Your 6 Step Marketing Checklist
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Marketing can be extremely complex. Here at Gloss we believe our job is to make it very simple, yet effective for our clients. Here are 6 steps to giving your marketing plan a quick health check...
6 STEP CHECKLIST: Branding Content
Website + Seo
Printed Products
PR + Stakeholder Social Media
STEP 1
Branding: what’s your story? Whether we realise it or not, we interpret images much more quickly and intuitively than we can consciously comprehend. This means that getting the right logo, the right font and the right colours, and using them consistently is essential for any business. But good branding goes much deeper than fonts, logos and colours. Good branding means distilling the very essence of your business. Everything stems from this, including the marketing methods you use and the way you write and design your marketing materials. First of all, can you answer the following questions about your business in short, simple statements: Who are you? What do you do? Why do you do it? How do you do it? Who do you do it for? Next, do you have brand guidelines and files which harmonize with the above answers and which you can quickly supply to designers or press and PR partners? These should include the following: • Logo (in formats suitable for high quality print and websites, also ideally for dark or light backgrounds). • Colour specifications for the main brand colours you use. (for print and online formats). • Fonts you use. • An outline of your ideal customer (or key customer groups). • A guide to tone of voice and language with some examples. • A guide to style of images with some examples.
content marketing [NOUN]
A type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material (such as videos, blogs, and social media posts) that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.
‘social media is an integral part of content marketing’
Are you producing content in the form of blogs, photographs and / or videos? Are these being produced to a professional standard?
STEP 2
Small businesses with blogs get
126%
higher lead growth than small businesses without blogs.
VIDEOS
PHOTOGRAPHY
BLOGS / ARTICLES / POSTS
INFOGRAPHICS
Content Producing content such as video, photography, blogs, articles and infographics which are useful, inspiring or entertaining is a wonderful to engage your audience. Content like this can convey your expertise, passion and skills and producing content is also one of the most cost-effective ways to market your business. Do you have the resources in-house to create and distribute content? If not, are you prepared to invest in professional video, copywriting, photography and design? Do you have a content strategy and a process to evaluate the effectiveness of the content you are producing?
STEP 3
Websites & SEO When it comes to your website, ask yourself the following questions: »» Does your home page have the wow! factor? »» Are you using effective, high impact images? »» Are your messages clear and compelling? »» Is the navigation intuitive? »» Is your website secure? (Does it have a website address for example?)
before the
»» Does it load quickly? »» Is it responsive so that it looks as good on a mobile phone as it does on a large screen? »» Have you considered a Search Engine Optimisation strategy, to help keep your business visible on search engines such as Google?
There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and
WOW! - Milton Glaser -
STEP 4
PRINT MAKES A COMEBACK!
W
e love it all: the magazines and journals, the postcards and the f l y e r s . We l o v e t h e billboards and the pavement signs, the business cards and the brochures. Here’s to the newspapers and the books that never run out o f b a t t e r y. T h e catalogues and the guides that make
shopping much more fun, the leaf lets and the letterheads, the joy of beautiful, luxurious stationery and good old pen and ink. Are you making good use of printed materials?
STEP 5
PR & Stakeholder Mapping PR Does your business register on the radar or national and local press? What’s your main PR risk, and do you have a strategy to handle a situation should things go very publicly wrong? A basic thing to have in your arsenal is a file with a basic press release about your company and a file of high resolution images which you can easily share with the press. Good PR however goes beyond a simple press release. If you have a story or want to get coverage it helps to know professionals who understand how to craft a story so it will appeal to commissioning editors. Get help or take time to research and tailor pitches to suit the publications which will reach your target audience. A good PR team understands the importance of cultivating the right contacts and sending stories at the right time. They also understand the etiquette of communicating with the press
STAKEHOLDER MAPPING & MANAGEMENT Finding the right people to communicate with is vital to the success of any organisation. Through stakeholder mapping you create an effective strategy to identify and research the right people to contact and to communicate with them in the most effective way. Do you know who your existing or potential gold standard clients are? The ones who can turn your business around? Do you have a list of key decision-makers or influencers in your market or industry? It doesn’t often appear on marketing checklists, but looking at your stakeholder mapping is a real game changer for any business or organisation.
STEP 6
Social Media There are a few reasons to use social media in your business nowadays. Of course you reach more people, but also more and more potential customers are checking out your business on social media before they make a buying decision. Here are a few things to consider... • What do you want to get out of social media? What are your goals? • From there, decide how you will measure the success of your efforts. Also outline who you want to engage with on social media. Who is your audience? • This helps you to decide your optimal platforms. For example, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram? • What are you posting and how often? Social media is a conversation and when did you last meet someone who loved being sold to? Create an engaging and inspiring library of social media posts which are more useful, inspiring or entertaining than blatant sales pitches. • Images and videos on your posts will get more reach. Do you understand how the different platforms work? • Things to include can be content from your blog or website, specially created graphics and well curated content from other peoples websites. • How sociable are you on social media? Are you tagging and sharing posts with relevant hashtags and helpful, socially active third parties. Do you engage customers and friendly businesses in online conversation? • Are you measuring the effectiveness of your efforts? Do you have a quarterly review of key data so you understand how social media is performing? • Are you investing in paid for advertising, or have you at least researched it? This kind of spend has some of the highest ROI of any kind of advertising spend. If you can afford to outsource to a professional team that’s great, but platforms such as Facebook also have excellent education sections to help you get the best results.
What Next? These are all areas that you need to address for a solid marketing strategy. If you have areas which are weak, tackle them in the order in which they appear in this guide. Often it is worthwhile out-sourcing some of your marketing, even if you have expertise in some areas. If you would like a free one hour consultation with our team, in person or via video link, call us and we’ll be happy to help.
Call 01326 231721 Email: hello@glossmedia.co.uk www.glossmedia.co.uk
Get in touch today for a FREE one hour consultation: 01326 231721 hello@glossmedia.co.uk www.glossmedia.co.uk
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