Another year has come and gone, and you may wonder, is my business where I want it to be? What kind of progress have we made over the last year in growing our market? If you’ve wondered how you can improve your approach take a look at these 12 suggestions. 

1. Maintain a regular contact schedule with all contacts and key prospects. This means a minimum monthly contact, but more likely 3-4 times per month is better. If you are not getting complaints from clients or prospects that you are contacting them too much, it means you are not contacting them enough. In addition, if the only monthly contact is your impersonal newsletter, then it only counts for half points. The contact needs to be personal and unique to fully count.
2. Create or update your marketing plan. It does not have to be a 40 page document with charts, graphs, and a full index. In fact, sometimes the simpler the better! Not sure if the legendary one page marketing plan will cut it though? I recommend a simple document outlining your mission as it relates to your clients, which includes a detailed description of your target market. Adding in documentation related to the Four P’s of marketing (Price, Product, Place, and Promotion) is a worthwhile endeavor as is a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. Finally, you should have some marketing strategies outlined. This could also include your content calendar (see Marketing Resolution 4).
3. Test your marketing. As the old advertising adage goes, “50% of my advertising budget is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.” You need to test what works and what does not and keep improving on the good stuff.
4. Create a content calendar. Marketing is changing, and the biggest change is from advertising to content. This does not mean you stop advertising, but rather you need to have meaningful content in all your ads, your emails, your website, your press releases, and every other bit of information you release. Moreover, that content must drive your clients and prospects towards the next sale.
5. Add effective online marketing to your marketing strategies. You may already have a website, and you may be using other online tools such as email and social media. Now is the time to make sure you are using those tools effectively. Many things have changed, so if you are not keeping up, you probably are not getting the results you need.
6. Survey your clients. This is one of the most effective marketing concepts available. Clients actually love to be surveyed, but only if done properly. In addition, it can provide invaluable information to improve your marketing and your overall business.
7. Survey your target market. Do not just talk to your clients. Find a way to survey your complete target market. If you can’t do this yourself, research related surveys or hire a qualified firm to conduct a survey for you. It is easier and less costly than you imagine.
8. Focus on client relationships. In the first marketing resolution, we told you to maintain regular contact with your clients. However, simply contacting them is not enough. You need to be building a relationship with your clients. This applies to every business from retail to B2B organizations.
9. Improve your internal marketing. This marketing resolution could be moved way up in importance. By improving your internal marketing, you get all your people on your marketing team. Inform them not only of the marketing strategies your implementing, but teach them about your target market and about the reasons why you are implementing various marketing concepts.
10. Analyse your marketing to determine the gaps. Often times there are gaps you do not see without effective analysis that could be either causing a drawn out sales process or stopping sales all together. Surveys (marketing resolutions 6 and 7) can help, but the best way is to step through the complete sales and marketing process with fresh un-biased eyes to determine where there may be a gap that is hindering new sales.
11. Include public relations in your marketing strategies. This is such a powerful marketing strategy that it must be included as a marketing resolution. Find a way to use public relations in your marketing. This greatly enhances trust, which can improve the overall marketing and sales process. As well, it can be the most efficient method of marketing when done properly.
12. Keep it simple. Get back to the basics. I put this one last for all those readers who jump to the end. Pick your most effective long term marketing tactic, keep doing it, and do it more!

By  Jack Zenert

Vice President Sales & Marketing

Beacon News