With a new year comes new year’s resolutions and an opportunity to prosper… why should your marketing strategy be any different? As clichéd as it sounds, the marketing industry is constantly in a state of change and businesses are often finding it difficult to keep up. As an established Digital Agency, we have outlined 3 simple ways to supercharge your 2018 marketing strategy.
1. APPEALING TO THE HUMAN WITHIN
As we progress through an age of hyper connectivity, one thing that can’t be ignored is the subtle yet concrete trend we see brewing behind successful marketing strategies from 2017. This is most evident when brand’s start paying special attention to practicing what they preach.
Consumers in South Africa have more access to information than ever before and therefore are making smarter and more informed decisions. This is a clear challenge to marketing professionals as it’s no longer good enough to simply have your products or services advertised. Your brand must now go a step further and fully embody your mission statement, flaunting it around proudly for all to see. Successful execution of humanizing your brand, will go a long way to reaching your marketing goals for 2018.
2. KEEPING YOUR EAR TO THE GROUND
This may seem like a straight-forward concept, yet we see brands dropping the ball on this time and time again. As a marketing professional or even simply a business owner, adapting to your market based on how it ebbs and flows is vital to ensure your brand stays alive. Timing is everything here, being proactive is the only way to go. Embrace the change, nurture the adjustment and watch the results.
A large part of the above stems from your ability to collaborate and network with like-minded individuals. This doesn’t mean living it up for hours on end in conferences or meet and greets. Aside from the odd tactical deployment, most of your information can be found at the click of a button. As much as we moan about social media and what its done to society, this is the one time where it can supercharge your marketing strategy without negatively impacting productivity.
3. UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE
Just like customers have now got more access to information, businesses have that same opportunity through the effective use of big data. Although this is not a totally new development and international companies like Google and Facebook have been using it on their consumers for years already. In South Africa big data is still in its infancy. Local agencies and development firms are only now starting to put time and resources into truly creating big data solutions for businesses to further optimise their service delivery to the public.
You may be reading the above and thinking well how will this help me as I don’t have the budget to contract these firms to analyse my big data requirements. The answer lies in your Digital Marketing spend. While you may not get massive results at first, implementing strategies that leverage big data will be the best decision you have ever made. I’m not saying every business can jump on this bandwagon immediately as some industries are still using pen and paper. However, placing a small portion of your marketing budget towards progressive thinking is surely not considered a waste. How else will you gauge what the digital landscape can do for you?
We encourage marketing professionals and business owners alike to jump with both feet into big data, the results whether positive or negative are still measurable and will give you clarity on what your marketing strategy will look like in days to come.
