Marketing in 2008 - turn over a new leaf
2008 will be a big year for small businesses. With the further migration of the Web 2.0 vanguard into the mainstream, the playing field continues to level between you and your competitors pulling in $100m a year. Consider the engineers in Silicon Valley your trusted friends; how many people do you know who will create business solutions aimed at YOUR bottom line, without asking for anything in return?
Let’s give them a nice gift for the holidays. Let’s gratify them for all their hard work, by confirming that growing businesses can in fact leverage emerging marketing technologies to blaze a path to success.
• Think about the customers that eluded you in 2007, and re-optimize your content towards them. Are you a restaurant owner looking to sell more of your high-end wines? Or an all-purpose travel agency that only manages to sell cruises? With the holiday buzz behind you, January is a good time to experiment with some new keyword strategies that might reel in these new customers.
• Start writing. If you don’t already have a blog, now is the time. We all tend to get a little pensive around the holidays, thinking about old lessons and new beginnings. There are a variety of places to turn for ideas on topics for your blog, and here’s one more: have any past New Year’s resolutions made an impact on your business?
• Tighten up the nuts and bolts on your web site. It’s the face of your business, and every face needs washing (though I will stop short of comparing IT to personal hygiene). Matt McGee of Marchex wrote an interesting article about yearly maintenance plans for webmasters of small businesses.
• Do a thorough review of your offline marketing. Say it with me: your online marketing is only as good as your offline marketing. Have a long hard look at your brand elements: Are all the colors, fonts, and slogans consistent? Is your URL printed on everything you hand out, both paper and electronic? Do your print and online campaigns speak to the same exact target consumer? Any incongruence here creates drag on your overall marketing plan.
Out with the old, in with the new. There’s never been a better time to take on the big folks.
This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 @ 6:55 pm on the category Blogging, SEM, SEO, Small business, Usability, Website design.
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