Writing a strategic marketing plan for 2021
As the year draws to a close, businesses need to develop their 2021 marketing strategy. Typically, businesses must start working on their marketing plan on October and finalize it by December 1st at the latest. This window provides ample opportunity for proper research and planning. You will have enough time to get valuable help from different employees of your organization.
However, due to the current economic uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, “the sooner the better” is the key to developing a 2021 marketing plan. This is the year you need to accelerate your planning cycle, which allows you to analyze and adjust for impending market changes and move around easily.
Although marketers can’t predict what will happen in the new year, we can use what we have learned in the last nine months to improve our marketing strategy for 2021. A marketing strategy describes how a business accomplishes a particular mission or goal; That includes the type of campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they use to execute that mission and track its success.
It would be foolish to write a comprehensive article that gives each job a precise formula for defining its marketing strategy; Because each job is unique and there are so many variables that need to be considered when writing a guide. So it’s better to help companies figure out how to control it by finding marketing trends. Trends are usually independent of economic factors, but not this year.
Of course, the big difference affecting changes in marketing investment in 2021 is the devastation that COVID-19 has caused worldwide. Although there have been winners in some areas where demand has increased, many have declined. Regardless of those areas, low-cost or no-cost growth methods are more important than ever, and remember that eliminating marketing during a crisis can erode brand equity and increase marketing costs when you start. It will be again.
The purpose of this post is to identify the key areas that you should be aware of when preparing your marketing strategy, and tips on how to evaluate these sections are provided.
Here, let’s take a look at the new “marketing rules” you want to realize as you try to market yourself in 2021 and beyond.
While the marketing environment is constantly changing, there are some fundamental elements that have no time limit.
For example, one of the unchangeable rules of marketing is that you must use personal context in your marketing efforts to get the highest results. The difference is in how you present the text in a relevant way. This means that you need to be more aware of your customer and consumer needs than ever before. Internet access and its full integration with our culture means that your customers have a greater ability to research you carefully that they are not afraid to use.
Therefore, your marketing team must be as active and alert as the consumer you are trying to target, which means that your marketing approach must be genuine, relevant and customer-oriented. This is the heart of modern marketing, also known as Inbound Marketing.
The input method is a way to grow your organization by creating meaningful and lasting relationships with consumers, prospects and customers. Why? Because when your customers succeed, you succeed.
The input method can be applied in three ways:
Attract: Attract the right people with valuable content and conversations that will establish you as a trusted advisor with whom you want to interact.
Interactive: Provide insights and solutions that align with your pain points and goals so you are more likely to buy them.
delight: Providing help and support to empower your customers to succeed in shopping.
When customers find success and share that success with others, they create new perspectives for your organization by creating a sustainable self-loop. This is how your organization moves, which is why the input method serves as a solid foundation for your marketing cycle.
1.How you treat people is a reflection of your brand.
We have all heard the phrase “the customer is always right” once or twice in our lives. This may be a cliché, but it seems to be true. If potential or existing customers are upset, they pay attention to how businesses respond to scenarios that directly identify or feel represented.
To do this, you might start by creating a marketing campaign that includes the following:
* Online and fast response system
* Customized customer service emails for customers.
* Examine accurate content that has an empathetic position on your customer issue or no position at all.
* Follow up on every customer review with a positive response and solution to show your appreciation for their feedback and purchase. This one should be organic and professional.
2.You need to know your customer more than ever.
You need to find out what your customers want, but not just the moment when the core values of each of your customers make their current and future responses to your marketing. And it’s very easy to go wrong with disastrous results for those who lose the right “tone” in their marketing.
To do this correctly, take the time to formulate your strategies and ask yourself:
* What kind of deep pain points do my ideal clients have?
* Do I offer products, services or other solutions to these problems?
* Which keywords are going to attract customers and support my inbound marketing approach?
* What kind of in-depth research do I need when creating a marketing personality that accurately reflects my potential customers?
3. Give your customers results-oriented content.
You can provide better services when you know more about the people you want to serve.
Customers want to see results, but the modern consumer also wants to know how you got there and whether their convenience comes at a moral cost.
To provide results-oriented content, try some of the following:
* Show your customers how your business products or services solve their problems in a way that recognizes them as more than a dollar sign.
* Keep up the flow without looking opportunistic: Your customers are smart and can tell by realizing that you are real or that you are just there for a moment to sell.
* Continue to provide well-researched content to your customers to stimulate organic growth and update what is not good for your quality.
4. Strengthen your customer service team.
If customer service has never been your priority, you should include it in your 2021 plan, because according to research, 49% of customers no longer buy from their brand due to lack or poor customer service.
As you work to improve your 2021 marketing plan, take the time to find potential answers to your customers’ questions and provide appropriate answers. Social media is a great tool for tracking down your customers’ questions and concerns; make sure you don’t leave any questions unanswered. Also, do not forget that time because 75% of customers want brands to respond to them before 24 hours, which leads to a loyal customer.
You already know how vital your online presence is when trying to reach the ideal customer. If you have not already invested some of your marketing resources in your email, social media and website, your business may suffer, unless you prioritize it.
However, some methods of modern customer interaction are more successful than others. Take a look at some of the digital marketing rules below, as well as when, what, why, and how digital marketing works.
1. Provide quick insights.
Customers can usually tell within three to five seconds whether your website includes what they are looking for or whether they should ignore your content. In marketing, this is often referred to as the “blink test” and makes infographics one of the best ways to deliver value to your customers.
These types of images provide important information that your customer needs. According to research, people process digital messages 60,000 times faster than text, making Infographic one of the most effective ways to communicate with customers, especially on social media.
2. Make it easier to find yourself.
More than 60% of smartphone users have tried voice search services at least 12 times in the past 12 months in the United States, and 55% of teens use them daily.
This means that digital marketers should focus on keyword research that supports voice search. That way, when their audience uses these services, their business will succeed.
Learning how to market on social media platforms is an integral part of your business success in 2021 and beyond. Searching for statistics for any operating system is a great way to understand the process and where you need to focus your efforts.
According to Statista, in the first quarter of 2020, Facebook reached 2.6 million monthly active users. However, the data also show that the United States relies heavily on LinkedIn, with a total of 160 million active users in April 2020. So keep in mind that the bed you choose depends entirely on a greater understanding of your ideal customer.
3. Create content that makes your audience feel valued.
Your audience does not want to see posts about your products or services. They want to see stories from your company about ways to solve their problems.
While not neglecting voice search, this growing trend will somehow increase your audience. But do not invest a lot of time and effort in it, because according to the findings, the fact is that voice search on mobile and desktop has less impact on the practical implementation of SEO for most businesses, and regardless of the increase in voice search, the game It remains practically constant for SEOs.
Thus, businesses can change search behavior by focusing on SEO principles such as keyword research, best page optimization techniques, structured data, and creating high quality content.
4. Focus on credible content.
Does the content you submit jeopardize your company’s reputation? Do you respond to comments that are harmful?
Social media focuses on conversations, no matter if they are group or individual. Your content should seek to stimulate that interaction in a positive way.
5. Cooperation and interaction.
Your social media marketing needs to be original and transparent whenever you engage with your audience. Look at the conversations on your network and think of ways your company can provide you with valuable information.
6. Do not force interaction
In today’s business environment, your audience can easily interact with your company with your circumstances. This means that you should not force your customers to interact, but you should provide a platform for them to interact enthusiastically with you.
Instead, they develop deeper relationships that reinforce purposeful conversations. This is exactly what internal marketing principles are all about.
7. Create visual content
While the content you produce should be relevant to your audience, how you present your content is also important. According to research, 68% of consumers are interested in video content, of which 50% like to engage with video content.
So when planning your marketing for 2021, take a look at last year’s popular textual content and find ways to turn it into visual content to enhance your engagement.
Although none of us can predict what will happen in the new year, we can apply what we have learned from 2020 to our future strategies and instead of guessing what our customers are up to. Like it or not, you can access data on consumer behaviors and preferences to guide them through planning. With a deeper understanding of your audience, you can tailor your strategies to strengthen the brand relationship with consumers and start 2021 stronger.
Now that we have reviewed some of the rules and requirements of marketing, it is time to look for the answers to 6 basic questions to formulate our marketing strategy plan:
1. How much did you grow last year?
Are you happy with the same growth next year?
If so, consider how much of your 2020 marketing strategy needs to change. The least mobility in a competitive environment can mean that by copying last year’s marketing plan, you are 80% ahead.
2. Which marketing channels have the most value in the last year?
Are you still using traditional channels alone or have you considered new channels?
What combination of marketing channels will be most useful to you?
3. What is your growth schedule?
Do you have to grow 10% every month to keep your job? Does your team realize that exponential growth often requires a longer time horizon?
If you need continuous growth, short-term investment is better, pay-per-click or PPC ads (Google ads, LinkedIn ads, Facebook ads, etc.). In a few months, you will have a full understanding of the cost of customer acquisition (CPA) and you can increase your costs to achieve growth goals. In the long run, search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing will help you see exponential growth and much lower CPAs. Most SEO efforts to see the pull take 3–6 months, which is difficult for the boss to explain in the short term.
4. How has your competitive landscape changed?
Evaluate your competition and how competitors are evolving:
How has the competitive environment changed over the past year? And how do you expect that to change next year?
Are your big competitors trying to market digitally? Have they started to attract more in organic search rankings?
What do smaller competitors do? Do they grow significantly?
Perform a SWOT analysis to see how you cope with the newly updated competitive environment.
Strengths: Which one can you invest in? What value does the offer mean most to your ideal customers?
Weaknesses: Which one should you focus on?
Opportunities: What should you try in 2021?
Threats: What should you watch out for?
5. Is your market saturated?
Do you operate in an intact market where you can work with your competitors to grow your industry? Or are you operating in a saturated market where one customer has less customers for you than your competitor?
The advice for those who are not in the pristine markets is to look for opportunities to partner in larger marketing competitions with their competitors to increase awareness of their industry. And for those in saturated markets, think about how they can improve the customer experience to retain existing customers. Think of weaknesses in competing jobs that you can attack to gain more market share.
6. How has customer feedback been over the past year?
Were customers satisfied with your products / services? Or did you get a lot of complaints?
Try to isolate the customer’s biggest pain points:
Product-oriented complaints indicate that your product is not durable.
Sales-centric complaints show the result of the sales team’s misbehavior.
Customer service complaints are about not being able to get timely answers to support questions.
Excellent customer experience leads to repeat and referral purchases. Providing a great customer experience is the basis of many of the most successful companies in the world. Marketing has a tough battle ahead, unless you prioritize your target customer.
The next step in building your 2021 marketing strategy is to understand how your marketing efforts interact with your sales efforts to generate revenue.
A potential customer realizes that they have a problem or need. Starts researching the issue to find out more about the topic. In the process, it discovers several potential solutions. The potential customer evaluates those solutions and decides on them. Later, he ponders whether that choice has solved their problem. If so, they will probably use that solution again and recommend the same solution to their friends.
Review 2020 marketing costs
Take the time to review last year’s marketing costs. Here, we will break down marketing costs by channel (both in terms of time and cost) and return on investment.
Identify the cost per hour of marketing activities
Set an hourly rate for your marketing to compare apples to apples.
The best way to look at this is to look at time tracking for your marketing team. If you do not have this data, you can estimate how long your marketing team has been working this year.
Identify total marketing costs
Now consider the total dollar per hour, billboard costs, Google advertising costs, and more. Divide these costs into advertising channels and then specify the main purpose for each advertising channel.
Create your marketing goals
Identify one or two key metrics that can be used to evaluate each marketing goal. Review last year’s results to identify the number of each metric that each channel met.
Based on the cost allocated to each channel, you can now divide the exact cost of completing the goal for each advertising channel as well as the estimated amount to complete the goal.
Here are some common marketing suggestions:
1. If you are looking to buy a customer, focus on PPC and SEO
Time and time again, investing in PPC and SEO brings the best return on investment for the jobs we use.
If you have a steady marketing budget, replace parts of your PPC budget with additional content marketing and SEO measures as you start attracting more than organic search.
PPC investments lead to linear growth. Investing in SEO leads to exponential growth.
By scaling your organic traffic visibility, PPC is a reliable measure of your business growth. However, investing in PPC can quickly get out of hand. Those investing in PPC should pay close attention to the cost per customer (CPA) and profitability of each customer to understand how long PPC will be a smart investment for their business.
2. Invest in social media to strengthen your brand
Social media is a powerful tool for businesses looking to improve their brand understanding or connect more deeply with their customers.
Social media is expensive considering the time it takes to invest in it. However, it is a powerful tool for those businesses that care about their brand. Do not forget to be online on social networks and respond quickly and appropriately.
3. Spend on brand awareness for intellectual sharing
The rate of return on billboards and TV commercials is questionable at best. However, these channels, as well as lifestyle-oriented content for your customer, are to increase brand awareness. All of these help you to have them in your mind first when customers realize they have a need.
These channels also help you prescribe your solution before the customer realizes the need. This helps to create market share, especially in saturated markets.
4. Plan to support digital transformation
Digital marketing research reveals many challenges in terms of how digital marketing works in today’s companies. Problems include a lack of focus on integrated strategy, testing and optimization, and structural issues such as teams working in silos or lack of integrated communication skills.
To address this type of problem and make the most of business growth opportunities through digital marketing, many businesses are already implementing a digital transformation program. The goal of digital transformation is to create a roadmap for improving digital capabilities and skills, while integrating digital marketing activities with brand and product marketing in business. Many businesses are evolving to achieve this goal through success factors.
To test your digital readiness for integrated digital marketing and separate channels, download free digital marketing benchmark templates or select interactive ability ratings. These templates give you a quick overview of digital marketing dominance and key channels such as search; Social, email marketing, plus content marketing analysis and digital experience.
Think about each of these items and look at your performance over the past year to create the perfect marketing strategy that makes sense for your unique business needs, while not neglecting to use marketing in the world. They have gone from artificial intelligence and augmented reality and virtual reality techniques, which shows that investing in these areas should be one of the items in your 2021 plan. Be sure to maintain or increase the saturation of your business communications as you plan your 2021 marketing plan. This will allow your business to get the most attention from customers and prospects and create the right situation as you begin to recover from the epidemic.
Resources:
1.https://junto.digital
2.https://blog.hubspot.com
3.https://sproutsocial.com
4.https://www.smartinsights.com
5.ttps://cmasolutions.com
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
