Some may think that email marketing is no longer effective in the age of social media and instant customer engagements. I beg to differ as email marketing campaigns still have a place in this era. I agree, the last thing I need is another email piling up in my inbox. However, the companies that do it right reap the rewards. For example, I wouldn’t say that I am a huge clothing shopper, but J Crew’s emails get me every time.
The year 2020 won’t be a year that we forget anytime soon. It taught us all how to adapt to circumstances that none of us could have ever prepared for a year ago. Business owners have had to go above and beyond expectations just to survive. Now that the calendar has turned to December and the end of this unpredictable year is coming to a close, what now? As a business owner, planning your marketing calendar for the upcoming year may be the most important thus far. However, this year will most likely look different from the past. Where should you start?
Short of being off the grid somewhere in the mountains, I don’t think you can be anywhere without being surrounded by brands. The advancement of technology has amplified that about a million times. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with it, because building a brand and brand identity are among some of the important things a business can do. The best way to do that is through consistency. Websites, social media platforms, print advertisements, and all other advertising mediums are excellent and necessary for a business’s success but without a consistent presence, they aren’t worth much.
I’m not sure about you, but I sort of feel as if there is a portion of life missing between March and now. To say that 2020 has been a weird year is quite the understatement. It has certainly given business owners a reason to pause, take a step back, and take a good long look at how business has changed in a very short period of time. Some business sectors have been harder hit than others, but all have been affected in some way or another. Along with safety changes pertaining to COVID-19, marketing strategies have also needed adjustments. Marketing leaders were surveyed by The CMO Survey asking their survival strategies and predictions about the future and here is what they found.
Video is where it’s been for a while, but it seems as if the pandemic and quarantining pretty much the entire world really just made it take off like a rocket. There are many social media platforms to utilize video like Facebook Live, YouTube and Instagram’s IGTV. Video is one of the most useful and effective content formats used in social media marketing. Prior to the COVID pandemic, shorter videos were most popular as they grabbed the user’s attention and gave them the information they needed quickly and efficiently, however, COVID has pushed longer videos ahead as many people suddenly had a lot of extra time on their hands. The longer form videos are IGTV’s specialty and can help bring your business to the next level.
I was reading through a 2020 social media industry report the other day and came across a section that caught my attention. The heading was, “Grew Business Partnerships.” Okay, not life-shattering, but the sentence under it was kind of life-shattering or at least profit-shattering for a business. Their survey revealed that most marketers underuse social media to grow partnerships. My question is “Why?” It seems so simple, it is Cross Marketing 101. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized as a business owner myself that it takes time to groom those relationships, to make sure the business partnership complements both businesses, and to actually follow through with posting on social media. Sometimes we get so busy as business owners, that we often overlook and underuse what is right in front of us.
It seems as if COVID-19 has really put social media marketing back at the top of most clients’ marketing lists. After all, when people are stuck at home with most things shut down, the audience is captive and starving for any sense of normalcy. I know that my family and I referred to social media on multiple occasions to find curbside deals from local restaurants and allowed us to still shop with some of our favorite local stores. The variety of social media options seems as if it changes daily from Facebook to Instagram to TikTok to you name it. It’s hard to keep up. This is where hiring a professional marketing firm like Cyberspyder Marketing will keep you from going crazy keeping up with all the latest trends. One key to social media marketing success is knowing your target audience. For example, I’m in my late 40’s, if I need to find something out, I tend to go to Facebook as that is where most of my “friends” are. My daughters are 20 and 25; Instagram is their go-to social media source. I will have to say though, I have become more attached to Instagram myself these last few months. On the other hand, my 20-year-old isn’t “married to” just one social media outlet, she also very much enjoys TikTok and YouTube.
As we all know, the shift to online shopping has continually taken a toll on brick and mortar stores. Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the shutdown of a large portion of those stores, many are struggling to survive. The news continually reports about another large retailer that has predominantly relied upon walk-in customers in the past has filed bankruptcy and/or closing stores. Additionally, retailers no longer compete only with other similar retailers. Online shopping has brought another competitor – the manufacturers.