Online Marketing Strategy Plans For 2016

The early bird gets the worm.

Or, at least, you have much better odds of getting the worm than those who procrastinate.

Now that the end of the year is approaching, this might naturally feel like a good time to slack off. Alas, there is pivotal research and planning to be done!

Take advantage of the new year and use this as a time to gain momentum.

When you take the time to plan ahead, you are more likely to budget wisely, use your time more efficiently and think up creative tactics to beat out your competition.

A new year brings new opportunities, new obstacles and new goals. Do some brain storming and figure out what those are for your business!

Read my below-mentioned ideas about what you should do in December 2015 to get ahead for 2016.

Online Presence:

• Change any mention of 2015 text on your website (including the Copyright at the bottom of your website) to 2016.
  
• Consider changing out long-term graphics on your website that are out-dated. Freshen up your website (like you would freshen up your brick and mortar store.)
  
• Update your Sale/Clearance items on your website. Make sure that your site isn’t still offering old items that you’re out of, and consider putting items from early 2015 on the Sale list.
  
• Do some research to find any industry-related holidays or any holidays in 2016 that your audience would really enjoy and set reminders for them. These holidays can be mentioned on social media, in email marketing, for sales or as graphics on your website to increase engagement and to increase attractiveness to your audience.
  
• Check your Google Analytics stats to find when your website traffic increased and when you had an increase in lead-capture forms being filled out. Find out if you had a particular sale, Google ad, social media post or e-mail blast at that time to cause the spike in visitors or leads. Whatever worked in 2015 could very well work in 2016. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.
  
• Also, use Google Analytics to find out what pages got clicked on the most and make sure those web pages are easy to find on your site. Consider linking to those most popular pages more often on social media, in e-mail marketing or for PPC ads. If your site has web pages that barely get attention, consider changing up the page’s text and adding images.

Marketing:

• Every year, Facebook, Google, Twitter and the biggest social media platforms, search engines, etc. change their algorithms or other features that change the best way to market your products or services. Read up on those company blogs and other leading influencer blogs about the best current practices or upcoming changes for 2016.
  
• Check online directory sites and make sure your business information is up-to-date.
  
• Look at your marketing budget from 2015 and calculate your ROI to determine what marketing practices were successful and which ones were not fruitful. Remember, don’t fix what isn’t broken. But at the same time, marketing is about educated trial and error, so, as an example: If Google Adwords didn’t yield the results you were expecting, consider changing up the keywords you’re using, as opposed to stopping it altogether.
  
• Update your marketing goals for 2016 and keep your marketing goals and your marketing plan in writing. Goal ideas: an increase in average website visitors, increase in conversions, a higher email open average, more followers on Facebook, an increase in the number of people who use store coupons, etc.
  
• Research upcoming webinars that can teach you new tips and tricks, as well as upcoming conferences in your industry that would be educational.
  
• Reflect on social media. Your social media presence is a public showcase of your business. Did you have enough time to utilize social media to share information with your target audience? Did you have enough time to engage with people on social media? If not, consider hiring a marketing agency, like us, to manage your social media for 2016.

Public Relations:

• Find industry publications that your target audience reads and download their media kits to view their editorial schedule for next year. Find topics or features in certain issues that pertain to the products or services you provide and contact the publication to find out if you can offer them editorial content for those certain issues.
  
• If you don’t have someone within your company to write press releases about your business, we can help. Creating press releases for business milestones or updates will help spread awareness about your company, it helps with SEO for your keywords and website, it produces more content to share on social media (as well as your blog and e-mail blasts), it provides your business with publicity, it introduces your business to the media and it establishes creditability for you and your business.

Advertising:

• Check any Google ads or any long-running ads to make sure they’re providing an ROI. Make any necessary changes to update them, keep them fresh and effective. Get rid of or change anything that isn’t bringing you leads, because that means that it’s wasting your money.
  
• Research new places to advertise that receive high traffic from your target audience, as well as advertising avenues that your competitors have been using long-term.
  
• Look at your advertising budget from 2015 and calculate your ROI to find out what advertising tactics were effective and which ones weren’t. Devise your 2016 advertising budget around what worked in 2015 and any new ideas that you have reason to believe would be effective.

The more time you spend planning for the year ahead, the more likely it is that your San Diego small business will grow in 2016 with these Internet marketing tips I’ve just shared.

(31)