Everything changes and nothing remains the same throughout. So does the year. We are nearing 2019, and it’s time to jot down the New Year resolution. Be it personal or related to your business, you must get ready to face the challenges in the coming year with the new strategies. It is because the plans which worked for your business previously might not have given the same result this year. Similarly, the approach used this year will not be of much help in 2019.
Hurry up! You have only a few days more. Take a pen and paper to list the things that you want to improve in your day-to-day marketing activities. Do not worry, if you have no time to create a list. To help you with this aspect, we have listed down a few tools and trends that you can utilize in your business actions coming year. Take a look at it.
1. Come Up With More Video Contents
Will video contents conquer the world? Yes, video contents started gaining popularity in today’s market. If you are unconvinced about this fact, take a look at the latest statistics mentioned below. Wyzowl published the fourth annual State of Video Marketing Survey which revealed some interesting point about video contents.
- 81% of industries use video as their marketing tool.
- Marketers who utilized this strategy could grow their revenue 49% faster compared to non-video users.
- 47% of companies say video contents helped them in reducing support queries.
- 72% of the users choose the video to learn about any product or service in the website where both text and video contents are present.
- 95% of the website users watched an explainer video to know more about a product or service.
It isn’t the end. There are several statistics from multiple surveys that back up this fact. Hence the companies, be it big or small, must integrate videos in their B2B marketing strategies in 2019 to yield a better result.
2. Voice Search
The way we perform search engine queries is changing in the market gradually. This change will have a more significant impact on the business. People realized that voice search improves productivity as well as the efficiency of the search result and also consumes less time. The survey conducted by Bright Local helps us to learn the importance of voice search in today’s world.
- 27% of the users visit the local business website after doing a voice search.
- 58% of customers were able to find local business information through voice search in the last 12 months.
- About 76% of smart speaker users do local searches on a weekly basis where 53% use these devices every day.
Every B2B marketers must prepare themselves for this change in the coming year and optimize their campaigns accordingly.
3. Competitor Research Will Never Be Old
It is one of the essential aspects your company cannot leave behind if it wants to succeed. To follow this strategy, you have to keep aside some of your time researching your competitors. See what the new marketing initiatives your competitor practices and how you can do better than them with the help of other strategies. There are many SEO software platforms and competitor research tools available online. Pick the one that suits your business activities and make the best use of it.
To know which blog posts of your competitor are doing well, you can use tools such as BuzzSumo that lists the articles that have performed well in the social media platforms. It helps you to know what the interests of your audience are and then you can borrow the idea from such contents. Also, the SEO tools such as SEMrush helps you in evaluating the estimated traffic as well as the different keyword a company is ranking for organic SERP results. These tools give you an insight into customer’s interests and help you in deciding the right campaigns.
4. Take Time to Review Your Data
Other than researching your competitors, you must also spend some time reviewing your data. With this strategy, you will get to know the overall growth of the audience in the previous year and how you can do well in the coming year. Apart from knowing the performance of your social media, website, email marketing, or other marketing channels, you will also get to know which of your posts have performed well in 2018.
The tools like Google Analytics are the best one to gather all your yearly data in a well-organized way. These tools show how your promotional activities are driving traffic and thereby conversion. Besides, you can also use tools to analyze the performance of social media platforms separately. Identify the appropriate metrics to analyze the data as well. And, make sure that you use the same parameters everywhere to examine how your company is working and what are the new changes need to be introduced to improve the current performance. Although it might take much of your time, the result will surely surprise you.
5. Brainstorm New Ideas
Creative ideas play an important role in business success. And, to generate such ideas, one has to research continuously. It is always advised to arrange a brainstorming session with your team members to come up with the unique ideas for the next year. If you use multiple marketing channels in your business, identify the ones that require maximum attention next year and draft a plan accordingly.
The areas might include:
- Social Media
- Email Marketing
- Telemarketing
- Blog Posts
- E-books
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
- Landing Pages
- And more!
Once you pick the one that you want to focus, determine the strategies you can follow to improvise it. For instance, if you’re going to publish at least one journal every month, you can plan the topics and work on the unique ideas. If you follow this technique, you can save a lot of time reserved for preparation in 2019.
6. Create Yearly Calendar
This tip goes well with the step mentioned above. It is always recommended to create a yearly calendar that makes your job easy. Also, visualizing the task for your entire year beforehand lets you decide essential aspects of marketing strategies. Therefore, take some time and prepare it now. Once you complete the creation of the calendar, you can quickly take a glance on your future business activities and determine the area which requires your attention.
You can display it in your conference room or any other area where your team meets up. It is always preferred to buy an erasable calendar where you can make some changes if required. Also, it saves your money from buying a new one every year. That is, buy it once and fill it up as you go.
7. Give Importance to Word-of-Mouth Marketing
In today’s connected world, Word-of-Mouth Marketing (WOMM) has greater importance. People rely on online reviews, star ratings, and peer recommendations more than a detailed description of a product. The below-mentioned survey result by Bright Local clearly explains you the importance of WOMM in any business.
- 72% of consumers agree that positive reviews help them to trust any local company more.
- 92% of users use a local market with a 4-star rating.
- 88% of people say that they believe online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family.
- Also, 61% of the people have recommended a local business to others via word of mouth.
But, if you want your customers to give a positive review or an excellent rating, your business must be reliable and professional. The key findings from the same survey state that 68% of consumers agreed that they would recommend a local store to others if it had this two characteristic.
Bonus Tip
Take a break from your daily routine. It is one of the useful methods followed by people to shift their focus on the tasks that are piled up. Most of the famous entrepreneurs or business executives follow this tip once in a while to keep themselves refreshed. You can also implement it if you want to restart your new year with a unique charm. If you do not set aside some of your time for this step, you may get stuck in the everyday task at your company. To help you with this tip, we listed a few of the places that you can visit other than an office to refresh your brain.
- Pick up your favorite book and spend time in any local library or a study room.
- Visit any cozy restaurant with your family and spend time with them.
- Attend any conference that speaks anything other than your business strategies.
- Go to any retreat center to disconnect yourself from business struggles.
- Plan a small vacation with your family or friends to keep you energized.
These small breaks help you in brainstorming unique plans for 2019 and thereby you can quickly come up with the new ideas and initiatives for your company. Try it out by yourself to see how it works.
Take Away
Try to implement some of the strategies mentioned in this article to yield a better result in 2019. You are also free to try new ideas by training your brain to think uniquely. Never stop your experimentations with the tactics. You may find something that works the best for your business and turns out to be a trend in future years.
