New Year – Velocity Media

15 December 2015

Four ways to reignite passion in the New Year

December is often a month of extremes in business. You are either incredibly busy or incredibly quiet; burning with enthusiasm or burning out. Even the extremes can change week-to-week!

So how do you find inspiration, reignite your passion and keep your motivation up as you head into another year?

1. Switch off

While it is great to do business development and planning over the break with distractions at a minimum, it’s also important to take some time to switch off completely.

Amazing things happen when you put distance between you and your business. Perspective changes, passion reignites, and problems are often more easily solved. Not to mention all of the ideas you were too busy to listen too before will come rushing in like a flood.

2. Go back to your roots

Remember why you started your business in the first place. What need did you aim to fill? What impact did you want to make? What outcome did you want to have?

So often we lose track of our mission when we are stuck in business as usual. Going back to your business roots will help you to remember why you do what you do and give you the opportunity to realign your day-to-day activities with what you want to achieve.

3. Go where your customer is

When we start out in business, we wear multiple hats. We talk to our customers, develop and market our products, manage our finances and run our businesses.

But often as we grow, we start to delegate or outsource many of these tasks to save time. As time goes on, we can often become further and further removed from our customers.

The trouble is our customers are our greatest source of learning and inspiration. When we become disconnected from them, we lose focus, relevance and direction. It is through them that we see needs, find patterns and identify opportunities to innovate so get back in touch.

4. Get out of the ‘in’

Once you’ve switched off, got big picture focus and have reconnected with your customers, it’s time to start working on your business and putting those big ideas into action.

As entrepreneurs, it is often the big picture activities and innovation plans that get us more fired up. They also just so happen to generate the most results, so make sure ‘working on’ your business has a regular place (and the proper priority) in your schedule.

The New Year is a great time to make new working habits. What can changes can you make to your schedule to spark passion and boost motivation?

Amanda

16 December 2014

Five words to boost your marketing in the New Year

Can you believe the end of the year is right around the corner? To help you gear up for a bigger, better year with your business, here are five words to put into action to help boost your marketing in the year ahead.

1. Strategise

Now is the time to review. What worked, what didn’t and what can be made better? Will you be aiming for a different market this coming year? What do they need and want? What problems, worries and frustrations do they have? If you aren’t changing target markets, are your messages working or do you need to change your approach?

2. Personalise

We are doing business in an increasingly global, faceless environment, don’t underestimate the need to personalise your marketing. People want and need to feel as though you are talking just to them, but to do this you need to be more aware of your audience and more targeted in your marketing approach.

It might be a case of doing three specific marketing or advertising campaigns to key target markets as opposed to one general one. While it can sound like more effort, you will get far better results being specific.

3. Theme

Make your marketing easier in the New Year by theming your content and campaigns. Grab a large wall planner and write down all key dates, events and tradeshows within your business and industry. Then write in all related causes, awareness days, weeks or months, and public holidays.

If you are planning public relations and advertising campaigns in the New Year, request the media kits of the publications you want to target and write down the editorial themes they will be covering.

Very soon you will start to see possible themes emerge within your calendar. Then once you’ve decided you can theme your social media, marketing material and promotions around these making it easier to find content and identify the best marketing activities.

4. Care

There is no marketing strategy more powerful than genuinely caring for your customers. Go the extra mile, help where you can and take the time to answer questions. Build relationships with your customers don’t just bank transactions.

5. Authenticity

Customers don’t just want to purchase a product or service from a business anymore they want a genuine, transparent experience from a business that knows who they are and what they stand for.

For this reason, you need to be authentic and transparent in your marketing and in the way you do business. If you make a claim, back it up. If you make a mistake, own it and fix it. Be real, at the end of the day most people are buying the people behind the business, not a product or service.

How will you be shaking up your marketing in the New Year?