We are a month into the new year and now’s a great time to take a good look at your company brand to make sure you’re rollout-ready for your marketing efforts in 2021.

 

Use this checklist as a guide:

1. Brand Impact

You wouldn’t invite people over for the holidays without first getting the house in order, right? So make sure your brand is serving up the right style, tone and image you want to present — one that is true to you and resonates with those you’d like to engage.

Moving beyond the fundamentals (core values, personality and mission), take a minute to think about how they will be perceived when you are ready to engage.

Here are a few questions to consider:

• Are you excited about presenting your brand to the world in 2021?
• Is your brand ready to identify, support and deliver intriguing stories for the company?
  
• Do you have depth built into your brand identity, and can it be presented with a variety of styles to engage all audiences?

These three simple questions deserve a moment of pause in preparation for 2021. We want you to be excited about developing a plan that is rewarding, flexible and appropriate. If you’re not feeling ready to invite people to the party, we recommend spending as much time as needed to get your style, tone and image in place before moving too quickly into other items below.

 

2. Content

We’re talking more than just blog posts. Ask yourself the following three questions:

• Is my strategy focused on the delivery of relevant content for my customers and supporters?
• Can we deliver through a variety of channels with a range in content and topics?
• Do we have the capacity to write, aggregate, post, manage and measure content performance?

If you can’t answer yes to the last question, please consider refining your content strategy or adding resources so that you can maintain your plan and expand on it throughout the year.

 

3. Campaign Strategies

It’s likely that your campaigns will include several of the usual suspects — SEO/SEM, email, social, video, landing pages and retargeting, among others. As you work to attract new customers and turn them into loyal advocates, take a close look at how content is sequenced and where it is delivered at each point during a campaign.

A few questions to consider:

• Are you running your campaigns in an optimized and efficient fashion? If you’re not sure, consider pulling back on volume or frequency, and then measure your new responses against the original volumes. Consider adjusting your volumes for each channel but probably not all at once.After three months, you should be able to identify which channels are worth further enhancement vs. which operate successfully at a reduced volume and/or cost.

• Can I commit to at least three months for each campaign? We recommend running campaigns for a minimum of three months to gather data on best performing content, channels and response rates. Additionally, a three-month duration has shown a higher rate of renewals compared to campaigns that run shorter. Research suggests that it takes a consumer 45 days to retain and recall information. As your campaign unfolds, consider keeping a few elements recognizable and consistent. As you approach half-way, consider interspersing new and varied ideas to help reinforce the benefit of purchase or renewal.

 

4. Sales Materials

What can you serve up to engage and entice? In the spirit of converting your leads to customers, we cannot stress enough the importance of the follow through on delivering an experience that generates stronger interest in you. Take a close look at what you’re putting in front of your prospective customers in the final stages of conversion. Ask yourself:

• Are our materials fresh and reflective of our brand today?
• Do our materials communicate the right message to each customer type?
• Can we share sales materials quickly via gated download or email?

 

5. Team and partners

Marketing and campaign efforts will require a commitment of both resources and time. Take a good look at your internal staff and external partners to build a collaborative, high-performing team driven by accountability and measurement.

So, there you have it. Five areas to think about as you reflect on the strengths of this year and prepare your company brand for a great 2021.

In the coming weeks, we plan to explore several of these items in greater depth. In the meantime, give us a call if you have questions or wish to talk about your marketing plan for the coming year.