Make 2016 your best year ever! Start 2016 with some new habits, strategies, and tactics to crush your marketing and your business. Remember… the more you market, the more money you make (and the more reach you create!).
We’ve compiled a list of easy ideas and strategies to implement in January to kick off the year with focused marketing efforts.
All of the fresh ideas stem around building your brand online, connecting deeply with your audience, and providing loads of value.
#1 Get Up Close and Personal with Your Values.
Know exactly what your core values are. Understand what motivates you and drives you in business, and the beliefs that hold your brand together.
Your values are actually an essential element in your brand strategy.
If you don’t have a brand strategy, you need one!
It’s the water to your fish gills. Really, your brand strategy reminds you why you’re in business. It helps you connect clearly to a mission, vision, and a big dream, and serves as the emotion-invoking side of your business plan.
Having a brand strategy focuses your effort in business to your values and helps you make key decisions in marketing. It’s the backbone and strategy in your business.
#2 Get Your Marketing on Fleek…
Bring style into your business. Update your imagery, social media posts, and add more personality into your brand.
Personality sells. People buy you, more than they buy the product that you sell. Take a look at how you are presenting yourself and your brand. Is it on fleek? Does it match all the subtleties and nuances of your unique brand?
If not, then get on out there and give your brand a makeover. And if you’re already on track, just see how you can add a subtle update and pack more personality in your brand.
#3 Support Yourself and Invest in Your Business through 2016.
The more support you have and create, the faster you can grow. Don’t get stuck in trying to do everything yourself or bottlenecking your business.
There’s loads of ways to feel supported. Whether this means investing in monthly software or hiring a new employee, support is available to you in many capacities! We just picked up some new software called CoSchedule—and I can’t tell you just how much this software has already supported us for ramping up for the new year!
CoSchedule has helped us plan our content calendar and social media calendar all in one great interface.
#4 Get Ahead in Your Business.
Take the next few weeks to get ahead. Many entrepreneurs are doing things last minute—signing clients, posting blog posts and videos, etc. Get ahead for the beginning of the year. Do everything you can to catch up all your work, projects, content and sales up for the first few weeks.
When you’re not always focusing on what needs to go out last minute, you can prepare for other projects and create new projects.
We’re already ahead a few weeks for blog posts at d.science! Woohoo!
#5 Create Stronger Connections with Your Audience.
Strong connections build trust for your brand. Reach out to your audience members and actively find ways to connect with them. Offer booking 15-minute calls to get to know people on your list and in your audience… no strings attached. Just get to know people!
You can write postcards to your wonderful audience members and clients, reply to comments on your blog, chat in Facebook messenger, and catch up on your commenting through Instagram. Jump on Twitter and make some new, personalized Twitter videos too!
#6 Build a new Optin Free Offer.
New year… new offer! If you have a free opt-in offer on your website to give value up front and build your list then give it a makeover. Either update what you have now, or create something entirely new to dazzle your audience!
Use tools like Canva and Grammarly to create your new ebook, or bust out your phone and shoot a video.
#7 Don’t Miss Out on Pinterest!
If you haven’t been spending much time in Pinterest, your opportunity is now. Google should be shaking in their boots at the image-search capacity that Pinterest is becoming. It’s a sleeping giant right now. If you put your energy into Pinterest, you’ll find your return soon enough!
We’ve been getting loads of new traffic at d.science organically and from Pinterest paid advertising. I highly recommend it!
Start by adding your content to your boards (from your website), and promote them as ads if you can. Make sure the pins actually look like they belong in Pinterest. You can do this by using a pre-designed Pinterest template in Canva.
If you’re looking for some inspiration, check out our Pinterest account.
#8 Create a Passive Way to Make Money On Your Website.
The simple way to make a passive income is to develop an e-course or e-book to sell on your website. A course can be you walking through video tutorials on how to do your new favorite thing (related to your business or blog of course).
Another way to make a course is to develop a series of workbooks, or write a book and publish it as an ebook. If you offer group programs, you could even record the group sessions and sell them as an e-course.
There’s tons of places to offer your online courses and content. Check out Teachable, Udemy, and Skillshare.
#9 Schedule a New Webinar or Live Video.
Live video streaming and webinars allow your audience to really get to know you. AND they give you an amazing opportunity to offer tons of value in the session. The more value you give away for free, the more trust you build over time.
Do you have an introductory topic that is common knowledge that all of your clients would need to know to work with you? Give your audience the insight and education by creating a live training or webinar. You can use platforms like GotoWebinar, Blab, or Periscope.
#10 Install a Heatmap on Your Website.
When I discovered heat maps, I discovered magic! But seriously, the heat maps are incredible. After you install it and set the start date, the heat map will show where people clicked on your website, how many times, etc. within a specific time period.
This is valuable information to restructure your website to better accommodate your users. If you knew exactly where people were clicking above the fold, and in your navigation then you would know how to position your content and help the user get where they want to go faster!
My favorite tool for heat-mapping is Sumome.
#11 Pick One Social Media to Master.
This year, hunker down and become an expert in one social media. Make a habit of posting every single day. Get to understand the unique culture present in the platform and the types of posts and content that do well.
Make a point of connecting with your audience and others in the platform. This year, I’ve chosen Snapchat. Instagram and Pinterest are rising tremendously in popularity this year, so check them out!
#12 Join a New Social Media to Explore.
Social medias are always growing and dying. Some make it huge (the Facebooks and Twitters out there), while others fizzle out (like TSU and Ello).
Exploring the new platforms creates a habit where you’re always learning and quickly adapting to new platforms. Who knows, maybe you’ll get on the next Facebook! I find that it’s worth investing the time to learn them, even if some of them fizzle out.
I’ve been discovering great success for networking in Blab, and rallying a community in Periscope.
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