12 Marketing Resolutions for 2012

Solutions to help you grow…

As we kick off 2012, here are 12 New Year’s Marketing Resolutions to help you and your company:

1. Embrace Social Media as part of your Marketing & PR strategy.  Focus time on creating content relevant to your target audiences and on learning about your marketplace. Less Angry Birds and fun Facebook stuff, more content development and information gathering.
2. Use LinkedIn as a resource for Pre Call Prep, prospecting, networking, and competitive analysis. The online professional network is a must for entrepreneurs, marketers and senior leaders.
3. Build a keyword rich LinkedIn profile that tells your story enhances Search Engine Optimization.
4. Instead of just signing up and following celebrities on Twitter, organize your followers by category and scan for valuable content. Retweet what you think is valuable and use other information to enhance your marketing and selling efforts.
5. Develop a content strategy for Twitter. Decide what key messages you want to convey and develop a schedule to do so. Create an inventory of tweets to increase awareness and follower base.
6. Use Facebook for more than pushing information out. Keep abreast of what interests key target audiences and create two-way conversations by asking their opinion. Make customer success stories shareable. Address negative comments quickly and honestly.
7. Contrary to what some think, email isn’t dead and can be an important part of your marketing and selling strategy. Drill down into your target markets and create email messages that show what’s in it for them.
8. Commit to staying current with Social Media tools. It doesn’t have to be a huge time investment–an hour or two a week that’s convenient for you can make a big impact.
9. The tenets of successful messaging apply to Social Media. Tell your story with clear and succinct messages that resonate with your target audiences and stay consistent with your overall brand.
10. Use Social Media to make customers and employees an extended part of your Marketing Team. As Social Media becomes more a part of our lives, we use our online network to share opinions quickly and easily. Manage these relationships and leverage Social Media so customers and employees spread the good, rather than bad, word about products and services.
11. Incorporate Mobile into your marketing strategy. Online purchasing is moving to mobile. Google estimated 44% of last-minute holiday shopping came from smartphones or tablets. Mobile provides a great opportunity to market to unique, segmented audiences at or near their time of purchase.
12. This year, make sure you live up to your New Year’s Marketing Resolutions.

David M. Mastovich, MBA, is the president of Massolutions, a Pittsburgh based Integrated Marketing firm that focuses on improving the bottom line for client companies through creative marketing, selling, messaging and customer experience enhancement.