This post is about how to structurally align your marketing strategy. The information is not pandemic-specific, but let’s face it – 2020 changed how most businesses operate and market themselves. Most of you probably aren’t doing business the same way you were pre-COVID, and I don’t think we’re going back to “normal” anytime soon. Instead, we need to get used to our new normal.
There are three key areas that need to be your center focus for realigning your marketing strategy:
Too many businesses have goals like “get more business” or “increase sales.” These are not specific enough. What counts as more business? Is it one customer or 1000? When you don’t have clearly defined goals, you can’t measure against them and it’s difficult to know what tactics will best support them. Instead set specific goals that align with your business objectives. Maybe it’s to move 50% of your ad spend away from traditional media and into digital marketing. Maybe your goals center around launching new products or services. All of these objectives are affected by digital marketing so it’s important to first develop clearly defined goals.
I’m not here to say you need to increase your budget. Instead, I want to emphasize that you need to understand it better. Understanding your budget is absolutely vital. And the first step to understanding your budget is to actually establish one. I talk to a lot of companies that do not have a marketing and advertising budget. That is a mistake. Establishing a budget is one of the best things you will ever do for your business.
Having a budget allows you to benchmark, and benchmarking will make you a smarter marketer quarter after quarter, year after year. You will begin to continually assess and reassess your marketing systems and tactics and determine what’s working for you and what’s not. You can then make informed decisions on what you need to cut, what you need to add, and where you need to increase or decrease your spending.
An established budget also helps your outside consultants and vendors (and in-house team) make the right recommendations for the money that you have available. You don’t want to start heading down a path you can’t see through because of financial constraints. A budget helps ensure you only deploy tactics and strategies that fit inside what you planned to spend.
Finally, it’s time to ensure all your marketing tactics – the individual channels, messages, ad creative, etc. – are aligned with your goals and your budget. Too often I see companies continue with channels that aren’t producing and miss the opportunity to capitalize on channels that are ramping up and producing. You cannot put your digital marketing on autopilot. You need to look at everything on a quarterly basis to ensure you are utilizing the right tactics in the right channels to achieve your goals.
A great example of this is SEO. If your business needs greater brand awareness and you’re still spending most of your money on SEO, it’s time to reevaluate. If you need brand awareness, you should be shifting to channels that are more cost-effective and provide massive reach, like Facebook and YouTube. You want to make sure you’re using the tactics that will bring you the most bang for your buck; not just continuing to do what you’ve been doing because you’ve always done it.