Marketing Planning – Velocity Media

13 July 2015

Three marketing time savers

While marketing is an essential part of business, it can also be one of the first areas we put on hold when we get busy. Sure it saves us time in the short term, but with consistent marketing being the key to consistent business, it can cost our cash flow in the long term.

To help you streamline your marketing efforts and stay consistent even when you are short on time, here are three marketing time savers you can implement without impacting your results.

1. Develop a promotional calendar

One of the fastest ways to waste time (and money for that matter) in marketing is to not have clarity. By mapping out your promotions for the next three to six months, you take the last minute panic out of your communications and ensure your social media, newsletter and promotional content are aligned for greater results.

To do this, firstly identify possible themes for each month. Your theme could be around the different products or services you provide or want to sell more of, the time of year it is (seasons, Father’s Day, Christmas etc.), or trending products, services or topics.

Once you have a theme in mind look at the products, services or packages you want to promote (or need to sell) and the promotions, calls to action and incentive you need to use to get people to act.

2. Repurpose your content

Whenever you write content, whether it is for your website or a brochure, a blog or social media post you should be thinking of how else you could use the content.

Could a social media post be expanded into a blog post? Could your blog post or speaking presentations be broken down into several social media tip updates or an image/infographic? Could you expand your blog post for a longer feature article to submit? Could your newly revised social media profile also form part of your About Us page and speaker introduction?

What about the past blog posts you have written could you provide an update, follow up or a ‘top blogs/tips on [topic]’ post to get more out of your existing content?

3. Leverage your time through tools and team members

One of the biggest hurdles for many business owners to get over is to realise you don’t have to do it all. If you don’t enjoy a particular area of marketing, aren’t good at it or are wasting too much time in it outsource it to another team member or professional.

If you do enjoy it, and you are good at it look to simplify, streamline and leverage your time through technology. Chances are someone has had the foresight to develop a tool, website, app, program or process to help. Search around, get recommendations and experiment until you find your match.

How do you minimise your time in marketing? Do you have any favourite marketing tools you use?

Amanda

16 June 2014

Four questions to make the New Financial Year more profitable and productive

With the end of financial year fast approaching, it’s an opportune time to pause and take a moment to step back from the day-to-day running of your business and regroup, refocus, and realign with your greater vision and goals.

Not sure where to start? Here are four questions that will help you start the New Financial Year off more profitably and productively.

What has worked?

When you look back over the last year look at what has worked well. From sales and marketing strategies to systems and procedures, what has generated the most results or made the most difference in your business?

These are strategies and tasks you want to give priority to. You might even want to plan to invest more time, money and resources in these areas to grow them further and generate more return in the next half of this year.

What hasn’t worked?

When you look back over the last year look at what hasn’t worked. This is an important opportunity to learn from mistakes and hindsight.

What sales and marketing strategies haven’t worked? What products or services aren’t selling? What business relationships aren’t profitable or working? What have you learnt from the challenges you’ve had over the last six months?

What could be done better?

Before you rid your business of everything that didn’t work, it is important to ask “why” it didn’t. Are there still opportunities to be had if done right or better?

When you look at what has worked, are there opportunities to make it even better, faster, bigger or more effective? Always be looking for areas to improve.

What is your market telling you?

This is perhaps the most important question. Over the last year, what has your market been telling you?

What products and services are the most popular? Who is buying from you? Why are they buying from you? Why do they need and want your products or services? Why are they coming to you and not someone else? Are they responding to some marketing messages better than others?

What feedback have you received? If you’ve had complaints, have they been addressed in your business and with the customer/s?

Have you had more new customers than this time last year? Have you had more repeat customers than this time last year? Has your average customer transaction price increased from this time last year? Why?

Answering these questions will give you greater clarity on what you need and want to achieve, where you need to focus your efforts, how you can be more strategic and targeted with your marketing and how you can measure your success.

Here’s to a happy and profitable New Financial Year!