🔒7 marketing New Year’s resolutions to boost your bottom line

Every year, as the ball drops in Times Square and the pine needles drop from the Christmas trees, many of us feel the need to start fresh.

To help you in that effort, here are a few resolutions to help grow your business in 2016:

Resolution No. 1: Talk to consumers where they are — Open your marketing mind to what works for your customers, not for you. Too many executives and business owners build their marketing efforts on what motivates them. But chances are that your customers are not you. In today's environment, your customer is most likely someone who's grown up with the world at their command. They've always had apps that let them adapt their cell phones to their wants. They've always had access to Internet resources that bring them exactly what they want, when they want it. Now, more than ever, your marketing must respond to those expectations. For example, you might want to add a chat box to your site so customers can get instant answers to their questions from a live person.

Resolution No. 2: Make your website the home base it should be — Take a good look at your website to make sure it's contemporary. When was the last time you looked at your site through the eyes of your customers? Many business people don't want to. They recall with dread how tedious it was to create their original sites. They can't face that process again.

But, here's the sad news: your website's never done. It must evolve just like your business. The good news is that updating or even creating a new site is a lot less painful than it used to be. And keeping an outdated site can be downright destructive to your bottom line.

Your website must be your home base for all of your marketing. Everything from your blog, to your email marketing, to your social media must point back to that site. It needs to drive traffic through that front door and to your bottom line.

Not sure if your website's dated? Here are a few signs it's time for a change from Jennifer Lonoff Schiff in her article in CIO Magazine: Traffic isn't converting into sales; bounce rates are high; loading is glacial; and mobile friendly is a foreign concept.

Resolution No. 3: Create relationships with your customers not transactions — Concentrate your 2016 marketing efforts onbuilding customer loyalty and engagement instead of pushing one-time sales.

Gone are the days of mass marketing. Today, smart marketers focus on developing long-term relationships that grow their businesses over time. Companies that build emotional customer connections create brand ambassadors who carry their messages for them. Today, there's easily accessible data that will help you learn what your customers want from you and what needs your product or services satisfies for them. Use it to develop the building blocks of strong relationships that go beyond the transaction.

Resolution No. 4: Use social media to solidify a personal connection — Vow to focus the bulk of your social media posts on content that's useful to your audience. “Hey look at me” posts are tedious and of no use to your customers. Before you post ask yourself, “Is this interesting enough that I'd pass it along to a friend if I didn't work here?” The fact that you have a new machine or an employee celebrating five years with the company never changed anyone's life. Post “news you can use” and you'll use your social media to solidify your position as a thought leader.

Resolution No. 5: Mobilize the power of email marketing to create productive engagements — Learn ways to drive traffic to your site with regular eblasts. Yes, I know we all have a love/hate relationship with email. We hate that it's there. We hate that our inboxes are crammed full. But many of us check our email as soon as we're conscious in the morning and right before we lose consciousness at night. Deliver compact, useful and engaging content through regular eblasts and people will click on the links that drive them to your site. Do it regularly and watch the analytics to see what engages your customers.

Resolution No. 6: Make community service a key player in your marketing efforts — Look into ways to involve your company and your employees in something that both heals the world and is a natural extension of what you do. We have long been proponents of making community service a key pillar of a strategic marketing plan. It showcases your business as an active player in the community. It gives your employees a reason to work together and feel good about what they do

Resolution No. 7: Lose the do-it-yourself marketing — Make the most of your in-house marketing professionals by outsourcing projects that fall outside their skill set. Doing everything in-house is a waste of resources and takes twice as long to accomplish your goals.

Andrea Obston is president of Andrea Obston Marketing Communications in Bloomfield.

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