Where should you spend your marketing budget?

This is the time of year that many marketers begin looking ahead to the upcoming year.   It’s always good to consider where new opportunities exist, where small wins can be parlayed into big campaigns and where previously discarded ideas should be reconsidered.

Since we work mostly with mid-sized, traditional companies (think HVAC, food brands, commercial equipment), our recommendations are geared towards that audience.   Some of these tactics have been around for years.  However, partly due to maturing marketing efforts by companies – and partly due to improvements in ad/promotion technology, it seems like a good time for companies to consider these four tactics:

Remarketing

Remarketing allows you to reach out to website visitors who don’t identify themselves by filling out of a form or signing up for a newsletter.   You can use this technique to keep the interest of certain website visitors. For those businesses with seasonal products or services, you can use your remarketing database to promote your seasonal product or service line by reaching out to your previous season’s website visitors.

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Video marketing

Still don’t have a YouTube channel?   A video can be used for promotion, education or product support.   Videos are rapidly becoming the norm for how consumers get their product and service information.   You can optimize videos for search and make sure your message is showing up where people are watching.   YouTube now has a rich set of video marketing options (paid and organic) available to savvy business teams.

Hangouts on Air, Video Skype, inexpensive tripods and powerful phone cameras are all contributing to video creation becoming more affordable to businesses.  Interview your CEO for a two-minute segment that would be of interest to your clients.  See where it leads.

Once you have a YouTube channel, try out YouTube remarketing.  Reach out to anyone who has watched your videos on YouTube.  You can craft a specific video message to reach people who have expressed interest in your videos.

Social engagement

Many companies have had false starts with social media.   It’s time consuming and resource intensive.   Actively managing a social channel requires people to change their behaviors – which rarely results in success.

Focusing your social efforts might be the key.  Some of our clients who have started using LinkedIn are meeting with early success.   It’s a rich environment with company pages, forums, personal profiles, polling, search tools and the ability to reach out directly to a prospect.

Of course, you can always trust your social media efforts to a company like PML.  Pricing has never been more affordable.

Webinars

Demonstrate thought leadership in your industry by running relevant, information-packed webinars.   Since webinars can be recorded, you are also able to employ video marketing tactics every time you conduct a webinar.  Free webinars are one of the best ways to build your list with qualified candidates.   Supercharge your efforts by layering in Inbound Marketing to nurture leads over time and eventually add them as a client.

Do you have an internet strategy for 2015?  What are you planning?   We’d love to see your questions or ideas for other marketing tactics in 2015. Drop us a line in the comments section!