Summer can be a tough time for marketing. You’re busy and your customers are busy, and that can make it a challenge to create an effective marketing strategy. However, those challenges also make it a great time to get back to basics with your marketing! Here are four tips that will help you bring your marketing back to basics.
1. Focus on Who You’re Talking To
This is the heart of any good marketing strategy, and focusing on the audience you’re reaching out to is the best shortcut to market effectively even when time is tight. Think about whether you’re reaching out to existing customers or new customers, and then use what you know about those customers to create a strategy. What media do they engage with? Can you send an email, or do you need to reach out using ads in local media or a direct mail piece? Focus your efforts where they’ll be most effective, and let your audience be your guide.
2. What Is Everyone Else Doing? Consider Doing the Opposite
One of the best ways to stand out is to do what nobody else is doing. If your competition is advertising through email, for example, a simple handwritten note could be the best way to make your business memorable.
3. Think About What Worked in the Past but Isn’t Used Now—And Think About Why
Sometimes, marketing strategies are dropped for good reason. You might have stopped putting your energy into newspaper advertising, for example, because you got better results from focusing your efforts on creating a quality email campaign. However, if you dropped a marketing strategy for other reasons—you didn’t previously have the time to pursue it, for example, or something new took your attention instead—it might be worthwhile to revisit that strategy. As an added bonus, you might be able to get inspired for new marketing efforts by examples in your files from these old projects.
4. Always Be Willing to Learn New Things
With new technologies arriving every day, the marketing landscape—especially for smaller businesses—is constantly changing. While there are a lot of tips that can help you navigate that changing world, nothing will serve you better than a willingness to learn. Staying open to new information will help keep you from getting stuck in a rut when it comes to your marketing strategy, and it will keep you flexible enough to adapt to new options when they arrive.
What marketing tips can’t you live without? We’d love to see your tips and tricks in the comments below.
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