While you were tubing, floating and relaxing over this long holiday weekend, a generally unacknowledged milestone passed: The official halfway point of the calendar year. Yep. 2023 is officially halfway over as of July 2nd. We know. Time flies darn it.
Don't panic. The idea in bringing this to your attention is to check in on your 2023 marketing objectives with sufficient time to get something started, re-direct if necessary, or re-affirm and keep going. There are only 24 hours each day, but you still have plenty of days to make 2023 a HUGE success for your business.
TL.Authentic offers five tips to perform a mid-year marketing check-up:
1. Review Marketing Measurements:
Access, download and summarize social media insights, email performance, Google website analytics and metrics connected with any and all marketing efforts the business has implemented since the beginning of the year. Dig deeper to access the most helpful info such as:
Google Analytics Acquisition & Path Performance: How do people find you, what are they looking at, how long do they stay and most importantly, do they convert?
SEO - Search results January 1 to date: Where does the business appear? Have you moved up or down? What could you implement to move up the results page between now and YE?
Social: Review Insights across all platforms the business leverages to dig into how posts, reels and the like have connected with the target/s. Dig into shares and engagements to get a solid feel for connection with audience.
Email: For every campaign sent, how many opens, clicks and unsubscribes. Which emails were opened and which were largely ignored? Analyze days of the week sent and time of day to accurately gauge success.
2. Review Audience Reach & Engagement
Are you reaching and engaging with your target audience/s? Have the business attracted the new customers and repeat customers you want to reach? Who are they? How did they find you? Utilize the data you have access to to dig further into the details about who you are engaging with. Be realistic about the time and effort it takes to pick up speed with a new audience. If what you have tried isn't connecting as well as you'd like it to, don't be afraid to tweak your program or try something new between now and year end. If you have not yet spent the time to develop an audience platform, now is a good time to schedule that work. Reach out to schedule an Audience session.
3. Rectify Marketing Spend & Determine ROI:
Summarize or catch up on business inflows and outflows related to marketing from the first six months of 2023. Based on the spend to date, what has generated return and what has not? If the latter, consider pausing or cancelling the spend. What marketing tools and platforms are you paying for monthly? Are the tools beneficial and easy to use? Make adjustments to the marketing spend now to save money and use those funds to try different tools for the next 90-180 days. If you have extra funds available, look at new opportunities or create one yourself to expand your reach through the end of the year.
4. Request & Review Customer Feedback and Satisfaction:
Have you requested and received reviews and testimonials from customers and clients to date? Oftentimes once the work is done or the project is complete, you quickly move to the next project and forget to ask for feedback. Online reviews and testimonials can make a huge impact on your business ~ especially SEO. Take the time to reach out to all customers and clients to date to thank them for their business and ask for a review before the relevant period expires.
5. Develop Strategy Now ~ It's Not Too Late!
It's never too late to develop a 90 to 180-day marketing strategy and plan. In fact, if we parse the year to 90-day efforts, the shorter term outlook will keep you more apprised of what's working and what's not, allowing for easier pivots and quicker adjustments over the next few months.
Finally...
Not sure where to start or need a hand digging into performance or making a plan? We can help! Contact us today via text at 916-827-1599 and let us help you make the best of the rest of 2023!