What Is Your Marketing Plan For 2010?

Everyone is talking about the “hot” topics of social media and blogging. In previous blog posts, we talked about some of the advantages social media can offer to your business. I think most marketers agree that this is exciting and can bring something extra to a business model. With the new forms of media that are showing up all the time, consumers are faced with an interesting range of choices from among all these new social sites, such as YouTube, Facebook, etc. Keep in mind when using these new tools, some “Old-School” marketing concepts are still very important  and should not be forgotten but reinforced/combined with your new marketing efforts. Many small and mid-sized businesses are using social media and blogging to help their businesses (whether they hired a freelancer or did it on their own) but are neglecting some key ingredients in marketing.

If you are considering delving into social media but do not revise your marketing strategy effectiveness, you are missing out. If you drive traffic to your site but your site is not optimized for a better user experience focused to deliver a goal, then you are missing out. If you are promoting your magazine coupons on Facebook, but your coupon offers are not as appealing as they could be, then you are missing out. If you think marketing efforts are strictly the duties of your marketing department, then you are definitely not catching on to the new marketing idea.

With marketing, everyone is trying to identify consumer needs to better brand their products or services. We all want to service our customers the best way we can. And, yes, branding is the key. We agree that the tools are different, but their purpose is the same. You might be surprised if you revise your strategy, you may discover that you are ignoring some basic marketing principles. It may be a good idea to start asking yourself a few questions about your products/services, about your marketing strategy and about your advertising effectiveness.

You have to take a step back and re-evaluate your marketing mix. Not because the CEO thinks it is “cool” to be on Facebook or Twitter –  it is when you think you are going to connect with an audience and there may add value, whether through researching, networking or just branding your company.

With all that being said, you should definitely embrace all the web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing. It is about the engagement of the company from different levels: staff, training and social activities. A very common mistake among so many companies that want to be present on social media or start a blog is that the engagement level is not there. And, yes, the new marketing is still about identifying what works for branding. It is still about being cost effective and using diverse advertising tools. Most importantly, it is about tracking results and utilizing new technologies.  If you are not tracking leads, conversions and the value of every element from your campaigns and other key indicators, then you are MISSING OUT–and it is only a matter of time before your competitors will catch up.