There are many strategies that you can follow to help steer yourself away from overspending on your promotional efforts during 2016 – here are some strategies that we would especially advise.
Streamline the cost of assessment of your marketing strategy
Of course, one way in which you can learn how to make those promotional pounds go further is by assessing your company’s marketing efforts with an eye to identifying areas for improvement. However, a great irony is that the assessment procedure you currently use might be itself more financially expensive than it needs to be.
One possible method for cutting the costs of assessment is by handing the responsibility to other people who are already working within or for your business, rather than employing a separate individual or group who would specialise in handling this responsibility. If, for example, you run a small hotel or B&B and use a well-rated online booking system from a provider like Oracle or eviivo, you could be surprised to find that reviewing your marketing strategy is included among the services that they offer with their online booking service package!
Consider the implications of the growing use of ad blocking
The practice of using ‘ad blockers’ – that is, software that prevents adverts appearing on web pages as they are loaded – has been around for years. However, it has become more common over time. In 2015, Apple incorporated ad blocking features into its stock web browser, Safari – strongly signalling that the practice had well and truly gone mainstream.
As a marketer, what can you learn from this? Basically, that your target audience isn’t likely to react favourably to content that they really don’t want being shoved into their faces. Therefore, it could be wise to rein in spending on the traditional banner advertisements and aim to build a following in a more organic manner. Positioning yourself as an expert or industry leader, for example, can encourage many people to pay attention to what you say, rather than push it away.
Take account of the rising use of mobile
The mobile revolution, which has led to about half of the world’s population owning a smartphone, tablet or both, shows no signs of abating. In some quarters, the following might seem an overly obvious point to make – but, if you haven’t yet adapted your company’s website for easy use through mobile devices, you should do so quickly.
Responsive web design and embedded videos are among the many mobile-friendly elements you could incorporate into your company’s website. Even if the website already seems mobile-friendly, you could investigate ways of staying ahead of the competition by making it even more so.
