRM system
(or getting the most out of your existing one) is a minefield and we have access to a number
of world-class experts at The Marketing Network as well as our own team that can assist you.
4. Mobile Optimisation of Websites will keep growing and become a must have channel for
many businesses.
Action:
Pretty easy to do depending on what your current website has been built in. Give us a
call and we can provide answers very quickly.
5. Social Media, Content Marketing and Off Page SEO will keep overlapping and merging
and On-Page SEO “tricks of the trade” will play a less important role. Social Search and User
Generated Content with Facebook’s and Google’s focus in this area will undoubtedly
make a big impact!
Action:
a. Start treating these practices not as separate channels, but as one part of holistic
process.
b. Have a Content Marketing Plan for each of the channels and work out how they
should be integrated amongst each other and your website.
c. Check out our website dedicated to LinkedIn Training and Consulting
6. Smart or Dynamic Content (ala Amazon Recommended for You) will enable you and your
competitors to serve up highly personalised messages to the right audience at the right time.
Checklist:
a. Can you easily segment your database and get insights into the behavior of your
customers?
b. Can your CRM, ERP, Email Marketing technology / software act on the insights?
7. Story telling will become even more important as companies scramble to be seen more
human (than their competitors) and develop a trustworthy, approachable and caring brand
personality.
Checklist:
a. Do you have a powerful, unique brand with an interesting story to tell clients and
prospects?
b. Are all your staff singing from the same hymnbook?
c. Download our Brand Design Questionnaire from our Free Marketing Resources
Section (it’s the 4th document down the page) – knowing and acting on the answers in
this document should be the cornerstone of your marketing communications
“The advent of social media has meant that the world of separate internal and external
messaging has disappeared. If a customer talks to your Customer Service department, they
expect the same response they’d get if they talk to marketing, or sales, or engineering.
Creating a unified external face is critical. If you want to build long-term relationships,
you’ve got to have a consistent, human voice – coming from all levels of your organization.” -
NICK JOHNSON founder useful Social Media
8. Email will not die but become more personalised, relevant and targeted based on real time
data.
Checklist:
a. Are you communicating regularly with your database and is the marketing
communication tailored to different segments?
b. Are they engaging with your content and offers?
9. Content will remain King and more marketing teams and departments; small and large
businesses will invest into more quality content and attempt to make it go viral or at least
improve the chances of it being passed onto to a secondary audience. With falling production
prices and better and simpler technologies, we see Online Video as the ‘biggest and most
effective mover and shaker’ in Content Marketing. Most small businesses do not have a great
website, let alone reasonable video content, so this area will keep booming.
Checklist:
a. Do you have great content?
b. Is it promoted sufficiently? No point creating more content if not enough people are
engaging with what you have!
c. Check out our great Fixed Fee Marketing with Online Video Marketing Packages
10. “Sites like Pinterest and Instragram prove that visual content is really worth 1,000 words
(or in instragram’s case, $1 billion). Infographics, photos, picture boards, video, and other
forms of rich-media will increase over the coming years as humans look to digest more
information faster than ever before.” – Hubspot Marketing Trends and Predictions for 2013,
p.23.
Checklist:
a. Does your brand have a well developed visual palette
b. Do you have a suitable image library? Make sure this is part of your Content
Marketing Plan