All small businesses are in high gear as they not only work through the year but continue on the uphill climb of the COVID pandemic.

Many small businesses have made changes that have been implemented into their operations to keep business doors open. Mask mandates are lifting as millions become fully vaccinated across the country – and while the virus is not gone, life is beginning to resume in many faucets and businesses can utilize the adjustments they made for the pandemic and many marketing principles to execute high priority and visible campaigns to aide in optimal results for the remainder of 2021.

Same Tactics Different Application

Through each of your previous year’s campaigns, you can distinctly identify consumers that will be interested in your brand and certain products or services within. How can that continue through the rest of the calendar year? Be mindful that 2020-2021 may skew results one way or another and adjust expectations accordingly from what the trends before 2019 were showing with how 2020-current timing is shaping up to be.

• Data – bringing in your analytics team to debrief on the results of the previous year’s campaigns are crucial to shaping the next campaign and strategy.
• Calendar Keywords – just as you would have a content calendar for social media, blogs, podcasts, etc., you can align those tactics with specific keywords that will help boost sales during planned campaigns and the in-between. Also, what have your consumers been looking for on your website? Those keywords need to be accounted for in a mid-year strategy adjustment.
• Adjust Retargeting Ads – looking at the data to segment your audience differently for targeted ads may help during the low periods. These inexpensive, but effective tools can help drive traffic to your site.
• Highlight Seasonal Favorite Items – during seasonal campaigns many are inclined to review the items received or they gave as a gift. Use the highest-rated items from the seasons to re-promote during the lulls. If your company has a specific service that was invaluable during the pandemic, using those reviews to influence new goods or services may provide a new direction for strategy.
• Build Excitement – offer a competition or sweepstakes after large seasonal campaigns to keep and foster enthusiasm for your brand and products. Of course, being mindful of your consumers and their behavior during the pandemic is a must in how the language of campaigns are developed.
• Social Media – the most powerful tool to story tell and engage with your consumers. Create thoughtful stories for followers that resonate with seasons, trends, issues, etc. Being able to utilize the platforms your company has to learn from your consumers during the “downtimes” to understand interest during different times of the year will only be beneficial to shape larger campaigns and to fill in the gaps.
• Experiment – the lulls are the times to play around with new ideas whether it’s through social media, paid advertising, or print. Taking your results to shape these risks could grant high rewards that can be used in or reshape the larger campaigns.

Being able to mix in your company’s main brand strategies and mission with different opportunities that are shown through the analysis of tactics above are worth putting into a calendar to understand the true lulls of the year with the high priority campaigns. Incorporating strategies that worked in the previous year for specific days on the calendar can be transitioned and refreshed for a new holiday or time period.

Digital Deliverables

We know everyone keeps saying it, but we all truly mean it – Digital-First! The world was already plugged in and moving at a 5G pace, but with the coronavirus, everyone and businesses had no choice but to become fully invested in the digital world. Orders, communication, human connection, operations – are all online. Businesses no longer can take their time with adapting or increasing their digital presence – it must be done now! We may be seeing more of each other, but businesses must utilize this time to evaluate and execute on creating a larger online presence.

Evaluating your current website to include information about what your business is conducting during this time while utilizing different web forms and features that allow for communication on how your business processes have adjusted for interaction with clients. A key component to this will be ensuring your website is mobile-friendly, as many users view online items from their smartphones.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will also be very important for users to find your business. When triaging your website, make sure to include the keywords and phrases that should be included to optimize your site that will allow for preferred placement in search results. It’s key to point out that many do not search in just one or two words, but in full sentences – in tandem with voice search. Adapting your SEO to how consumers actively search the internet will help elevate your company’s profile.

Activating (or re-activating) your social media accounts on channels that are relevant for your business will increase awareness for your current consumer base, but also will create organic traffic of new consumers interested in your company. Being present and engaging on social media with your consumer base and potential consumers will naturally help fuel your business’s potential. Even if your post is not a sales-specific post, your consumers will find it interesting enough to like, comment, and share the post to their network. Engagement is just as important and sale conversions.

User experience (UX) is crucial in the re-evaluation of your marketing plan. Is your website optimal for your consumers in terms of ease of information gathering and decision making in converting to leads, sales, etc? When evaluating the UX, it should also be determined that the mobile view of your website is user-friendly with how certain features of your site are displayed on a cell phone screen. Is it time for mobile app development to start in your business’ discovery process on resources and timing?

Fully integrated interactive content marketing can encompass includes video, shareable content, quizzes, surveys, and highly engaging visuals – such as infographics. Your audience wants to be engaged and educated. If you can incorporate both into interactive marketing pieces that hold your audience’s attention for more than the average 7-second span, then the likelihood of converting is higher. Video will only continue to grow as the main form of interaction with your consumer base as everyone will watch at least one video a day and are more likely to interact with that brand through video. The great piece about interactive marketing is that it has the opportunity to be extremely fun, innovative, and educational about your brand. The variety of video formats alone allow for your brand to create great content on a daily basis – from short to long-form, live, interview, animated, etc., the possibilities are there!

All digital channels of communication should be taken into consideration when building strategies for the remainder of the year and what deliverables can be utilized and leveraged for each portion of a campaign.

Lead Generation & Automation Increase

This marketing tactic will continue to be in demand as workforces decrease for companies that need to reduce overhead in order to stay afloat with the pace of sales. Automation software helps alleviate manual marketing actions that will increase lead generation for your company.

Some of the items that marketing teams choose to automate are emails, social media postings, and digital ads. With the ability to schedule dates and times your automated activity can include specific variable messaging that is triggered to consumers based on their activity and behaviors in relation to your company’s and purchase history.

Catering to Your Community and Consumers

In extreme and difficult times, businesses may not be able to receive the same sales activity, but can still be hope for their community. Intentions are good with business forsaking their own needs to help those with greater, which are rewarded from loyal customers and new that have found an appreciation for businesses looking beyond.

When it comes to its simplest form – how can brands curb the craving from overindulgence that the seasonal or large campaigns invite?

Consumers will want to spend as much as possible while knowing they are receiving the best deals. So, how can companies use that lust the consumers have to power through to the next campaign?

What the everyday consumer wants:

• Incentives – What will I get for buying your product or using your service? What’s in it for them?
• Sales – How much do I really have to pay? What discounts are you offering?
• Engagement – What will be my in-store shopping experience and service from your company? Will my overall user experience online be satisfactory?

Keeping these key features in mind when developing new strategies for your year will be crucial in how much you stay in the black vs red before the end of the year

Customer experience and personalization are very important when looking to cater to your consumers.

The consumer is increasingly becoming highly engaged and educated. How can highly personalized marketing pieces be accomplished? Segment your data!

Personalization doesn’t have to mean adding the consumer’s name in the email, it also means adding specialized messages that can still be sent out to a larger group by segmenting your data. This allows for multiple versions of one email to be sent to several different groups easily pending on you slice the data.

Adding data variables within your copy is another example of achieving personalization without having to create thousands of individual emails. Provided you have the right email platform to help you achieve such personalization. If not, and this aspect is important and needed to your overall marketing strategy, then looking into new vendors should be high on action items for the remainder of 2021 for years to come.

Finishing out the Year Right

Reviewing your companies marketing tactics used in the first half of 2021 can start to form one large question that companies will be asking themselves – How do we utilize what we currently have and what can we acquire in new resources that personalizes the experience for our consumer and build sales? Technology is a very helpful and necessary tool, but your company can not take the human interaction and touch out of the cultivation and stewarding experience in order to maximize conversions.

When determining your branding and marketing efforts for the remainder of 2021 and beyond, contact Colleen Eakins Design to set up a consultation to learn how we can best support you.