It might be vacation season, but a great marketing strategy never takes time off. Wondering how you can craft a marketing strategy that works well and remains consistent? Use these tips to create a winning strategy that keeps leads and sales flowing while staff rotates through vacation time.
Plan Ahead
You know the dates of the time you’re taking off, and you know what has to be done during that time. Plan your promotional needs in advance. If you’re running any holiday promotions but won’t be in the office for the last two weeks of the year, get everything ready to go. You can do this for all holidays and events – from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve and everything in between.
Have all the elements ready – sales pages, inventory, graphics, blog posts, social media posts, and email marketing blasts. Schedule them to go out at the appropriate times. Putting as much as possible on autopilot with automation will make it easier for the team that’s working while you’re off.
Build and Curate More Content
Plan your editorial calendar out as far in advance as you can. Create all the content elements you require and have them ready for use.
Since you don’t want all the content that goes out to you audience to be about you and your company, take time to curate extra content to work into the mix. Use tools like Feedly, Scoop.it, Curata, and ContentGems to find content your audience will enjoy.
Consider Bringing in More Talent
When your staff is rotating through vacations, or multiple people take time off at the same time, it may be time to bring in additional talent to run things while you’re short-handed.
If hiring employees isn’t an option, consider outsourcing. Freelancers all over the world are available to handle everything from basic virtual assistant tasks, social media management, graphic design, copywriting, and more. So you don’t leave yourself wondering about quality while you’re gone, you should look for freelancers ahead of time to train them and be sure they’re the right people for the job before you go. Freelancers can also assist you in creating all the assets you need ahead of time, so you can keep up with current marketing strategy demands while preparing for your break.
What Happens When Your Marketing Strategy Drops the Ball and Takes Time Off?
When your marketing strategy takes a vacation of its own, you’ll experience a decline in new leads. With no new leads coming into your funnel, you’ll see fewer conversions, and there’s a good chance you’ll lose money. If your return on investment (ROI) numbers start to fall, it’s time to reassess – especially if you’re spending money on advertising methods like Facebook Ads without following through with the rest of your strategy.
How to Come Back from a Strategy That Didn’t Go as Planned
First, take a deep breath. Next, sit down and assess the data. You need to see what happened and come up with a plan to fix it. Rely on all the data sources you have, including website analytics, to email subscription rates, open rates, click-through rates, conversations, and drop-offs.
Watch for patterns. Is there one place everyone seems to drop off on your website? It may be time to adjust the copy or change your offer.
How much money did you invest, and where was it invested? Maybe you spent too much on Facebook ads, and not enough on content development. Maybe you spent too much on landing page design, and not enough on split-testing? Whatever the situation may be, the data will give you an idea of where you went wrong. Use that information to make adjustments for your new strategy.
With changes based on what the data tells you, run a revised campaign on a smaller scale. Make only a few adjustments at a time, so you can isolate the key pain points. When you feel you’ve ironed out all the kinks, launch the campaign on a larger scale and see what happens. If you’ve adjusted everything correctly, you should see much better results. But, even when you think you’ve hit the marketing strategy jackpot, it may need adjustments as time goes on. Marketing is fluid, and your strategy should be as well.
Taking time off is good for you – it can actually make you more productive. But if you spend the entire time away from the office worrying about how things are going, you defeat the purpose. Set yourself up for success ahead of time, and vacation stress-free.
Original article: Marketing Strategies Don’t Take Vacations
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