This meme made the rounds online in late September. If you’re like our team, some days you still feel like you’re processing 2020, especially when it comes to digital marketing. The digital world is constantly changing, and the pandemic accelerated its evolution.
But 2022 isn’t waiting for us — the new year begins this Saturday!
If you’re the New-Year’s-resolution kind of person, maybe you’re already brainstorming a list of goals you’d like to reach in 2022. If you’re not, you empathize more with the people who flood their local gyms every day in January but, by mid-March, they’re hardly using their memberships.
Perhaps your mind immediately goes to personal goals when you hear the word “resolutions,” but have you thought about setting some achievable goals for your 2022 digital marketing strategy?
Brainstorming and committing to New Year’s resolutions can feel daunting, and we know you’re responsible for a lot already. We thought we’d provide some key resolutions for your team’s 2022 marketing strategy. With a little planning, they’re easy to execute too.
Resolution #1: “We will work hard to make every interaction between customers or prospects a positive experience.”
Even with all of the technological advancements in advertising, word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) is still the most effective advertising strategy. As recently as June 2020, 93 percent of consumers said friends and family were their most trusted sources of information about brands and services.
If your business has a small advertising budget, this is really good news for you because WOMM is free advertising. You can improve WOMM by making small internal and external changes to how you interact with current and future customers or clients.
How can you create positive experiences at every touch point with your target audience online and in person?
Meet with your team before the year ends to discuss ways to improve WOMM marketing. If you’re a service company, we wrote a blog earlier this year about ways to garner more WOMM at little or no cost to you! You can read it here.
Resolution #2: “We will create valuable content for our target audience.”
The online market is noisier than ever. One way to stand out among competitors is to provide valuable content for free.
Content that’s “valuable” to your target audience helps them solve a problem, learn something new, or entertains them. The most valuable content is also something people can put into practice today, regardless of whether they have or haven’t invested in your product or service.
We know you’re online because you want to sell your product or service online. But your target audience isn’t online to buy something most of the time. Because the digital market is so saturated, they’re also looking for businesses that empathize with their problems and offer value in advance.
In the new year, what free content can you create that shows empathy and demonstrates authority in your industry?
Blog posts are a great place to start, and we wrote a blog about — well — how to write valuable blog posts here. Lead magnets, an email series, and YouTube or TikTok videos are other means to deliver valuable content that generates leads for your business.
Resolution #3: “We will only focus our digital marketing efforts on 1-2 channels.”
Marketing is a full-time job (or several full-time jobs). You can’t do it all, especially if you’re running a business too or just getting started with your digital marketing strategy. Many of our clients come to us because they realize they can’t run their business and market their business at the same time.
The number of channels you could use to market your product or service is overwhelming. Instead of trying to market your business on all of them, concentrate your marketing efforts and resources on 1-2 channels in 2022.
Do you have an email list but no email marketing in place? Focus on an email marketing strategy in 2022.
Do you know your target audience is primarily on Instagram, but your profile might as well have cobwebs because you never use it? Create a content calendar for January-April this week and start working on posts you can schedule in advance — read more about why you should schedule posts here!
Have you heard about LinkedIn’s growth but don’t have an account? In 2022, resolve to learn more about LinkedIn and start using the platform.
Having a strong marketing game on a couple of channels will go a lot further in reaching your target audience than poorly executing a marketing strategy because you’re trying to juggle too many platforms.
Focus on 1-2 channels in the new year. Your target audience will take note of your commitment to excellence, and you’ll have the margin to run your business too.
Resolution #4: “We will make sure our website is user-friendly and markets our product or service.”
Earlier this year Google rolled out its latest algorithm that analyzes 3 “core web vitals” — loading time, interactivity, and visual stability — to determine search rankings. This algorithm affected your website’s visibility in search results whether you knew it or not.
In a nutshell, these core web vitals are good measures of how user-friendly your website is. Even if Google hadn’t implemented this algorithm, we know you’d still like to provide a user-friendly experience on your website! Remember, you want to create positive experiences for your target audience, and we all know that websites with bugs are not positive experiences.
In 2022, set aside some time to update your website with these core web vitals in mind. We wrote a blog here about some ways to do this and improve your search ranking.
The new year is also a good time to evaluate your website based on marketing principles. We know it can be exciting to finally launch a killer website… but it’s important that everything from design to copy is marketing your product or service too.
Does everything from design to copy speak to your target audience? Will people know what problem you solve quickly? Do you have a clear call to action on your website?
We share some questions here your team can ask to ensure your website not only looks great but also sells your product or service in 2022.
Our team wishes you a happy new year, and we hope these resolutions give you some concrete marketing goals for 2022! We know marketing your products and services while running your business takes a lot of work. Schedule a call today if you need our team to handle your digital marketing strategy so you can focus on your passion. Let’s take your online presence from functional to exceptional together in 2022!
