January is often a busy time of year for most businesses. Clients are done with their Christmas shopping and are now making New Year’s Resolutions that often require different services. Consider these scenarios:
- People who enter new relationships or get engaged over the holidays will want to book you for special events
- Those who have a New Year’s Resolution to change their personal style might want a makeover or a consultation
- Those who get a new job might want a new look to go along with the change
- And I’m sure you can think of more!
So how do you ensure you get a piece of the “New Year Client” pie? Smart vendors will beef up their marketing during this time. Here are some tips you can use to start your New Year Marketing Campaign!
1: Think of a “New Year” Campaign
Relevant content, as we all know, is the #1 most useful element in any successful marketing campaign! Think about what type of message you could launch seasonally that will resonate with your specific target audience.
These messages could be along the lines of “New Year, New You”, “Time for a Change”, “Start the New Year off Right” or whatever other message you think might work.
Just remember: Your target audience has to read your message and think “Hey! That’s me!”
2: Develop your content
Once you have a great idea for a New Year campaign, think about how and where you can spread the message. You can develop some targeted content for:
- Your blog
- Your social media accounts
- Your paid advertising
- Your SEO efforts
- Your email marketing campaigns
Of course, you can develop only a few pieces of content and repurpose them for the above channels. The key is to deliver a punchy message for the channel where you’re advertising.
For example, say you write a great blog article about “things to do after a New Year Engagement”. Your target audience here is pretty clear, right? Ok. Now you can develop Social Media content that links to that article. You can build SEO strategies around getting more traffic to that one article. You can even run an email marketing campaign for it!
3: Increase your presence
In addition to spreading your new seasonal content, consider simply upping your game on all channels.
More exposure of your brand—whether it be to your seasonal content or not—will do you some good if you believe there is an increased demand for your services.
Examples of increasing your presence would be:
- Adding keywords and increasing budgets on your paid advertising
- Increasing your blogging frequency (if you typically blog once a week, increase to three or four times a week. If you blog once a month, try once a week or even more frequently during peak seasons.)
- Increase your post frequency on social media (but don’t go overboard!)
4: Analyze your Results
Very quickly, you should be able to tell if your targeted campaign is working or not. This is where your website analytics are vital!
Especially if you’re using paid advertising, be sure to closely monitor your spend after you launch your campaign. You don’t want an irrelevant ad to eat up your entire marketing budget.
If you’re seeing a large amount of inbound traffic without much other impact (no increased leads or additional client sales, for instance), then likely potential clients like your marketing message but don’t see the continuity when they get to your website. You might want to consider a targeted landing page in this case.
5: Remember to end it!
Have you ever roamed the Internet in April only to find an ad for “Christmas Sales”? It happens. That’s for one of two reason. Either:
- The business plum forgot to take down the ad; or
- The business purposely decided to leave the ad up because it performed better than other ads in the past.
If you’re thinking #2 above is a good idea… then we need to have words. Please don’t do it. If your seasonal ad is performing wayyy better than any other ad you’ve ever had, then think about why the message is doing so well, and how you can devise another message to be equally as productive.
By the way… You might also want to consider what metrics you’re using to decide how successful your ad is!
