Top Tips from Lush Marketing
Are you a bit disillusioned with marketing your business? Do you want to make some changes to how you market your business? December and January are the best months to look to the year ahead. They are also great times to implement some changes. Here are a few tips that we have found transformed how our customers looked at marketing:
1. Target Customer
Are you directing your marketing efforts at the right type of customer? It is important to sit back at least once a year (more preferably), to look at the type of customer you are targeting. You should write down 3-4 “persona” types. These can have fictional names associated with them and these are then who you are targeting. It is best to think of actual past customers when creating these persona types, or indeed who is your ideal future customer. The exercise of writing down your customer personas makes you think about the customer overall – not just name, age and gender. Go beyond that! What are their likes and dislikes, income, education, marital status, where do they live, what are their hobbies and interests, what are their buying behaviours like?
It is amazing that when you do this exercise what lightbulb moments happen! It makes you look at what might not be working with your marketing and why.
2. Content Planning
For anyone that has attended training with me, or that works with me, you will have heard me say “content is king”. In fact content is king and queen! Without content, what do you publish on your website, social media, email newsletters, adverts, etc? If you’re too busy to create content, then outsource the job (I can help you there!) or set aside a timeslot each week, fortnight or month to plan ahead. With any content creation, you can write, plan and schedule in advance. Twitter recently published a nice little calendar with key dates for 2020. Think along the lines of all the Hallmark dates such as Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, etc. There’s at least one date in each month in 2020 that you can create content around. For example, you might want to “share the love” and encourage customers to share your content around Valentine’s Day. If you plan content in advance, even some of it, won’t that make your life easier?
3. Regular Content
One of my big bug bears is around lack of consistency with content. I have come across hundreds of businesses that paid big money to create a “slick” website, but don’t post regular content. If you paid big money for a website, or even if you didn’t, you should be publishing content regularly. The simplest way to do this is via a blog. Aim to post at least one blog per month – ideally one blog per week, but that might be a bit ambitious initially! Don’t just do one as a New Year’s resolution in January – keep up the good work!
Social media is another sore point for me! I hate to see irregular content on social media platforms – it is just lazy! Set aside some time and schedule a few days, weeks or months of content in advance. There are lots of free or low fee platforms to enable you to schedule your social media posts. Just do it!! If you have gone to the trouble to create a social media account for your business and have reached a good following (or any following), then keep in touch with them. Tell your customers about your business!
Get these basics right!
We could go on with another 20 tips to get you started in January. However, the best advice is to concentrate on these basic things and the rest can flow. If you get the basics right about targeting the right customer, the right way and with the right content, you will see the rewards of a more concentrated marketing effort.
Sometimes a fresh perspective, focus and set of eyes helps when working on your marketing strategy or plan. At Lush Marketing we offer this to our customers. Sometimes you want to do all of the marketing yourself and we encourage that. However, by booking a 2-3 hour session with us could help to give you that new focus and direction that you need. We can steer you in the right direction and set you off spending your time and money more effectively.
Contact Jill Lush directly to make your appointment for a fresh start – or call 086-8353123.
Wishing you all the happiest Christmas and the best New Year in 2020!