Some days, working in marketing can feel like drinking from a fire hose. Other days, you’re not sure which fire to put out first. Whichever fire-related metaphor you prefer, this is a complaint we hear consistently from our clients. They tell us it often seems that everything is an uphill battle. Marketers are constantly juggling problems, and too often they have more issues to resolve than they know what to do with.
As we like to say at SimplyDIRECT… we’re here to help!
With our clients’ challenges in mind, we’ve assembled a list of ‘quick wins’ that every marketer can use. Usually when you hear the term “quick fix”, your first thought is that there is no such thing. However, these tips are straightforward to execute and can provide a sense of having accomplished something on a day when perhaps nothing else seems to be going right.
- Clarify your story: Think about your interactions with customers – how would they describe your company, product or service? Then, review your ‘About Us’ webpage and see whether the two descriptions match up. Where are they similar? Where are they dissonant? The bottom line is: don’t get too ‘clever’. Take a ‘spring cleaning’ approach to your web copy, streamline it, and move on. You’ll feel lighter and more energized to turn your focus to other projects, with the knowledge that you’ve clarified the way you describe your company externally.
- Calls-to-action: Apply liberally. Take a few minutes to review each sub-page on your website with an eye for identifying the call-to-action on each page. If a CTA is missing, jot down a note to add one! What is the reader supposed to conclude or do on each page? Employing a CTA ties a bow on the rest of your content, which is surely compelling but falls short of achieving its mission without a CTA, the marketing equivalent of a thesis statement. This straightforward audit can be completed quickly and will guarantee that your content packs a punch.
- Establish a plan for keeping targets engaged. The first time a potential customer discovers your company or product, they may be two, six, or 12 weeks away from being ready to make a purchase. Keep your brand name at the top of their minds by establishing a plan to capture their information and regularly put fresh content in front of them. Think across channels (website, email, social media), mediums (digital, video, infographic, print) and timelines (regular intervals and authentic use of reminders/ follow-ups).
- Harness the power of video: If a picture is worth a thousand words, then video is surely worth millions of impressions. Indeed, YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Internet. Let that sink in for a moment. Video can convey different messages and evoke stronger emotions than written collateral. Are you using any video in your content? If not, it’s time to change that. Admittedly, developing a marketing video isn’t necessarily a ‘quick’ win, but it is quick to identify as a gap if indeed your content arsenal is void of video.
- Are you responsive? This is a task to assign to your web team or designer, and should consist of a straight checklist approach. Is your website responsive to various web browsers and devices? Google recently started penalizing sites in search results if they aren’t optimized for mobile. Cross this one off your list by ensuring your site has been thoroughly tested.
- Spoiler alert: Not everything is a ‘quick fix.’ We all want to work smarter and faster. In our technological age, efficiency is the name of the game, and we must approach our roles with a mindset of identifying redundancies or broken processes. However, sometimes the search for a silver bullet languishes, resulting in lost time. If a faster path through a problem doesn’t materialize, it’s possible that a shortcut simply doesn’t exist. When this happens, stop looking for “a silver bullet”. Instead, the ironic idiom here is that we must bite the bullet, and do whatever heavy lifting may be required.
The goal with these suggestions is not to invent projects unnecessarily, add to your workload, or create another headache – instead, it is to identify a few ‘low-hanging fruit’ tactics that can be completed without additional layers of complexity.