It’s the countdown to Christmas and we’re all slightly distracted by gaudy jumpers, office parties and jingling bells, but the lull that many businesses experience during December provides a rare opportunity to get yourself organised for the new year. While you may not have the stamina to tackle big projects during mince pie season, getting on top of these bite-size marketing tasks will help you start the new year with a bang rather than a fizzle.
Share your best pics.
High quality, relevant, eye-catching visuals draw attention to your content. Collect existing images and set up a shared library where staff can access pictures that are approved for use. Include your logos and headshots of key staff members. Take this one step further by brainstorming a list of images that align with your marketing plan and organise a photo shoot to capture all of them in one go - you’ll save so much time when you’re not scrambling for pictures every time you produce a new piece of content.
Catch up on your reading.
Grab a coffee, put your feet up and read the trade publications. Think about the content included in each publication, how this relates to your target market and products and whether you can contribute to the topics featured. Your PR person can use this feedback to plan your distribution lists and pitch editorial stories.
Now is also a good time to assess your email subscriptions so that you only receive the content you read.
Spend some time on social media
Social media has become an important business tool and you probably post regular updates on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter – but when last did you review your (and your company’s) profile information, pictures and contact details?
While you’re logged in, expand your network (and the reach of your posts) by identifying and connecting with your email contacts, industry leaders and trade journalists and finding relevant groups and forums to contribute to.
Make a naughty and nice list
GDPR is coming. If you don’t know what that means, visit www.eugdpr.org to find out how this legislation will affect your company and your email marketing from May 2018. While we’re on the topic of email marketing – take the opportunity to clean out your contact lists – reactivate or delete people that haven’t engaged with your content and segment lists so that you can send targeted campaigns that are relevant to your contacts’ situations.
Get creative
Brainstorm ideas for next year’s blog and social calendar. Don’t forget to research SEO terms and social hashtags that you want to target and include video in your content plan. If you’ve got lots of quiet time, start producing some of these now so that you’ve got a couple of pieces “in the bank” after the holidays. Start with a Christmas video to share on social media - like we did!
Even small companies can have a big reputation
Make some resolutions
Set yourself targets for 2018 – and then make sure that you have the tools in place to measure your success. A surprising number of marketing resources like Google analytics are free to use, but it’s worth investing a couple of hours in online courses that will help you get the most out of these tools.
Merry Christmas and all the best for 2018!
This article was originally published in Broadcast Film & Video magazine in December 2017