If there was ever a year we were hopeful for new beginnings – even when those new beginnings start from within – it was this 2021. Suffice to say, globally 2020 will be looked upon in hindsight (see what I did there) as a very forgettable year. Stop. Reset. Move forward. Did you make digital marketing resolutions for your business six months ago? Are you on track? (Check out our 2021 Resolutions blog here). Since there are only six months remaining in 2021, maybe you need to reset your forecasts for the year and focus on the things you can still accomplish in the next six months. Below are a handful of activities you can start doing today and bridge the gap of your January digital marketing resolutions:
Avoid procrastination and embrace proactiveness
An important step to realizing January’s digital marketing resolutions is to put it in your calendar and stay true to your calendar. Maybe you are already doing this. You block out time in your calendar to spend dedicated proactive time on various tasks – like digital marketing – and suddenly you get derailed by a phone call or email that you have to react to? Reactive strategies wear you down. If you can stick to your plan and stay a few steps ahead like a master chess player, your long-term vision will eventually rule the day. This is great in principle but reality is that you have to react to certain things over the course of a day or week.
A certain amount of proactiveness and reactiveness is required to stay ahead of the game. But, procrastination can cause you to stumble time and time again. There are certain static moments in time such as holidays where you can plan a marketing strategy around. Waiting until the last minute will negatively impact the quality of your marketing campaigns. In addition, it leaves no flexibility for reactive response as needed in those crunch moments when you are rushing. The key is to strike a fine balance of proactive and reactive strategies:
- Use proactive strategies to prepare for the known and what is certain.
- Use reactive strategies to realign your focus according to unforeseen variables or changes in the competitive landscape.
Reset your time machine to today
There is nothing you can do about all the days prior to today so forget about it. Don’t worry about what you didn’t do to date. If you look at it from the cockpit at 30,000 feet, one year is not a long period of time to start with. But, an interesting thing about digital marketing is that it is constantly changing. So, many of the strategies that were used a year ago or even a month ago to bring website traffic, click-throughs and conversions may not work in the future.
In resetting the clock, one tactic you can use to bring your digital marketing resolutions closer to on track is a derivative of multi-moment analysis – the art of breaking down all activities to a small unit of time. MMA works on the assumption that if every unit of time is equal, then those activities that you spend the most time on should bring in the highest degree of productivity. For instance, if it is paid search lead generation that you spend the most time on, the time units you send on paid search should be higher than organic leads or social media traffic that brings in less leads. Is your marketing investment by unit of time doing this for you today? It is highly probable that we could be spending more time on activities that do not yield any positive return.
Repurpose your content
Use what you already have at hand. If content creation is paralyzing you, don’t overlook the fact you have a ton of existing content already. You don’t have to create content day in and day out. You just have to work on getting the content you already have in the hands of more people. And that’s the main idea behind repurposing content: Take something you’ve created, put a new spin on it, and give it new life. Think of all the content that you have created in the recent past – past blogs, case studies, feature pages, guides, etc. this is evergreen digital assets that belongs to you and you can use again and again. Content that earned you value in the short-term can do so again in the long-term. Content repurposing refers to the act of recycling existing content into several forms. Turn your blog into an infographic. Turn your video into a dozen social media posts. Turn a half dozen blogs into a white paper. And so on. Amplify your existing assets so that they have more value to serve your business.
The number of followers you had a year ago has hopefully grown since then. The followers you have today didn’t see what you posted a year ago, let alone six months ago. If your digital marketing resolution for 2021 was to educate, entertain and engage with your following and to reach new audiences, content is the best way. As this past content is yours, you become perceived to be an expert in your field – which you are. And, perhaps some of those who did see that great blog you wrote 10 months ago
Conclusion
Digital marketing is an ever-changing beast never remaining static. With that said, your digital marketing resolutions, while on the surface seem sound at the time you make them, need to change as the calendar changes. Don’t paralyze or berate your alignment or success of attaining 2021 resolutions. Embrace that today is a new day and you can start something fresh today. But don’t wait for tomorrow. Some other reactive responsibility will undoubtedly clamour for your attention and your time. Your time is an exhaustible resource so ensure you are investing it on the marketing activities that will make the biggest difference in your business. Spend more time on tasks that deliver value and cut down on the duds.
Don’t know where to begin? Want to know more? Need a hand? Wingman Direct Marketing knows how to get your objectives from conception to strategy to execution to analysis to profit. Interested? Book a Wingman today. You don’t have to fly solo.