The first few months of the new year are a great time to take a detailed look at your current marketing strategy.
This especially holds true thanks to the unique challenges many Raleigh businesses faced due to the 2020 pandemic. While there currently is no end to the pandemic in sight, revisiting your marketing plan will allow you to make the necessary course adjustments and set your business on course for long-term growth. Read on to learn more about the five ways you can improve your marketing strategy for 2021.
Go with the Flow
If you’re like most Raleigh businesses, you most likely had to make some changes to your marketing plan when the pandemic broke out in early 2020. Perhaps you created a content campaign or engaged in digital advertising to make up for lost sales. Regardless of what you tried, it’s now time to analyze the results. Look at your internal data to see what did—and more importantly—what didn’t work. This will allow you to stop the marketing dollar bleed and try out new ideas. You should also check to see which marketing messages resonated well with your audiences and then continue to use them in 2021.
Branding Refresh
Chances are that your brand has grown, expanded, or otherwise changed materially over the past 12 months. Maybe you had to pivot your business in 2020 to stay afloat or take advantage of new revenue opportunities. Look closely at your current branding to see if it still reflects your business, brand value, and what you have to offer your customers. If there is a disconnect, perhaps it’s time for a professional branding refresh? It will provide you with a consistent brand identity that sets your business apart and charts the course for future growth. It will also allow you to leave your competitors in the dust as your brand actively speaks to new audiences and encourages them to do business with you.
Look at Your Target Audiences
There’s also a decent chance that your core audience base has changed over the past year. For example, if your business now offers online ordering and curbside pickup, you might have unwittingly attracted an entirely new audience—those who are tech-savvy and value social distancing. Look at your sales data from the past 12 months and try to correlate similar characteristics amongst your top customers or clients. Once you’ve figured out who those people are, it’s now time to focus on changing your marketing plan so that you can speak to their interests and core values.
Build More Trust
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Have you ever given any thought as to why people continue to do business with you? It’s most likely because your business has established trust in the minds of your loyal customers. Consider focusing your 2021 marketing efforts on building and improving trust while strengthening relationships. You can achieve this through content marketing, which comes in many forms, such as:
- Targeted blog posts
- Email outreach
- pdfs and other collateral
- Videos
- Podcasts
All of the above will help instill more trust in your audience while at the same time improving your brand recognition. By demonstrating that you understand your customers, their pain points, and providing them with viable solutions, you will give them a reason to return time after time.
Consider Print
If you’ve focused the majority of your budget on digital advertising, and aren’t seeing the desired results, perhaps it’s time to take a good hard look at incorporating printing into your marketing strategy. Print allows you to create memorable and long-lasting touchpoints in the customer journey. Unlike digital advertising, your printed marketing materials won’t disappear when someone clicks the “Back” button on their web browser. Digital fatigue is a very real phenomenon in today’s modern world. People have grown tired of seeing the same old online advertisements. Print will allow you to reach people in a medium that they haven’t been accustomed to in a very long while. You can also use print to enhance and improve upon your digital market efforts. For example, you can include a QR code, social media handle, or website URL on your brochures, catalogs, and direct mail pieces. This will allow you to take the offline conversation online.
Expert Marketing Help in Downtown Raleigh
Revisiting your marketing plan for 2021 will allow you to chart a course that will enable your Raleigh business to attract new customers and improve upon your brand recognition. At AlphaGraphics of Raleigh, we can help you design, create, and execute the perfect marketing plan. To learn more about how AlphaGraphics of Downtown Raleigh can help with your sign and marketing needs, you may
email us,
request a quote, or call us at
(919) 832-2828.