Year-End Marketing Ideas

Year-End Marketing Ideas discusses some useful ideas to better market your business at the end of the year, and into the next. Small businesses all over the world have had some hard times the last few years. It’s difficult to keep up marketing and advertising alongside the major corporations that seemingly have endless pockets. We’ll list some inexpensive (or free) ideas that can make an impact for your business.

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Helpful.

Market to be helpful. Not many things are as annoying as being infinitely bombed with sales, sales, sales. As we have said in the past, make your company helpful. Some of these Year-End Marketing Ideas will help your company in the long run. If your company has the ability to assist people with problems share those. This takes us to…

Share Info or Solutions.

Share info and solutions. Is there a big change in your industry? Do you offer something that can truly help others save money, improve health, wealth, or their future? What information at your disposal backs that up?

At this point, it is also important to ensure that your sources are credible and reliable. Try not to use opinion based sources in your marketing message. If you do, on the other hand, make sure they come from reliable industry leaders or news organizations.

What’s the Offer?

Finally, what’s the offer? At the same time as sharing info and being helpful, offer something you truly believe in. For example, is your offer a huge discount? Likewise does it truly benefit the customer? Society? Don’t throw offers out there (especially during the holidays) that are obviously self-centered for business growth. There is a fine line. Marketing is in a sense, self-centered. Its whole purpose is to create growth, attention, and eventually wealth for your business. However, you can market selflessly. Perhaps, you take a little hit on a great customer offer to help growth in the long term. Creating long-lasting customers that trust you will pay off in the end.

Alternate Ideas.

Equally as important as the above categories, establish visually creative messages. If the offer is spectacular and the information is extremely important, none of it will likely matter if there isn’t something great to see. In the past we’ve shared research and statistics about how visuals affect marketing messages. Read more about visual perception, communication, customer psychology, and more from Patrick Mutabazi and LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-important-visuals-marketing-patrick-mutabazi?trk=articles_directory. There’s a ton of factors involved.

Need a helping marketing hand heading into 2023? Drop us a message: https://77designco.com/contact-us-2/

Have a wonderful Christmas & New Years when you get to it!

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What Marketing Doesn’t Do

What marketing doesn’t do is an article that discusses some things not to expect when hiring a team. There are many wonderful things that marketing brings to the table for your business. Without a doubt! Potential new customers. An identifiable brand. Increased potential business. Or, simply just presenting your company as a creative reliable source. Just to name a few.

What Marketing Doesn't Do. An image of the 77 Design Co business card, a stapler, and scrabble pieces that spell marketing.
Marketing is definitely a benefit to your business. But, don’t expect everything to be the responsibility of marketing.

However, there are also things that are occasionally expected that are not responsibilities of a marketing team. On occasion, a business owner may believe that marketing will solve all of their problems. This may not be the case. We have turned down several contracts over the years due to this inaccurate belief. Let’s get to it.

PR Problems

Marketing MAY be able to assist in some public relations issues. It is not the entire fix though.

A few moons ago we met with a general contractor that believed he needed marketing help. We sat down and discussed their business thoroughly. One of the things he said was, ” I can get all the business we need. I just can’t get my guys to show up on time or stay and finish the job quickly.” “Customers get mad at that.” All of a sudden, things became clearer!

As I have noted, we talked pretty thoroughly about his business for about an hour up to this point. We chatted about the direction of their website, social media, and a few other aspects of promotion. We were there to help narrow down the problem, after all. The main issue was his crews that were on the jobs. They felt that good marketing could quell the negativity they were receiving. While that could help, it’s not the total fix.

At this point we discussed resolving the issues with the crews first. He was ready to pay us whatever in the belief this would help. Not how we operate. We certainly didn’t want to take on an impossible task of building a plan that would inevitably fall flat. In short, please don’t expect that marketing alone will solve an issue such as this.

Closing Sales

Want eyes on your business? Good solid marketing. Looking to increase leads and calls? Ok, same thing. Trying to show the world who your company is? Yep, you guessed the answer.

Need to close that sales deal? Uh, not what marketing does. That is the job of a sales team. Creative and informative promotional marketing will put you on the fish. Now, it’s time for sales to bait the hook and reel them in. Analogous to the PR issues above, not part of the advertising or marketing job. A good way to improve sales and the content messaging is to get both teams together to come up with new ideas.

A Few Other Things

Below are a few other things that should not be expected. Or, at least these should be discussed right out of the gate.

  • Business management (making decisions on sales, hiring/firing, and more)
  • Guaranteed new sales (this depends on the effectiveness of the sales team)
  • Answering calls or messages. At times a general response can be included in a plan or contract. However, (at least in our case) we refer interested customers to the business owner or manager directly. A marketing team may not have the answers to very specific industry related questions or concerns.

In conclusion, we’ll (marketers in general) always do the absolute best we can to ensure your marketing is effective and creative. We always want the company we are working for to thrive even in a down economy. However, there are certain things that may require alternate assistance. If your company is looking to meet new customers, get new eyeballs on your product or service, or just needs brand identifiability drop us a line anytime here: https://77designco.com/contact-us-2/

Analyze. Create. Achieve.

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Is Your Company Blogging? Why Not?

Is your company blogging? Why not? There are many reasons why adding a consistent blog to your marketing arsenal will eventually benefit your business. It won’t be instant. Basically, it will take a little time to get results. Much like most marketing efforts, you have to build it. It also takes a lot of work, discipline, and know-how to effectively blog. We’ll cover that in this article…so read on!

Is Your Company Blogging? Why Not? A black and white unfocused image of a computer keyboard.
Is your company blogging?
It Starts With an Idea!

By all means, we’ll openly admit at times it’s difficult to come up with blog topic ideas. Thankfully though, you have us here to help! 🙂 However, blogging ideas can come from anywhere!

  • An employee may have a milestone year coming up. Blog.
  • New product or service offer? That’s a blog.
  • Something change drastically in your industry? Yep. That can also be a blog.
  • Holidays are coming up quickly. Perhaps your company donates time or money to an organization. Let your customers know. Blog! Not only does that show you are a caring company, but it’s also a feel good story people love to see. It raises awareness too. Just don’t brag, but show you care.
  • Your company can do blog videos. Or, post photos and write about them.

We had clients a few years ago that decided to start their own blog. This was after we trained them on best blogging practices. At this point, they had everything they needed. Likewise, they also had a fantastic idea to start out with. The husband/wife team were going to use their dog as the blogger. Super idea! In any case, let’s call him Rover.

Rover was to write industry specific consistent blogs and get photos of himself at the computer each time. It was a cute. This was a fabulous idea and would really resonate with people. We will have to check in with them to see how this series is going.

At any rate, start jotting ideas down now for blogs. Keep a list. Every time a new idea comes to mind document it.

Effective Blogging.

In order to have effective blogs, you have to know how to make them work. The idea surely helps, especially if it’s a good topic or strategy. While this may be true, it’s also true that you should know what you are doing. This includes writing skills, punctuation, as well as effective SEO and readability.

Setting up your blogs to be SEO friendly is often a task in and of itself. Images need to be sized properly. The length of the blog matters. Keyphrases and meta descriptions should be added. Internal and external links also matter.

It often takes a lot of trial and error to create SEO ready and readable blogs. If you are using WordPress as your website, the little green smiley faces can either be your friends…or worst enemies when red. Unsure of what this means or how to ensure your blogs reach their maximum capability? Drop us an email, call, or message here for a free blogging consultation or training: https://77designco.com/contact-us-2/

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Is Your Company Blogging? Why Not?
Why Blog? What Does it Help?

So, let’s get to the question “why blog?” As with any of our social media posts or blogs, we’ll provide additional resources here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/04/28/eight-reasons-blogging-is-a-worthwhile-investment-for-businesses/?sh=14219a6b4bdc

You don’t have to just take our word or it. Read the above Forbes article on just how important it can be for your business. Other ways blogs help include, increased web traffic, increased social media engagement, reaching new potential customers, and of course providing useful information about your company or industry.

They also make you an expert authority on certain subjects. This is true especially if others in your field aren’t sharing relevant information and solutions. Blogging is an excellent addition to a marketing plan and is inexpensive versus some other strategies.

Pitfalls & Difficulties.

Everything in life has some difficulties to deal with. Good blogging is no different. Here we will list some of them:

They can (but not always) take a long time to write and review.

Blogging requires know-how to be effective. Some expertise is required. At minimum, at least a training course should be taken.

A good blogger should have some writing experience. For example, nothing is more unprofessional than reading an improperly spaced, misspelled, or poorly written article. It’s bad business. Creativity, and imagination also go a long way.

Hiring a marketing team or blogger costs money. Nothing is free. You will pay for what you get. Some writers can be inexpensive. In any case, be sure to check those credentials and previous bodies of work. Other writers can be expensive. Some charge middle rates. Depending on how many blogs per month you want, it can add up. According to HubSpot https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/blogging-frequency-benchmarks you should blog 1-2 times per week. Other sources claim roughly the same. However, that’s not to say your company shouldn’t blog at least monthly or bi-monthly. You can still reap the benefits of a consistent monthly blog.

Wrapping it Up.

Is your company blogging? Why not?” is written to get your juices flowing if you are on the fence about setting up a company blog. We are “pro-blog” here at 77. The benefits outweigh the drawbacks. If you want your company found it’s a great strategy to implement. So, if this is something on your radar but you need help, let us know! We’ll help guide your business to success.

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