Getting your Marketing ready for the New Year
Well the new year is here. And now that you are planning out your marketing plans for 2010. You are right?
This year you will see more and more companies take another look at their small business website. Even if you have not updated the content or resources in several years. With several tools on the market to make it easier to manage including adding a blog should be on the top of your list. Adding a blog will ensure you have interesting and relevant content for your customers and prospects to consume.
So the question will undoubtedly be asked “what is needed that is not already on your website?”.
The simplest answer is ask your current customers, they will probably be the users of your website to find important information like where you are located, and what your hours of operation are. However you probably have different audiences too such as new customers/prospects that have not purchased from you and are just taking a look to find out more. Obviously these two groups are going to be looking for different kinds of information to establish rapport with you as a company. One of the most recent trends in eco-friendly marketing to show customers that you are doing something to help the environment or to decrease your carbon footprint. If you are doing something like that do you advertise it on your website?
These are the types of questions you can ask internally. Such as what does our voice mail greeting promote, or when a customer is on hold which promotions are we communicating. Perhaps this is something that should be on the homepage of your website too. Mostly for consistency but also to get the word out to those that have not called and heard your greeting.
Sometimes your business will have an open house or sponsor or a community event in your area. Is this promoted on your website for everyone in your community to see? I think you would be surprised how many people find your website using a search site by searching for the event and not for the vendors attending. But it is definitely worth getting noticed and even more importantly associated with contributing to your local community.
Prediction: 2010 will be the year for getting local
Your competitors will definitely be opening up to local content on their websites, as well as starting a blog if they have not already. Because it establishes you as a credible authority in your industry as we have said in the past. So if you want to generate new leads for 2010 make sure you are creating interesting content and give it away to anyone who is interested. Meaning skip the barrier of requiring a registration to access content or newsletters. You main goal is to get your content to as many people as possible. So email it, tweet about it on Twitter, print it out for in-store availability if you get asked, etc.
Of course Need Help Marketing is here to help! Now in our second year we want to bring even more interesting content and resources to help your business succeed in 2010.
As always if you have marketing questions or ideas but are not sure how to execute them contact us at info@needhelpmarketing.com
Image Source: EmaStudios
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