Why you should be considering a marketing strategy for 2019

It’s easy to get trapped in a mindset that sees marketing as an unworthy investment when you’re worried about the ROI. Your first thought is probably “can we afford it?” followed by, “how do we know that money will come back into the business?” and that’s the first mistake you could make.

Marketing is not as simple as investing in a salesperson with the hope that they – eventually – start bringing in more money in sales than they’re paid in a salary. That’s the wrong way to think about it when the benefit of raising awareness, generating leads, driving customer enquiry, reviews and positioning your brand as a voice of authority is often immeasurable. Achieving these goals and objectives take time, an ongoing commitment and above all else – a strategy.

Where people make the biggest mistakes are first by failing to understand the marketplace and their target demographics, but second in trying to throw money at ads before properly ensuring that they have the potential to convert.

It’s not enough to do some digital marketing and SEO work to drive your online website enquiries. It’s not enough to post once or twice a week on Facebook without giving any thought to the content, viewership and reach. And it’s definitely not enough to spend hundreds of hard earned dollars on  a billboard just because you think it may increase your brand awareness in a busy road.

Yes all of these activities are great individual marketing jobs and there are probably a bunch of agencies chomping at the bit  to take your money and deliver exactly what you’ve asked for. But wouldn’t you prefer a partnership that’s built on your long term growth objectives and that incorporates marketing as part of the business strategy from day one.

We’ve put together our top reasons to organise a marketing strategy for 2019.

Increase in sales and revenue – eventually

It’s important to deliver the right message to the right people, at the right time.

The more you reach out to people, the more likely they are to reach out to your business for your services. Your marketing strategy should have clear goals that are timely so over the implementation period you can keep an eye on what’s working and what’s not, and tweak any and all marketing activities accordingly. Notice your digital marketing isn’t converting any leads? Could that budget could be better spent improving your website’s organic reach? It should also be consumer-centric with the customer always front of mind for every decision because it’s imperative that you add value, and we can help you do that.

It’s scalable

Any marketer will tell you that an effective marketing strategy has to be scalable so small tests can be done before doing a big ad spend. Once you have a lead that converts, you can scale that up. Afterwards, the more you spend, the more you make but you need to ensure that it’s producing a profit first.

Set achievable goals

Your marketing strategy should be a progressive plan that can be used as a clear roadmap for the next 12 months that have achievable goals. Don’t put in that you want to be bringing $2 million in revenue if you’re currently barely breaking even – being realistic is key. The beginning of the year and prior to Christmas is the perfect time to do this. We know it’s hard, you’re getting to the end of the year and it’s only too tempting to turn your brain off and wait for the holidays. But this is the time you should be bedding down for 2019 and setting your business goals and planning how exactly you’ll be achieving them.

It utilises multiple channels

In a digital age where information is available 24/7 to all consumers and where traditional advertising has slowly been phased out, you have to be using multiple platforms and your strategy should be keeping this in mind. You should never put all your stock into one platform – that’s why you advertise on Google, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube, in the newspaper and on the radio. Customers don’t need to be hit once, your messaging should be consistent across platforms so if a customer sees a YouTube ad and then a billboard, they understand the same message from both.