5 More Useful Marketing Tools To Gift Yourself in 2016

The last couple months of the year aren’t just for stuffing turkeys and pitching a tent outside your local big box retailer.

Retail businesses are engrossed in the holiday marketing mashup while service providers are picking over low hanging fruit, trying to book as much revenue as possible before year end.

Tis the season to reflect on how you’ve marketed your business over the last ten months or so. Make a list of the marketing dos and don’ts that either propelled or derailed your marketing. And while you’re at it, jot down a few things you want to do differently – a wishlist of sorts – that will take your marketing over the top next year.

As always, we want to help you get started. Continued from our last blog post, here are a few more of our favorite things to add to your marketing wishlist for 2016:

Google Analytics

This tool empowers you with tremendous insights about your website traffic.

You can track metrics like how many people are visiting your site, where they’re coming from, and what they’re looking at when they get there. You’ll also see how long the stayed on each page (duration), where they abandoned your website (bounce), and even the keywords they used to find you.

And that’s barely scratching the surface of the data that’s available.

Email marketing that get opened and read

Email marketing is the preferred marketing tool for most businesses looking to stay connected to their audiences, drive traffic to the websites, and boost sales.

Email service providers like MailChimp (our favorite) make it easy to build good-looking emails with a simple drag and drop editor.

But your ESP can only do so much. It’s still up to you to give your readers news they can use, in a frequency they can manage, with sensible calls to action built in.

Thriving social media community

Social media isn’t a one-way communication channel. The brands that do well here are the ones who’ve mastered the art of engaging their audiences in meaningful conversations.

To do so takes a significant investment in time and effort, and starts with having a good understanding of who your audience is and what content appeals to them.

Then, you must create and share content that is visually appealing, yet distinct to your brand’s tone of voice.

Get mobile ready

In addition to having a website that’s mobile responsive, there are a few other things you should do to be “mobile ready.”

Such as, thinking through your buyers’ experiences through a mobile lens. How can you engage them right where they are, which is probably standing somewhere looking at their smartphone?

Encourage them to check in at your location, event, etc. via FourSquare, Google+, or Facebook, and reward them for making the effort. Send them an SMS message with a coupon code or other incentives to join your email list. Lastly, make sure your business has a presence on websites like Yelp and Google+, and encourage users to leave reviews.

Hire professional help

There are a lot of do-it-yourself marketing guides out there. And some of them are pretty darn good! But, as a business owner, does it make sense to spend your time doing that or is your time better spent growing your business?

Bringing in a skilled marketing professional is the way to go.

Before you hire a pro, however, do your homework. Ask for references. Inquire about the process they’ll take you through to help you reach your goals. That process should be clearly defined, measurable, and priced competitively.  If it’s not, move on.

That’s it!

Over the last month, we’ve covered ten impressive marketing tools to add to your marketing wishlist for 2016. If you have questions, give us a shout. We’ll get you tipsy on the possibilities of the upcoming year!