Hope seems to be a big word these days. It’s taken the place of pivot. People are hopeful about recovery. People are hopeful about things returning to normal in the foreseeable future. And people are hopeful they can soon travel and visit loved ones they haven’t seen for a while.
If recovery is right around the corner, now is the ideal time to revisit your marketing strategy and plan. Making critical changes now can bring you into alignment to make the most of recovery. Plus, it’s possible the needs and desires of your target audience have changed.
Asking yourself the following questions about your business and marketing can help ensure that you have the data and information you need to make the most of the looming recovery.
- Who is your ideal customer? Has it changed with COVID?
- What is your marketing goal in 2021? What are your objectives/tactics for getting there? How will you measure success or how will you know when you’ve reached that goal?
- What is your brand tone? Try this exercise: “We are ____ but not ____.” For example, we are informative but not boring.
- What is your reputation in your industry and your community? What do people think of when they think of your brand/product/service?
- Where is your target audience on social media (Facebook, Insta, etc.)? Are they still easily reached where you thought they were?
- Are people still reading your blog?
- What customer problem do you solve?
- Do you sell through fear, inspiration, or solving a problem? Does that course of action still work for you?
- What is the open rate on your newsletter? Has that changed with the pandemic?
- Are you using a tracker that shows you where people are clicking on your website and/or newsletter? If yes, where are they clicking and where aren’t they clicking? What does that tell you about their needs?
- Do you have an email list?
- What data are you currently tracking and what are you doing with it?
- What kind of content do your customers like best/have the most interaction with?
- How many active followers do you have on each social media platform you participate on? How has that changed with COVID?
- Do your customers enjoy a type of content you are not providing such as podcasts or videos?
- What story are you telling?
- How much does your average customer cost?
- What are your customer retention strategies and how are you implementing them?
- How has your product or service evolved over the past year? How has your marketing message changed? Does it need to?
- What’s your call to action and does it fit where it is used? For instance, you don’t invite someone to buy when they’re just getting to know you on the About Us page of your website. Speaking of…
- What are you doing to help people get to know, like, and trust you?
- What part of your business is off-putting or scary for first-time buyers? What can you do to make it less so? For instance, gyms may be intimidating for the out-of-shape first timers. How can you reach them and be more inviting? A get-fit challenge is a solution to that because participants would know they’d be with other newbies.
- Do you have a defined success metric for every campaign you implement?
- In what area(s) is your competition falling short? In what areas are they strongest? How do you compare?
- How many referrals (and/or reviews) are you getting? What vehicle/strategy are you using to get more?
These questions are easily answered but implementing the answers/solutions takes more planning. It’s a lot of work now but once you put it in, you’ll be glad you did.
Christina R. Metcalf (formerly Green) is a marketer who enjoys using the power of story and refuses to believe meaningful copy can be written by bots. She helps chamber and small business professionals find the right words when they don’t have the time or interest to do so. Christina hates exclamation points and loves road trips. Say hi on Twitter or reach out on Facebook.
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