With the New Year just around the corner, you’re probably putting the finishing touches on your marketing plans for 2023, if you haven’t already!
As the UK wades through some rough financial seas, many businesses are worried about what to do with their marketing and how they’re going to keep a consistent flow of revenue coming through the door.
If that sounds like you, then this blog post is especially for you!
We wanted to share five things you should consider adding to your 2023 marketing plan if you want to increase your revenue, keep your customer retention high, and actually come out of the recession in a stronger position than you were before!
So, let’s get right into it!
Don’t cut back on your marketing – invest in it!
Starting the New Year in a recession will be a cause for concern for any business, but this panic results in companies making fatal mistakes, like cutting their marketing budget to the bone.
With bills and costs soaring, cutting back your spending might sound like a good idea to prevent your profits from dropping, but marketing is the one area that you shouldn’t be cutting back on!
Instead, you need to invest your budget and time into making your marketing campaigns as efficient as possible.
In the 2008 recession, marketing and advertising budgets dropped by 13%, but data shows that the businesses that maintained or upped their marketing output saw 350% more brand visibility!
The only way to fight rising costs and keep your business growth on track is to increase and maintain your monthly-rolling revenue by bringing in more customers and retaining your existing ones – check out our recent blog post for more on marketing during a recession.
So, if you’re worried about how the recession will impact your business in 2023, optimise your existing marketing campaigns, be smart with your investments in new channels, and aim to improve your customer retention, as well as your customer acquisition.
If you need help generating ideas on promoting your business amid the recession, check out our Free 1-2-1 Growth Workshops!
Start posting on LinkedIn
Over the last couple of years, LinkedIn has evolved massively.
It’s gone from a professional, job-sharing and recruitment site to a place to tell inspiring personal stories, share tips and tricks from your industry, and build meaningful connections with your audience.
Although many people are resistant to the changes LinkedIn has gone through, there’s no denying that the platform has been, and still is, evolving.
I regularly see people on LinkedIn who have amassed huge audiences, increased their sales significantly, or built their businesses almost entirely through the platform!
But what’s holding many people back on LinkedIn is their confidence and not knowing where to start. They don’t know what to post or how often they should be posting, and they feel they don’t have something worth sharing.
But if you’re an expert in your field, or know things others don’t and would find helpful, then get posting!
If you’re worried about how to structure your posts or schedule, start connecting with some awesome LinkedIn creators, watch what they do, and create a similar strategy.
One of the biggest regrets many of these big creators have is not posting on LinkedIn sooner!
So start posting a few times a week, post about anything – share some tips from your industry, lessons you’ve learnt throughout your career, or chat about your plans for the New Year – there are no rules!
If you want a few more tips, check out one of our recent blogs, 6 Ways to Grow Your LinkedIn Audience.
Build an email list – and use it!
Creating valuable email content for your audience is the way to go if you want a better way to nurture your leads and keep customer retention high.
But to do that, you need a good email list, so here are a few tips to encourage your audience to join your mailing list.
Give your users a reason to join
See all that traffic going through your website? To build a mailing list, you need to capture their attention and give them a reason to hand over their email address.
If you run an e-commerce store, you can create a pop-up that offers them 10% off their next order if they sign-up for your emails.
If you run a consultancy-based business, offer them a free audit or consultation in return for signing up.
If you create content that educates people, offer them a free guide, template or framework that they’ll find helpful.
Offer them something that’ll entice them to join your mailing list, and then make sure your email content is good enough to keep them around!
Shout about it on social media
A strategy that many great LinkedIn creators are adopting is using the platform to engage with their audience and provide value before shifting them over to their mailing list and nurturing them towards conversion.
Although a lot of work goes into their social media and email content, the process is quite simple:
1.) Post insightful/educational/funny/valuable content – give them a taste of what they might find in your email.
2.) Put a call-to-action in the comments like ‘Want to see more on XYZ? Sign up for my weekly XYZ email here!’ with a link to the sign-up form.
3.) Use the same insightful/educational/funny/valuable content style and tone of voice in your email content, but turn the value up a notch. Give your audience something that’ll make them want to stay and learn more – like a free tool or template.
4.) Track the people that use or download your free tool or template, and reach out to them directly with a personalised offer on one of your products or services.
This process can help you engage with your audience on social media and encourage them to sign-up for your newsletter. From there, you can use in-depth, valuable email content to nurture your audience and turn them into sales-ready leads.
Create super-valuable gated content
I mentioned this a bit in the ‘Give your users a reason to join’ point, but it needs its own section.
Gated content is one of the most effective ways of building up your email list and providing a lot of value to your audience at the same time.
The idea is you create a really in-depth piece of content, like a guide, e-book, digital magazine, online tool, or template that your audience can only download by filling out a form.
It’s a simple exchange. A user fills out a form with their name, occupation, and, most importantly, their email address, and then they can access the content via downloading from your website or an email you send them.
As long as they’ve ticked an opt-in box that they’re happy to receive marketing emails from you, you can reach out to them with tailored offers based on the content they’ve interacted with.
For example, if you run a Health & Safety consultancy, and one user has filled out a form to download a ‘Complete Health & Safety Checklist’, you could reach out and offer them a free audit of their current health and safety policies.
Automate some of your processes
Automated tools have become far more prominent in marketing over the last few years.
While we’re still quite a way off full marketing automation, and whether we’ll ever get to that point is an entirely different topic, there are still a load of helpful AI and automation tools that you can use to save time and improve efficiency.
Here are a few areas that can see improved efficiency through marketing automation:
Web chats
If you have a lot of customer enquiries or support requests coming through your website, using automated web chats can help improve customer experience and save you time.
Operating your web chat constantly can be a massive drain on resources, and for most businesses, it just isn’t realistic.
So, set up a few automated responses to solve the issues your customers ask about frequently.
This means your customers can still find the answers they need and solve issues they’re facing without you having to monitor your web chat 24/7 or cover the same questions all the time.
For more complex questions or issues, you can set up an automated response letting your user know that their message has been received and that you’ll get back to them within a specific timeframe.
Email automation
Email automation is already widely used by many businesses – whether it’s form submission confirmations, order confirmation emails, or shipping updates.
So how can you use email automation in other ways?
Check out these three examples of automated email processes that can help you retain existing customers, welcome new ones, and increase revenue.
Welcome Emails – When you sign up for an account online, you’ll typically get a generic automated email saying, ‘Thanks for signing up. Please verify your email here’. But what could really grab your customer’s attention, is a welcome email jam-packed with insightful info! Maybe include some links to your recent content pieces that they’ll find helpful, give them a quick update on product/service changes that you’ve introduced recently, and maybe even include a personalised offer for them!
Abandoned Cart Recovery – If your e-commerce website is a bit of a leaky bucket in terms of sales, then you need to set up some remarketing emails. Abandoned cart emails are often sent to customers that have added products to their basket but left the website before completing their order. So, emailing them with a 5% discount will help get more people back on your website and give them an incentive to complete their orders!
Lead Nurturing Emails – Lead nurturing is a big part of keeping your email audience engaged and turning them from leads into customers. For example, if you offer software packages with a free trial, you could send an automated email to trial users suggesting a call to discuss how they’re finding the platform and answering any of their questions. If, when they come towards the end of their trial, they have auto-renew turned off, you could send them an offer like ‘Stay with us after your trial ends, and we’ll give you 15% off your first three months’.
Finding opportunities to automate some of your email marketing processes and keep your customers engaged can significantly impact your revenue generation.
Content creation
Content creation is another area of marketing that is seeing more input from automated tools and AI systems – with the latter being somewhat controversial.
Automated posting looks like Hootsuite and Buffer make creating and scheduling content ahead of time super simple, which is great if you don’t have the time to draft up new social media or blog posts on a daily basis.
AI is also starting to play more of a role in content creation, with AI writing tools able to string together almost complete blog posts that actually make sense.
These tools are a great way to get a quick post outline that you can expand and tweak with your knowledge.
Something to note is that AI content tools are still a long way off, and the content pieces they create will likely need a good amount of editing. But, if you regularly suffer from writer’s block, they’re great for giving your posts a kickstart.
Create more human experiences
While marketing automation can have a huge impact, you also shouldn’t underestimate the power that personalised, human customer experiences can have on your customer engagement and conversion rates.
The issue with the continuous digitisation and automation of marketing channels is the lack of human interaction that your customers receive.
With most online stores having automated chatbots, automated order confirmation emails, and automated tracking updates – users can shop without ever needing to speak to an actual person.
So how do you create an emotional connection with your customers that’ll keep them coming back for more?
By humanising your digital marketing.
Creating more emotionally compelling website copy, a memorable tone of voice in your emails, and directly engaging with your audience on your social media accounts are all ways to create a stronger connection with your potential customers.
Check out a blog we posted recently about why you should focus on humanised marketing in 2023!
Need a helping hand with your 2023 marketing plan?
I hope this blog post has given you some fresh insights and maybe a few nuggets to go away and add to your marketing strategy!
But if you still need help with your marketing plan for 2023, then book a Free 1-2-1 Growth Workshop at Damteq HQ!
During your free 90-minute session, you’ll sit down with Damteq’s founder, Adam, and some of our Growth Marketing specialists to chat about your biggest challenges with your business growth and marketing and how you can position your brand for success in 2023.
You’ll leave with a better understanding of how to market and grow your business online, and you’ll also get the following:
- A free website and user experience review
- A free Google ranking audit report
- Advice on the latest and greatest digital tools and trends
- Advice on how to generate leads for your business
- Marketing strategy guidance based on your specific challenges and goals
