As a business owner, one of your goals is to increase sales. For this to happen, you need an effective annual marketing plan.
Are you going to stick with the same plan you were using last year? If it yielded strong results, you might want to stick with it. After all, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
However, it’s advisable to switch up things a bit. New marketing technologies are emerging every year. When your marketing strategy keeps up with the times, you’ll reap even greater results.
Continue reading for a guide on what to include in this year’s marketing plan.
1. Over the Top (OTT) Advertising
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
In the past few years, digital channels such as search engines and social media, have been on the rise, while traditional channels, such as terrestrial TV and radio, have been on a rapid fall.
Here’s something you might have noticed: TV is back.
Okay, it’s not back in its traditional form, but millions of Americans are now loyal consumers of TV streaming. Platforms such as ROKU and Hulu are on the rise, and they are offering OTT advertising.
This year, include OTT advertising in your strategy. You can buy ad space on these channels and reach millions of target consumers.
What’s more, OTT platforms enable you to track the performance of your campaigns, unlike terrestrial TV and radio.
2. Geofencing
If you’re a local business, you are always looking for ways to secure your local target market. With geofencing, you can do exactly that.
Geofencing is a location-based service that enables you to set up a virtual geographical boundary (geo fence). When consumers who have subscribed to your business (maybe they have installed your business app or followed your social media pages) enter the geofence, they’ll receive a notification. You can customize the message on this notification to suit your marketing needs.
As long as your target customer has enabled location services on their devices and given your business app the right permissions, geofencing can be an effective way to reach them.
Interested in this technology? It can be complicated to implement, so be sure to work with an experienced provider of geofence marketing services.
3. Podcasting Is the New Radio
32 percent of the U.S. population listens to podcasts every month. 22 percent listen to podcasts weekly. As podcasting becomes more popular, it’s fair to forecast that in a few years over half of the U.S. population will be active podcast listeners.
As a business owner or marketer, now is the best time to include podcasts in your marketing strategy. From your understanding of your target audience, you can tell the kind of topics they would be interested in. Find top podcasts in this niche and work out a media buying agreement with the producers or hosts.
Design an Effective Annual Marketing Plan
If you want to crush your sales goals this year, you better build an effective annual marketing plan. With this guide, you now know some of the top strategies to include in your plan.
All the best and keep tabs on our blog for more insights.