Reflecting on Your 2017 Marketing Efforts

As the year comes to an end, it’s the ideal time to review your marketing initiatives conducted throughout the year, analyse the results and determine which channels and messages generated the most leads and awareness for your brand. This holiday period take the time to reflect on your 2017 business results and set goals to make 2018 more effective.

2017 Digital Marketing Findings
​2017 saw some interesting changes across the digital marketing landscape which had significant impact on what was possible to leverage brand exposure:

• Almost 60% of people used social media every day, with 45% checking it more than 5 times/day.
• Facebook remained the dominant social media network with 94% usage rate and  10 hours/week spent on average.
• Blog posts, eNewsletters, Online Magazines and Infographics were the most effective content marketing formats.
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Content Marketing, Email Marketing and Marketing Automation were the Top 3 digital channels with the highest Return on Investments (ROI).
• Google launched a new Google Algorithm update – Fred, which targets websites that have low-quality blog posts created to generate ad revenues.
• 31% of companies spent an average of $51-$300 on SEO tools per month.
• 66% of companies found re-marketing campaigns effective.
• 86% of consumers said they wanted to receive promotional emails from companies they work with at least monthly.

2018 Digital Marketing Trends
2018 will see many changes in the use of digital marketing:

• Video marketing is becoming an efficient marketing method to connect with customers in a more interactive way. The average viewer will spend 36 minutes/day watching online videos on their mobile devices.
• Search marketing will be the dominant digital sales channel which drives awareness and generates leads.
• Personalisation is the king. Customer-centric content will improve customer engagement. The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will make a big impact on the automatisation of target personas and their lifestyles.
• Marketing content is expected to be improved. Investing in content writers to create valuable, memorable, unique and personalised blog posts and messages will be key.

Were you aware of the changes and trends above? Did you use the new opportunities to improve your business results? Do you know how to capitalise on them to ensure more leads?

Now, look back at your 2017 business results, review which goals were met and which were not. Think about the reasons why you have or have not reached your objectives. Which marketing activities worked well for you this year? Which didn’t? Also, look at your stats, what is the percentage of people dropping from the website without contacting you and making a purchase?

Taking these questions into consideration can help you improve on your future marketing strategies. You will be able to understand the behaviours of your target audience better and choose the right channels and messages to get your customers’ attention. Armed with this information you can put together your New Year marketing strategy with the confidence that you know your audience well.

The end of the year is an opportune time to take a look at our results, whether in marketing, in business in general and of course personally. It’s the time to look at how you spent your own time during the year. Were you working ‘on’ your business or ‘in’ your business like so many get caught doing. Are you spending time doing day to day activities that you could outsource to someone with more expertise and at a lower cost than your time is worth?

If you are not sure where to get this information and how to analyse it, contact a marketing consultant or an agency to do this for you. Experts will be able to advise you on the channels to spend your marketing budget to ensure the maximum ROI for your spend.

Contact us if you would like some assistance in reviewing your marketing activities from 2017 or would like a clearly structured marketing plan for 2018.