Six Point Marketing Checklist for Next Year

With 2020 almost upon us, we hope that you've been busy planning your marketing strategies for the upcoming year. Whether you are using direct mail, email, mobile, and social media, or wide-format signage and graphics, here is a quick checklist to make sure you've hit the basics.

1. Define your objective.
What are your marketing objectives in 2020? Apply numbers to your goals. If it's to increase sales, what's your target? 10%? 15%? Is it to increase customer retention? Boost conversions? Deepen engagement? By what percentage? Applying specific numbers to your goals helps you measure success.

2. Know your audience.
Detailed knowledge of your audience goes beyond basic demographics to what makes your audience tick. For example, one of the trends now is "experience marketing." People increasingly respond to how products make them feel rather than the details of what they do. Insurance makes people feel secure. Freedom to travel makes people feel adventurous and independent. Developing personas rather than just demographic data can make a great investment.

3. Plan for the sales funnel.
Marketing isn't a one-off thing. It's a process that includes discovery, education, decision-making, and (hopefully) the ultimate purchase. Every company has a different sales funnel, however, so understand how your customers navigate yours. Also take the time to understand the benefits of each communications channel. Where does print fit? Email? Social media? Video? Which channels work best to move your prospects from one stage to the next?

4. Personalize.
This is the "me" generation, and tailoring marketing content to your target audience is critical. This can be done through highly personalized and data-driven communications that match images, messages, and offers to individual recipients. Or it can be done through strategic targeting and segmentation.

5. Channel mix.
With so many channels available, from direct mail to email, mobile, and social media, understand which channels your target audience prefers for different types of communications (billing, marketing, alerts). By honoring their preferences, you have a much better chance of getting your message heard.

6. Create a timetable.
When and how do you intend to deploy the components of your marketing strategy? It's not just getting the right message in front of the right audience. It's getting the right message in front of your audience at the right time. Create a strategic plan about what content to deploy, using which channel, and when.

Need help with implementation when print is part of the mix? Give us a call. That's why we're here.