It’s the end of the year, and you have a ton going on. Promotions, busy schedules, holiday planning. It’s easy to let the marketing slide when you have so much on your plate, especially when you’re scrambling to wrap things up before you log off for the holidays. We get it!
That’s why we’ve created this handy end-of-year marketing checklist of ten simple things you can do to make sure you are on track to finish the year strong and start next year off on the right foot.
1. End-Of-Year Marketing – The Final Holiday Push
If you haven’t already implemented a holiday marketing campaign, now is the time to do it. Utilize the timeliness of social media and email to share special deals, coupons, seasonal products, and gift-giving opportunities, or even ask your customers to complete a year-end survey. Get creative and have fun with it. This is a great opportunity to showcase your brand’s personality and connect with your customers.
2. Say Thank You
Speaking of connecting with customers – the holiday season is a great time to reach out to customers and strategic partners and show your appreciation. Offer up discounts or specials to your loyal customers as a way of saying thanks. And a nice gift to your partners is a thoughtful way to celebrate the successes they have helped you reach this year.
3. Review This Year’s Analytics
Take a look at every touch point in your marketing strategy – website, SEO, social media content, email, digital ads. Review your analytics to see where your business performed and where it fell short. What sparked engagement and resonated with your audience? Examine what worked and what didn’t and remember to compare this year’s data to the year before so you can get a better idea of your growth or decline.
4. Consider Upcoming Trends
Take a look at the upcoming trends in your industry and in marketing strategies. Staying on the cusp of what’s new is a great way to get an edge on your competition.
5. Set Marketing Goals
You’ve put a lot of hard work into your marketing, so you want to be able to track your efforts in a way that allows you to review your wins and losses and shows you where you need to change. If you can nail down next year’s first-quarter strategy now, things will go much smoother for you in the craziness of the new year. In addition to the data from your analytics, get feedback from your team. Ask them for suggestions on how you can improve your marketing initiatives.
6. Develop Your Marketing Budget
Now that you’ve reflected on this past year and set your goals, you’ll have a better idea of what type of marketing budget you’ll need. Decide how much money to allocate each month and stick to the plan.
7. Update & Optimize Your Website
Your website is one of the most cost-effective pieces in your marketing toolkit. Keeping your website up to date with SEO, design, functionality, and user experience is crucial. Most industry-leading companies do a website refresh at least a few times a year to update their latest services, promotions, or products, in addition to staying on top of things like page loading times and mobile-optimized features. Keep in mind that 92.3 percent of smartphone owners use their phone to search online, so those mobile-friendly features are crucial.
8. Do a Social Media Sweep
Take a look at all your social channels and see where you need to do a refresh. You may want to update imagery, like your profile pic, to keep your brand fresh. Rewrite your bio to add in relevant keywords. Make note of your top-performing content, determine why it worked, and build on that. Start filling in next year’s social media calendar with relevant posts that include eye-catching graphics and well-written captions.
Did you try Facebook Live without much success? Check out our tips and tricks for Facebook Live to see more engagement and maximize your return on what can be a fabulous video social media tool. Then, add in a few more Lives in step 9.
9. Create an Editorial Calendar
One of the most important items on any end-of-year marketing checklist is planning your editorial calendar. It’s a good idea to create a quarterly plan that aligns with your overall business or sales goals, but we also recommend creating a monthly high-level calendar. The quarterly editorial calendar helps maintain the big picture, but a monthly calendar allows you to make adjustments along the way. Start thinking ahead about any big campaigns you may want to run – think seasonal holidays, trends, etc. – any trends your audience will be following.
10. Get Support Where You Need It
There are a lot of perks to having a strategic marketing partner. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your end-of-year marketing strategy – or you have a strategy but need help implementing it – Fly Pages is here to support you. Our team has a collective 100 years of experience. Let us know what you need, and we’ll come up with a plan to help!
