5 Ways to Streamline Your Marketing Strategy in 2021 - Mike Gingerich

• Updated on: 2021-01-11
• Read original article here

There’s no avoiding the fact that marketing is essential for business success. However, it’s not uncommon to see marketing budgets balloon as time goes on, often diluting the process’s return-on-investment. One way for businesses to mitigate the negative consequences of out-of-control marketing is to streamline their strategy going forward. By taking a step back and reassessing their marketing situation, companies big and small can regain a high ROI. The following are five ways your business can streamline its marketing strategy in 2021:

Even the most modest marketing budget will likely involve multiple facets and forms of outreach. Often incorporating the data of hundreds if not thousands of customers, these various avenues have a way of overlapping each other, leaving consumers inundated rather than intrigued. The best way to prevent this from happening is to use a master data management system for marketing. In doing so, your company does a better job tracking the day-to-day progress of ongoing outreach while helping to avoid an overwhelming and inefficient strategy from scaring away customers.

When marketing funds become scarce, and overextension is to blame, the time has come to return to your roots. This often means focusing on the core demographic that gives your company the most business. For example, a high-end drone company may have recently expanded its marketing to include more ads targeted to kids. Still, if the ROI has dipped and adult hobbyists make most purchases, it might be time to dial back on the youth marketing until the next holiday season.

Great marketing is all about telling a great story to the consumer. Rather than dispense various ideas, impressions, questions, and concerns to your customers, stick to a single narrative. While it might sound like a recipe for repetitiousness, the truth is a single story keeps your marketing on track. What’s more, it doesn’t have to be repetitive if you find new ways of telling the same story. The goal is to spend less time reinventing your approach to customers and saving money in the process. In doing so, you provide a more clear vision of what your company can provide others.

While 2020 was a breakout year for online shopping, it’s safe to say people will be returning to traditional shopping habits at some point in 2021. In other words, location-based marketing will see renewed importance. The good news is shoppers utilize digital resources when deciding where to shop and spend, meaning efforts to geo-target your customers can be done online along with the bulk of your marketing efforts.

The idea that emails are an ancient form of outreach is one of the most commonly believed misnomers in marketing. The truth is email marketing matters more than ever. The key is to execute email marketing effectively, often outwitting spam folders and delete-happy users in the process. A mass email sent out once a month in conjunction with the occasional customer-focused messaging is more than enough to get the point across.

It’s almost impossible to succeed in business without some kind of marketing budget in place. With that said, business leaders want to avoid a situation where their marketing department has gotten out of control. If such is the case, it’s time to regroup and reassess. Going forward, an effort to streamline your marketing will ensure the return-on-investment in 2021 is back to an acceptable level.