Apparently, the older we get, the less likely we are to make new year’s resolutions. Perhaps it’s because the longer we live, the more we understand how those vague resolutions to lose weight or stop smoking are doomed to fail! But what about making New Year business resolutions?
From a business point of view, making resolutions can be a much more positive experience, giving us an immediate sense of focus as we head into dreary January.
To help get you started, here are six of my favourite new year business resolutions that should help get your mo-jo working in January.
Oh, and by the way, I’ve tested them all myself in the years gone by, and I’m happy to say I’ve kept each one!
Relax. I’m not advising you to follow customers home, or stalk them online.
Just take a few moments to think about your ideal customer – in detail.
Where are they likely to live? How old are they? What kind of work do they do? Have they got a family, or a favourite pet?
Understanding who your ideal customer is will help you find the best ways to approach them, so you don’t end up wasting time and that hard-earned marketing budget on content that doesn’t work.
Here’s another question: what social media platforms do your ideal customers use?
For example, there’s no point in you composing snappy tweets, taking umpteen selfies for Insta and creating chatty Facebook posts about your business, if the people most likely to buy from you are on LinkedIn!
Do your research, but don’t forget to check your analytics, too. You’ll need to keep monitoring your social media activity, to make sure it’s reaching the right people at the right time.
Being consistent goes a long way to building lasting trust and rapport.
So, make sure all your content speaks with the same voice, in a style and tone your business naturally uses. Your profile pictures also need to be easily recognisable across all platforms.
Fate is a wonderful ingredient in a romantic film. But if we want the best chance of success in real life, we have to plan.
That means knowing what you want to achieve, then setting goals that allow you to work purposefully towards it.
(If you’re thinking, “why should I plan anything, when 2020 was so unpredictable?” having goals in place means you can simply adjust them to reach your target, rather than going into ‘headless chicken’ mode!)
My marketing motto of, “write it once, use it many times” has to go down as one of the biggest time-savers in business!
Examples include re-posting seasonal content, or chopping an old blog post up into bite-sized posts and content for ‘Lives’.
You could also turn your videos into podcasts, or a Facebook post into an engaging infographic (for this, you might find wonder-sites like Canva helpful!)
As the famous quote goes, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
Measuring the results of your marketing will help you avoid the common business trap of creating content you enjoy, rather than content that attracts and engages customers.
Instead of posting into the dark, regularly checking your website stats and social media analytics will help you focus on what works, so you can ditch what doesn’t.
If you need more help planning content, my Big Social Media Marketing Organiser will whip you into shape in no time at all!
Meanwhile, if you need some help taking your brilliant ideas from passion to profit, why not book a complimentary, half-hour Breakthrough Session, and get 2021 off to a purposeful start?