A new year is about to start, and with that comes that euphoric feeling of a new beginning. The air is filled with hope and excitement about all new things to come – a fresh slate. This is the perfect time to reset and refocus.
Take a look back at 2017 – What worked within your digital marketing strategy? And in turn, what didn’t? Are there ways that your marketing strategy can be more lean and efficient? Are there areas of opportunity that you’re not taking advantage of?
The more critical you are of yourself, and the successes and shortcomings you’ve experienced in 2017, the more prepared you will be to face the year ahead.
What Do You Do with What Worked?
Build on it! Take advantage of your initiatives’ momentum and use it to your advantage. Is there opportunity to apply more budget to increase your bottom line? Are you able to expand your strategies in a new manner?
If Facebook carousel ads have been performing well, with a high conversion rate, why not test some other creative Facebook ad units? Take what was successful, and incorporate it into your new ads. If there was specific ad copy that resonated with your audience, create some similar variations. If the channel or strategy is working – expand on it.
What About What Didn’t Work?
No one likes when things don’t go as planned. If this applies to your digital marketing campaigns, you shouldn’t be worried. Every opportunity you’ve taken so far has brought you here – turn a negative into a positive.
You may have a search campaign that has been around for years simply because it is a legacy campaign. If your bottom line is lead generation and you’ve never seen a conversion generated, the campaign is just using up valuable budget. Take that money and run with something that works. Reallocate your budget into the high converting search campaign instead.
Learn from it what you can and move on. At the end of the day, your team will appreciate that made the right call.
Don’t Be Afraid to Take a Leap of Faith
Analyze your marketing plan, and see if by cutting out inefficient campaigns, you can reallocate funds to testing that new tactic you’ve been itching to try. Don’t be afraid of what’s new – testing is there for a reason. At the end of the day, your team will appreciate you bringing something new to the table.
As 2017 comes to a close, just remember that the data is there to tell you a story – it’s up to you to read between the lines to see what it’s trying to say.
Here’s to 2018. May it be your best year yet.
