5 Small Business Marketing Resolutions for 2020
Did you know the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions is thousands of years old? Even the ancient Babylonians and Romans made resolutions to mark the beginning of each new year. And while you may have already marked down your personal resolutions (I sure have!), if you’re a small business owner you should have a separate set of resolutions just for your business.
Before you get too deep into the new year, take a moment to consider how you might want to improve your marketing approach for 2020. Here are 5 small business marketing resolutions that could help take your business to the next level this year.
Resolution 1: Identify Your Strong and Weak Marketing Strategies from 2019
There’s a good chance you had some great successes in 2019 with your marketing strategies. You may also have hit some bumps in the road along the way or found that some of your marketing efforts didn’t quite pan out.
First, understand that not every marketing effort is going to be a hit. And sometimes, it’s not your fault. Marketing is all about intelligent trial and error, and the most effective marketing strategy is to learn from your mistakes or take to heart what worked and what didn’t.
This year, take stock of your successes and failures by considering your two top-level concerns:
Which marketing campaigns had a positive return on investment (ROI)?
Which marketing campaigns had a negative ROI?
For both successful and unsuccessful marketing campaigns, examine the following:
The marketing channel(s) you used (paid search, email, social media, etc.)
The language used in your marketing materials
Your targeted audience(s)
When you ran each campaign (time, date, season)
Other small details about your campaigns that could be relevant
You will want to try to replicate successful marketing campaigns as best you can, and improve upon campaigns that didn’t quite work as intended. Making improvements in 2020 for your marketing campaigns could be as simple as running the same campaign at a different time of year, or changing up the wording in a way that is more attractive to the targeted audience.
Alternatively, it’s also possible that your marketing techniques or strategies could use a complete overhaul. If that’s the case, you may need to bring in some additional help to improve your business marketing.
Interested in improving your small business digital marketing techniques? Contact Madison Ave Media today for a free consultation on digital marketing strategies for your small business.
Resolution 2: Investigate New Marketing Channels
There are a large number of potential marketing channels your small business could be using. Did you use every marketing channel available to you last year? If not, you may want to commit yourself to testing out a few new marketing options in 2020.
Paid ads on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter are only one route. You could try dipping your toes into YouTube ads, content marketing, email marketing, or even marketing your business through dedicated email newsletters.
2020 could also be the year you take a harder look at physical (analog) marketing options, including billboards or even direct mail (which performs far better than many small business owners realize). Success with physical marketing techniques can be measured using call tracking numbers, with that data easily recorded and analyzed digitally. You can even combine your physical and digital marketing channels to create a more holistic marketing approach.
Importantly, don’t force new marketing channels on your business if they don’t mesh well with your industry or audience. Not every marketing channel will work for every small business. After all, your target audience and core customer base may not be where every marketing channel reaches. Research which demographics most the various marketing channels that exist, and target your marketing at the channels where your customers are—or where you hope to grow your customer base.
Resolution 3: Take Data More Seriously
There’s no getting around the issue with data: It’s the single most important factor in marketing in the 21st century. Yes, the messages and channels you use in marketing are important. However, you’ll have a hard time making actionable improvements to your marketing without a thorough analysis of your marketing data.
The kind of data you’ll need to focus on in 2020 includes (but is not limited to):
Impressions: the number of times someone views your ads
Conversion rate: the percentage of people who take valuable action after seeing your ad
Cost per lead: how much you spent per successful conversion (feeds into ROI)
Lead closure rate: how many conversions resulted in a successful sale
If you’re running a website for your business, you’ll also want to consider your website metrics, such as the search engine ranking of your website’s landing pages and content pages, your website’s bounce rate (how quickly someone leaves your site), and your click-through rate (the number of impressions that resulted in a click to your site), among other website-specific metrics important for search engine optimization (SEO).
Resolution 4: Take Content Planning More Seriously
For some small business owners, 2020 may be the year to finally get content planning in order. If your business has a website but you aren’t fully utilizing it, this year might be the right time to begin hashing out a content marketing strategy that gets your website noticed in search engines.
As with every type of marketing, getting your website and its content noticed on Google is not a sure thing. There are a few “must-haves” with content marketing, while there are other aspects that you can include that are nice to have, but that offer fewer guarantees to success.
Some must-haves for content marketing include:
Unique and well-written content
Search-engine-friendly content structure
High-quality backlinks from higher-ranked and authority sites
Even then, there is no guarantee your site will rank well on a search engine. There are a tremendous number of factors that Google (the most-used search engine by volume) and others use to rank sites. The overall complexity of SEO makes it all the more important to find expert help to get your site’s content planning and marketing up to speed.
So where do you start? Some SEO experts point to long-form content as performing better (e.g, articles 2,000 words or longer), but you may find that the primary goal is just to be better than your competitors, which could mean content that’s a bit shorter, but still meaningful. Many other details, such as image alt text and writer authority, could have an impact on whether you succeed against competitor sites.
Content marketing can be complicated at times, but it can also be extremely rewarding for your business. After all, seeing your website and its content grow and add value to both new and returning customers can give you something to be proud of, while also increasing your customer base and your business’ name recognition.
It’s also important to consider the conversion factor that a well-developed website will have on potential customers who find your business and its site through other means. For example, if someone hears about your business via word-of-mouth advertising and looks you up, a professional site with loads of content could make the difference between a conversion and a bounce.
Resolution 5: Invest More in Customer Care
Not all marketing is through paid advertisements and content. Some of the best marketing comes from how you treat your customers. And well-treated customers who feel valued give you the best kind of advertisement you could hope for: fully organic, word-of-mouth promotion.
For 2020, consider the ways you can better serve your customers, and how you can go above and beyond how you cared for your customers in 2019. There are some interesting trends in customer care that you may not be using that could help you provide more value.
Notable customer care and customer experience trends for 2020 include:
1. Personalize your approach
Learn your customers’ names. Send them emails and promotional materials on their birthday. Craft content that fits more unique customer groups. Track their history with your business and celebrate milestones.
2. Be more available across more channels
Customers are increasingly looking for businesses that leave themselves more available. This doesn’t mean you need to operate 24/7—most customers understand that you and your workers also have personal lives. But you may want to incorporate new communication channels, such as social media, into the mix to help offer customers a wider range of options to connect with you.
3. Invest in your employees
When customers see you treat your employees well, they often respond with more respect and more appreciation for your business. And, in particular, happy employees tend to exude that positive treatment outward, so your customers will easily pick up on it. Make 2020 a year you consider how you can improve your worker experience. That investment will flow directly into your customers’ experience and reap huge benefits for your business.
4. Give back to the community
Even if your business operates mostly online, you still have a physical presence somewhere. Take full advantage of that, and find ways to give back to the community you live or operate in. Not only will this increase the exposure of your business to new and previous customers, but you’ll find customers will speak of and consider your business more positively when they see you’re an active part of their community.
What Are Your 2020 Small Business Marketing Resolutions?
What will your small business marketing goals look like in 2020? If you commit yourself to making a few changes early on, you’ll give yourself far more time to invest in those changes and more time to see how those changes in your marketing strategy can and will benefit your business in the new year.
If you need help developing your 2020 marketing goals, contact Madison Ave Media today for a complimentary consultation. Madison Ave Media can help you plan and execute everything from Google Ads to social media marketing to content marketing and content creation.