Four Reasons to Revamp Your Marketing Strategy

Four Reasons to Revamp Your Marketing Strategy

Your work here is done. You established a marketing strategy last year and it went well. All you need to do now is sit back, relax, and let the customers roll in.
Or maybe not. A marketing strategy is not something you can fix and forget – it is something that needs tending, like a garden. And sometimes, it may need revamping altogether.
Here are the top five signs it’s time to go back and rework your marketing plan.

Things have slowed down

Results may improve dramatically when a new marketing plan is implemented, but after a while, some of that growth tends to taper off. Sure, your sales are higher than they were before, but are you growing?

Some things to consider:

If you brought in new customers with your existing marketing plan, are you keeping them?
What about the customers who didn’t see or respond to this marketing strategy – how do you reach out to them?

You are paying for things that don’t work

Even if your marketing strategy is successful, not every aspect of it may be. It’s always a good idea to refresh your plan and look at where your resources are making the biggest impact, and what can be cut. This way, you’re sure to get the best bang for your buck.

Revamping your marketing strategy can include:

Tracking your engagement on social media posts and deciding which types provide the best results
Adjusting advertising audiences and keyword targets if your cost per click is too high
Increasing your budget in areas that are showing success
Decreasing spending in areas that are yielding little to no results
Evaluating who is receiving and responding to your messages, and who isn’t

You are talking to the wrong crowd

A marketing campaign can be very successful if it is getting your product or services in front of a lot of eyes – but if they are the wrong eyes, it may seem pointless. If your ads are reaching people who will not convert to a sale, it may be time to rethink your marketing plan.

Here are some of the people who may be responding to you, but not helping your bottom line:

Browsers but never buyers – they like your content. It’s always good for a laugh, but they aren’t in the market for what you’re selling. Or they are loyal to their existing provider.
Business peers – sure you may have 50 new followers, but they may be your competitors or peers who just want to see what you’re up to or gain ideas to build their own business.
Not the right person for your brand – maybe your hilarious ad campaign really hit well with the teenage crowd, but they don’t have the budget or need for what you’re providing. Maybe they can tell their parents, but the chances are low. Revamping your strategy goes a long way to making sure the right people are looking at it.

Trends keep changing

While something may be clever and funny one week, something else will be the next. We’re not saying you have to change your marketing strategy every week, but it’s always healthy to revamp it to make sure you are following the latest trends.

Things that can change quickly:

The most popular social media platforms – it seems as though there is a new one every day, which can be hard to plan on which ones will stick.
Common phrases, slang, and memes – no one wants to be that guy saying last year’s phrase that doesn’t even make sense anymore.
Platform algorithms – social media sites frequently change the way they show people’s content and get it in front of most people. An annual revamp will ensure you are hitting all the points you need to in order to be successful.
SEO changes – it’s always best to determine if you need to change or add any words to make your website up to date for search engine optimization.

ot only do things change in the marketing and social media world, but they change within your organization, too. Even if there have only been small things that have been altered over time – your company is not exactly the same as it was a year ago.

Evaluating and adjusting your marketing strategy helps you make sure that all your platforms are up to date and you are presenting your current image, not the one you were excited about a year or two ago.

Here at Hoyden, we put strategy first. Our team of awesome people is here to help your organization thrive, and we would love the opportunity to work with you.

How Targeting in Digital Advertising Makes All the Difference

How Targeting in Digital Advertising Makes All the Difference

Digital advertising and marketing have become more important than ever to businesses and organizations. With traditional sales strategies struggling because of canceled events and diminished foot traffic, many have had to pivot their marketing plan to embrace new digital advertising and marketing opportunities.

As with any marketing, your return on investment is very dependent on how strategic you are in your approach. You can very easily throw thousands of dollars away and not understand why you aren’t seeing the results you desire – especially if you don’t have a lot of experience analyzing what impressions, clicks, and any of the other metrics in the reports provide.

Targeting is the key to getting a higher return on your investment with digital marketing. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer stated, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.” Identifying who to target can be challenging, but it is worth the effort each and every time.  If you don’t have the talent (or genius) on your staff, consider hiring an outsourced marketing agency that can ensure you are getting the most for every dollar. Their expertise partnered with your understanding of your ideal customers can drastically improve the results of your efforts.

There are five key areas that can make a big impact on your digital advertising campaigns.

1. Get Granular

One of the blessings of digital advertising is that you can get very detailed in who you are targeting.  The more detailed you get, the better your results.

This may be difficult to understand for some.  It may seem like the more you target, the more opportunities for sales but that is not how it works.  If you really dial in on a specific target, it’s easier to identify if your strategic plans are working.

Imagine you have ten arrows.  Is it easier to hit a target by shooting those arrows one at a time if you have 100 small targets?  Or one large target?  That’s how it works in digital advertising.

2. Play Pretend

This is going to sound silly, but it’s time to put on your imagination hat. Pretend you are one of your customers.  Who are you? What is your age range? Where do you live? Where do you go to seek out information on your problems? How do you stay on top of industry news or get continuing education? What are your interests or behaviors?

Answering these questions will help you build buyer personas that will help you target your digital advertising to the right kind of potential customer.

3. Build Your Library

Now that you have your personas built, it’s time to build your content library with content that appeals to them. Provide the answers they are searching for in their day-to-day work lives. 

More content on customizable landing pages improves your chances to get both paid and organic clicks from your target markets. Content is still king when it comes to attracting your buyers who are searching for the answers your products or services can provide them.

4. Customize the Content

The next step is to actually build your digital advertising.  You need to customize it to the different personas that you have built.  What is going to make them take action and click on the link or ad to go to your website?

The same ad can be customized in many different ways for many different placements depending on the personas you built. Once they get to your content (that has been customized for them as well), the next trick is to capture them as a lead and add them to your sales funnel.

5. Plan to Pivot

The unfortunate truth is that digital advertising is not something that you can ‘set and forget’. It needs constant monitoring and adjustments. As things change in the marketplace or your buyers’ behavior changes – you will also need to change.

You may discover that your personas aren’t quite right and they may not be your ideal customer. You may need to adjust your content, your advertising, or your targeting.

There’s more to digital advertising and marketing than just throwing up some Facebook or Google ads. As with every marketing effort, you need to be strategic in your approach. Otherwise, you’ll be throwing money down the drain and miss the mark on achieving the results you need with your marketing dollars.

If you need help with any of this – strategy, training, setup, or management, please contact us. We would be happy to have a consultation with you to discuss your needs and budget and find a solution that will work for you and your team.

3 Easy and Effective Ways to Wow Your Clients

Let’s pretend it’s a warm, sunny day and we’re running a lemonade stand. You walk by, purchase a cup, and declare “Wow! That is some seriously good lemonade. What do you guys do so different?” Truthfully, a recipe isn’t that hard to follow: proper portions of water,...

3 Easy and Effective Ways to Wow Your Clients

Let’s pretend it’s a warm, sunny day and we’re running a lemonade stand. You walk by, purchase a cup, and declare “Wow! That is some seriously good lemonade. What do you guys do so different?” Truthfully, a recipe isn’t that hard to follow: proper portions of water,...
Making Social Media Easier to Manage

Making Social Media Easier to Manage

Social media has changed the way we communicate as brands. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, chances are your organization has at least one social media account. Unfortunately, that becomes one more thing you need to manage, and it is often forgotten or put on the backburner. Can it be easier? In a word, yes. There are steps you can take to make this less of a time-heavy chore and more of an efficient system that helps you sell. Here are five steps you can take to make your social media easier to manage:

30 Days of Social Media Content

1. Simplify with Scheduling

Remembering to post several times a day on your social media accounts can be difficult at best. On top of that, trying to create good content when you are in a rush is a recipe for disaster. Planning your posts ahead of time is always key, and there are a few ways you can do so.

You can pre-schedule your posts on most social media platforms without a tool or app to help you. Simply creating a spreadsheet or google doc ahead of time is an easy way to keep organized. If you want to take it next level, investigate a social media management tool that will let you queue or schedule posts for all of your accounts, seeing an entire week or month at a glance. This is especially helpful if you are managing a larger content calendar with topics, offers, deals, or sales. If you don’t have many accounts, there are several free versions that might be a good fit to start until you grow into a larger tool. 

We have tried them all and would be happy to recommend one that will meet the needs of both your staff and budget. We also offer social media management tool setup, training, or assistance as a service to help you in this process.

2. Plan for Daily Engagement and Interaction Time

You cannot just post nowadays and hope for the best. If you want to grow your accounts organically over time, you need to set aside time each day for engagement and interaction.

This doesn’t mean you need to respond to inbox messages or comments the moment that they come in, but they will need a prompt response. “Getting to that later” when you are busy doesn’t always work and is a good way to set yourself up for failure. How can this be avoided? Schedule time each and every day for these tasks and handle them in bulk. You will be surprised at how much you can accomplish when you can focus on one thing and aren’t dealing with other tasks.

Other things to do during this scheduled time: invite people to like your page, comment in groups or on others’ posts as your page, and share or like other posts. This is also a good time to boost your content or setup ads or offers. A small budget can get a big return on social media advertising, especially if you target well.

3. Automate Some Customer Service Options

Do customers inbox your social media asking the same questions over and over again? Are there some qualifying questions that you need to ask on a consistent basis with those who contact you? You can save some time by automating some of these functions.

Through the help of bots and using a social media management tool (or sometimes the platforms themselves), you can automate the easy functions. This can save you so much time! It’s honestly not as creepy as it sounds and can be written using your brand voice.

Most management platforms have tutorials that show you how to do this, or if you want training in how to set this up, we can do that for you.

30 Days of Social Media Content

4. Centralize Your Inbox

Social media can be tricky to manage when you have multiple accounts on multiple platforms with multiple logins. Simply logging in to each one and checking your notifications takes a decent amount of time.

How can you make this easier? Centralize that inbox! This is the best gift that any social media management platform can give you. There is only one place to log in and the information for all of your accounts falls into one centralized location. You’re much less likely to get sucked into scrolling social media accounts and wasting precious time.

If multiple staff members are monitoring your accounts, you’ll know what was handled and what still needs to be managed. You can even leave each other internal notes!

5. Carve Out Creative Time

One last way to make your social media easier to manage is to carve out your creative time separately to create your content. Make sure this is protected time, and that you have space and freedom to focus on flexing those creative muscles. This is the time where you create images, videos, and the accompanying posts that go with them – something witty, clever, and eye-catching that will resonate with your target market. 

Carving out this time will make a big impact on how these posts land in the days to come and will make you stand out from your competition.  Focusing on your creativity without distraction will allow you to connect with your customers digitally, which is even more important during these trying times.

Taking the steps to make your social media easier to manage will help you focus on what really matters with your social media – creating content that sells. The pandemic has changed everything, including how you communicate with your customers. Selling your product or service(s) digitally are essential to be successful in this environment.  

If you need help with any of this – strategy, training, setup, or management, please contact us.  We would be happy to have a consultation with you to discuss your needs and budget and find a solution that will work for you and your team.

3 Easy and Effective Ways to Wow Your Clients

Let’s pretend it’s a warm, sunny day and we’re running a lemonade stand. You walk by, purchase a cup, and declare “Wow! That is some seriously good lemonade. What do you guys do so different?” Truthfully, a recipe isn’t that hard to follow: proper portions of water,...

3 Easy and Effective Ways to Wow Your Clients

Let’s pretend it’s a warm, sunny day and we’re running a lemonade stand. You walk by, purchase a cup, and declare “Wow! That is some seriously good lemonade. What do you guys do so different?” Truthfully, a recipe isn’t that hard to follow: proper portions of water,...
Lead Generation that Goes Beyond the Booth

Lead Generation that Goes Beyond the Booth

We are all adjusting to the new normal. New procedures in the office, remote work, masks, and social distancing – the list goes on. Many of us are just returning to work now after being furloughed or laid off during the stay-at-home orders.

 As the dust clears, we try to predict what the remainder of the year will look like and attempt to adjust our budgets for 2021. While much remains unclear, we know that it will not be business as usual.

If the majority of your sales leads came from networking at conferences, speaking engagements, or trade show booths, your future sales pipeline is going to be experiencing some difficulties as your leads dry up. 

So, how can you generate leads when everything gets canceled? Event planners are doing their best – creating virtual booths and networking events – but it just isn’t the same. How can you fill that pipeline? It is hard to transition from outbound marketing (where you physically go out and collect leads) to inbound marketing (where the leads flow into your pipeline), but don’t worry, we have some ideas:

1. Change Your Website

If your sales and marketing process previously focused on building relationships, your website tone was probably on the passive side. Take a hard look at your website – does it sell? You will need to adjust to an active voice and include multiple calls to action. 

2. What is Your Target Audience Searching For?

Your target audience is searching for different things than they were six months ago before the pandemic began. Take some time to investigate search phrases for your industry, target market, and location. The next step is to optimize your content so that you are capturing the organic searches in your industry. Then you can work on paid search ads to help you get featured at the top of the list.

3. Share Your Knowledge

If you are asked to give presentations at these trade shows, don’t keep the expertise to yourself. Your industry still needs to learn and grow during these trying times, it just needs to happen remotely. Consider hosting consistent webinars or training sessions. Not only are these a great digital lead generator that you can advertise, but your target customers will see you as an expert in your field. This builds trust. 

4. Create More Content

With the time saved on travel to these canceled events, employ your staff to create more content. Training videos, demonstrations, blogs, how-to articles, white papers, and case studies are all items that should be in production right now by all staff members – customer support, engineering, and sales staff. This exchange of knowledge cannot happen in person at these events, but it can happen digitally.

5. Nurture Your Leads

Your new leads are going to look a little different than the ones you would get from the conference floor. You know, the one who did a product demo in a booth and had the budget conversation with your sales team. They are going to take a little more nurturing to move them through your pipeline. 

Don’t get discouraged. Change is always hard, especially if your team has been doing things the “old way” for a long time. If you look at this as an opportunity, however, you may be surprised at what you can discover as you go through this process. You may find opportunities for efficiency that weren’t there before. As you shift your marketing dollars, you may find your new digital efforts give you a higher return on investment than these trades shows did in the past. 

Ten Ways to Improve Communication with your Constituents

Ten Ways to Improve Communication with your Constituents

Things have come a long way from the town criers of old. While you no longer post important announcements in the village square or pay someone to yell at those who pass by, the need to communicate with your constituents remains.  

As with any communication, there is always room for improvement. Ask yourself, do your citizens feel informed by your organization? Are there sections of your population that you just aren’t reaching? Are you getting the right message across to the right segments at the appropriate time? If not, here are some easy ways you can immediately improve communication with your constituents.

Digital Crisis Strategy

1. Reduce Government-ese

Chances are if you work in government, you are fluent in government-ese. You probably haven’t even realized that’s a new language you have acquired. Quick – update that resume! Unfortunately, most of those in the community you serve do not speak this language, which makes most communication from government sources confusing for the public at large.

Review your communications before they go out to the public with an eye towards plain language. Does it sound like something said in a committee meeting? How would you explain it to your neighbor? Lean towards the latter and your community will begin to listen to what you are saying.

2. Centralize the Source

If you are a larger organization with multiple departments, consider having one single Public Information Officer (PIO) that coordinates and reviews all outside communication to the public. Timing is very important when it comes to press releases, and sometimes information from multiple departments can be combined into one efficient release to the public.

Additionally, the PIO will be able to ensure that the information gets to all the sources of communication and no channel will be missed. This will allow for one single media contact for the press, easing interview scheduling and facilitating talking points for the issue at hand. 

Having a single point of contact also allows one person to be the “keeper of the brand” to make sure all messaging and imagery are consistent with the brand guidelines your organization has developed.

3. Don’t Make It Difficult

How hard is it for the average Joe to navigate your website and figure out where their tax dollars are going? Do you even have a website? Government websites, when they exist, are notoriously cumbersome due to the multitudes of information they need to provide the public.

Having an outside source perform a digital audit is a great way to get insight into improvements you can make. There are often small changes that will have a big impact on how your citizens access or understand information from your organization.

4. Accessibility Matters

Is the information that you are providing accessibility to everyone in your community? How are you communicating with those not on social media? What about those without internet access? In today’s climate, it is important to communicate or do business in a way that reduces in-person interaction.

Is your website accessible for those with a disability or those who speak another language? If you are advertising, are you considering non-traditional methods or advertising in other languages? Accessibility matters in communicating to your ENTIRE constituency, not just your traditional listener. Furthermore, if you aren’t reaching a segment of your citizens, you may be risking litigation.

5. Massage the Message

Before you hit the send button, think about what you are sending and how it will land.  What questions are people going to have? Can you answer them? If not, what CAN you tell them? What information is missing? What do you need to explain? Even if you understand it, chances are, the public does not. If you’ve told them before, remind them again. We are a forgetful people who have a million messages flying at us constantly.

Finally, if you want people to change a behavior or do something new, give them the WHY.  Tie it to their life so they can understand how it impacts them and why it matters.

6. Pay to Play on Social Media

The days of high organic reach on social media are sadly over. But with a small budget, you can increase the reach and engagement on your accounts by specifically targeting those within your geographic area.

If you are trying to access previously hard-to-reach segments of the population, targeting through demographic qualifiers offers a great way to do that. This, in turn, will help increase the followers on your account which will assist in your organic post reach.

7. Be Everywhere

If there is a message you are trying to get out in your community, it should seem like your citizens can’t turn their head without seeing your content. Website and emails are great, but how else can you communicate with your community?  

Website retargeting ads, social media ads, print advertising, radio advertising, media pitches (for news story coverage), billboards, posters, bus advertising, newsletters, opinion editorials, and in-stream video advertising are just a few examples of ways to saturate the market with your message.

But wait, can this be done on a budget? Absolutely! You just need to be strategic about where your media spend is spread so you can get the biggest ROI for your community.

8. Make Friends with The Media

Journalists want to help you report the pertinent news to those within your community.  Help them help you. Your centralized source should be on a first-name basis with all the journalists in your area – press releases should flow from you to the media, and the media should always be able to contact you for comment before running with a story. If they don’t, there may be some relationship work to do. Don’t treat them like the enemy, they are your friends, but the relationship goes two ways.

Journalists are very open to pitches as well. Is there an angle to a news story they don’t know about or haven’t thought of? Is there someone you can help arrange an interview for? Do you have any additional background information on a story they may be investigating? Make their job easier and everyone will benefit.

9. Engage Your Audience

Angry and frustrated citizens often feel unheard. Great communication involves hearing AND listening. What forums do you have to listen to your constituents? If you’re thinking the 3-minute public comment section to address your board, council, or commission during your public meetings is the answer, you’re missing out.

Don’t expect emails, letters, and phone calls to be sufficient either. Go to where your citizens are and be open and honest, and let them know you want to hear from them.  Solicit feedback. Townhalls, forums, community events, and surveys are all great ways to round out your listening toolbox.

10. Strengthen Your Stakeholder Network

Meet with your stakeholders regularly to create an open dialogue. They are your allies and will help you in these endeavors, so share information with them on what you are trying to communicate to the public. They have their own network and can spread your reach farther than you alone. Together, you make a strong community, and it helps if everyone is on the same page.

These are great, easy steps to take, but this is just the beginning of your journey. If you need help in further developing your communication strategy, let us know. We have experience consulting with many municipalities, counties, state departments, and economic development organizations. It doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg, either. Outsourcing part of a project or an entire department is often a great way to help reduce costs and increase efficiency in times of budget reduction.

Digital Crisis Strategy
4 Practical Post-COVID-19 Marketing Tips

4 Practical Post-COVID-19 Marketing Tips

2020 will go down as the weirdest and most disruptive year for business in recent history. Organizational leaders and business owners are managing massive changes and looking at scenarios that seem to alter on a weekly basis. While many are looking to completely revamp their marketing strategy, mostly everyone is looking to modify their marketing plan and budget for the rest of the year. We’ve put together some practical ideas for getting your marketing going in the coming months. 

 1. Take Care of Your Customers

Communicating with your customers is more important than ever. Take a proactive approach and let them know how your organization is dealing with reopening, how you are adapting to keep your employees and customers safe, and how you can continue to provide them with phenomenal products and services. Be available to help them solve their problems in any way that you can and communicate that over and over again. Avoid clichés and overused statements and focus on being sincere and authentic.

Even with a thinning budget, figure out creative ways to provide extra value and strengthen relationships. If you take a true customer-centered approach you will strengthen the value of your brand with your clients.

2. Don’t Bury Your Head in the Sand

If your organization has suffered severe disruption, it is not the time to be paralyzed with fear over your marketing. Even now, we’re working with clients on new marketing strategies and tactics to help them take advantage of the current situation while also identifying future opportunities. For many of our clients, that means developing webinars, creating social media web videos, updating neglected websites, designing digital advertisements, and implementing automated marketing and email marketing campaigns.

3. Develop the Right Messaging

We are not at all advocating for changing your corporate identity or engaging in sleazy marketing tactics, we are suggesting it is time (for most organizations) to develop clear messaging about your differentiating factor and unique value. We’ve implemented this principle ourselves by developing a new website that more accurately communicates the problems we can solve for certain clients and beginning inbound marketing practices and digital advertising for the first time in our company’s history. It’s important that your marketing quickly and concisely tells people who you are, what you do, and why they should care.

4. Take Advantage of Free Marketing Platforms

If your organization has not taken a massive hit during this pandemic, you should be investing even more money in your marketing. Research has shown that this tactic yields success during economic downturns. But if you need to tighten your marketing budget there may be free marketing tools that you can utilize while you get your organization back on its feet.

  • Canva is a free graphic design solution that you can use to design social media graphics, posters, and more.
  • Unsplash and Pexels are great resources for free professional photographs you can use on social media and your website.
  • Vidyard allows you to set up a free account to create videos for your marketing.
While unpredictability is rampant for every organization, there are many opportunities that leaders can take advantage of to optimize their marketing efforts and come out of the 2020 Twilight Zone with a happy ending.