Preparing for 2016: Reviewing Your Campaign

Do you want to give your campaign a makeover? Is it time to access your current strategies to determine if it is working? If your fiscal budget begins in the New Year than it is high-time to review your current marketing and advertising campaign. Today on the blog, I am giving you a guideline for reviewing your campaign to help answer the above questions and place your company on the right path toward success for 2016. 

1 | Define Your Goal

Surprisingly, many companies dive into a marketing and advertising campaign blind. By defining your goal for 2016 you should know the following: where your want your company to be present in the media, who you want to reach, where you want to focus and why. This will enable you to define your goal and create a start line for your campaign. 

2 | Determine Your Budget

Determining your budget is one of the most important things to consider in reviewing your campaign! Did your company suffer losses in 2015 and cutting back is necessary? Did your revenue increase to allow you to market in new areas? Whatever your situation maybe, your company's funds will weigh heavily in your marketing and advertising decisions for 2016.

3 | Audience

Consider who you want to sell your services and/or products to and how you will grab their attention. By deciding strategies that reach your intended audience you will have a successful campaign. The flip side of this is pushing marketing and advertising through random channels without a strategic action plan - a strategy I strongly discourage! Lastly, audiences are constantly changing the media they use and it is important to stay on top of marketing trends to keep afloat. 

4 | Communication Media 

Communication media refers to channels you send your message: billboards, radio, magazines, etc. The means by which you send your message to your target audience will make or break your campaign. If you do not chose the correct media to relay your message than it will be lost in translation. By reviewing your budget and audience, you are able to determine which media you can effectively reach your consumers and stay within your finical means. 

If you believe that your current campaign strategy needs to be revamped, contact me via the form below to decide the best ways to reach your key audience. 

 

Preparing for 2016: Strategies to Make Marketing Easier

When it comes to preparing your company for the New Year, I think we all agree that anything that makes the marketing side of business easier is always better! While today's blog may not be the easiest pill to swallow at first, it will enable you the tools necessary to make marketing and planning easier. 

1 | Create Goals

Challenge yourself to write down all of the realistic and "reach for the stars" goals you'd like you company to achieve during 2016. Once you have written them down, let's make them happen! Whether it be to network, gain more press or book more clients there is never a goal that is too large or too small! I want you to take that list and post it in a location that you will see each and every day. This will not allow yourself or your employees to disregard those goals or put them on the back burner. Remember, your goals will only help you grow! 

2 | Determine Your Ideal Client

What are the demographics of your ideal client? How can you reach them? Will that strategy coast a fortune? These are all questions that you should consider when determining your ideal client. Deciding the type of person that you want to target is important because not only is that the audience you would like to work with, but also the audience that is in need of your product(s) and/or service(s). Once you define your ideal client, we can then determine the marketing strategies to reach them instead of haphazardly marketing through random selection. 

3 | Create a "Date Night" with Your Blog & Social Media

This is an important one, friends! Choose one night each week to write and schedule your social media posts and blog. I always suggest working on this on a Sunday or Monday evening, but of course you should choose what day works best with your schedule! Before start scheduling your social media, take a moment to review my previous blog post on social media timeliness! Trust me when I say that you will be so glad that you scheduled these post when the day-to-day tasks begin to takeover your schedule. 

4 | Create Your Own Stock Photos

Here is your next big challenge: create your own stock photos! Enlist photographer to help you create stock images for blog, social media and portfolio to fall back on when needed. It is true that visual marketing is a hot ticket for 2016, and you do not want to fall short going in to the New Year.

5 | Hire Someone! 

This may be a favorite strategy among some of you! There is nothing wrong with waving the white flag and surrounding to a third party to help make your marketing more efficient and effective. If you believe that this is you, be sure to fill out the form below to learn how Magnolia Media Public Relations can be of service! 


Top 3 Personal Assistant Tools

Ever feel like your to-do list is never ending? When my to-do list takes on a life of its own, I find myself needing a little push of motivation to get those tasks completed. Truly, I need something extra to help me stay organized! While I am a big advocate for a beautiful, bound planner to hand-write many of my appointments, to-dos and notes, I, like many modern business owners, have succumb to digital means to keep track!

Today, I am sharing my three favorite personal assistant tools that have been a life-saver to help me keep focused on my tasks and goals at hand. Hopefully by including a short description for each tool, you'll find the ideal app or software program that is perfect for you and your business. 

1 | EasilyDo

From flight itineraries and car reservations to organizing receipts and monitoring my social media, EasilyDo has quickly become one of my favorite, interactive management apps. Of course, this app keeps up with all of the standard organizing such as creating calendars and reminders; however, it goes above and beyond in the level of organization. Also, I just love the aesthetic aspect of EasilyDo as it makes everything more fun to compete! The best part? EasilyDo is free!

2 | Quip

If it's good enough Mark Zuckerberg, it is definitely good enough for me! Quip is the perfect collaboration tool that makes teamwork fun. Professionally, this app that has helped me check-in with my clients and keep the both of us focused on important and time sensitive matters. Like Easily Do, Quip is a free app for both Android and iOS! 

3 | 17Hats

I am saving the best for last with this personal assistant tool! To be honest, 17hats grabbed by attention because they sponsored so many Facebook posts that appeared on my newsfeed. For fun, I used their free trail feature and to say that I was pleased does not even cover my excitement over how 17hats streamlined my projects!! All of the multiple documents and software that I use for my business are placed in one easy-access area that is 17hats. I am in love with this program, but since it is not a free software it is not for everyone!

4 Instagram Branding Tips

Did you know that Instagram has beaten Twitter in the number of active users? Media outlets, like CNBC, reported Instagram surpassed the 140-character platform by recently hitting 400 million users. In this visual world, it is no surprise that we are seeing social networking take a turn toward this new, popular medium.

If you are a new Instagram user it could be easy to get overwhelmed by other brands who have had a long-time presence, which is why I am giving four marketing practices that will help you stay focused and promote your brand! 

1 | Build a Community.

There's a reason I keep mentioning this throughout blog posts on social media marketing. By building a community on social media you are creating brand ambassadors for you company. The easiest way to do this is by creating a unique hashtag your target audience can follow. Do your research to find a hashtag that relates to your company, has not been used before and add it to every Instagram post you use. Not only will potential clients use this to learn more about your company, but there is a big chance they will join in and use the hashtag too! 

2 | Promote Your Instagram Everywhere. 

Promoting your Instagram on your Twitter, Facebook, blog, etc. will drive more traffic to the account. Do this by sharing posts directly from your Instagram account to other accounts, post a direct link to your Instagram page (www.instagram.com/[insert your username]) on Facebook and add the Instagram icon to your blog and website.  

TIP: Sharing posts directly from your Instagram to your Facebook is great to promote your new account; however, do this sparingly. Your followers will become bored with your accounts if you consistently do this and you could lose them! Always publish different, fresh content on each platform as much as possible!

3 | Keep Your Feed Beautiful. 

Keeping your Instagram feed beautiful means that the editing style (i.e. filters) and sizing of your photos are consistent. Whether you decide on warmer tones or a luminous look, choose one style and stick with it! In addition, finding the perfect dimension will also keep your feed beautiful. While there are resizing apps, Instagram newest sizing feature makes it easier for everyone to size photos that will perfectly fit the regulated dimensions. 

4 | Use Diverse Content. 

By using diverse content for your Instagram feed you are not only keeping your feed beautiful, but also keeping your audience from getting bored from your content. My suggestion is to post  as much creative content as possible, but sharing is great too (don't forget to credit the original publisher!). Whether you show images of a typical work day, use quotes or tips, diverse content that aligns with your brand will keep your audience invested and interested! 

Want to learn more bout social media marketing? Contact me today!