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New Year (Marketing) Resolutions

Just before ringing in 2007 at a New Year party last December, an acquaintance professed, "I'm going to loose 25 pounds by June." Another chimed in, "I want to save $5,000 for a trip to Greece this year." And, another party-goer claimed, "I am going to get a new job that pays me $25,000 more per year." Then, I was asked, "Tracy, what is your New Year resolution?"

Call me a cynic, but I have never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. In my experience, most resolutions made on December 31st purely in the name of "New Year Resolution" are unattainable. It is this reason (and that my fitness club fills up with short-term “resolutionists” who make it impossible to work out during the month of January) that I distance myself from proclaiming a resolution every year.

It is not that resolutions have no merit. They can serve as a positive catalyst for change or a mental reminder of your desired direction. The key is to make the goal attainable and measurable – much like your online advertising goals. So, in the spirit of attainable and measurable goals, I will break my boycott on New Year resolutions and declare five marketing resolutions for 2008.

Resolution 1: Step Into the Customer’s Shoes
We are often too close to our systems and products that we fail to recognize shortcomings in our customer life cycle. Identify the holes in your processes and communication lapses and other areas for improvement. I suggest using an online survey tool to open communication with customers to help identify areas for improvement by identifying trends in feedback. Survey Monkey and QuestionPro are affordable survey solutions.

Resolution 2: Get Organized
Better life organization is a common resolution. This resolution, however, specifically addresses organizing online advertising statistics. For example, how did your latest creative perform? What advertising channels did you place the ad in? How did each creative and each channel perform? Gather and document as much information as possible. Spending an hour archiving valuable information will save you time and money down the road.

Resolution 3: Keep Testing
The mixed results of online advertising best practices research demonstrates that there is never a single practice that applies to all online advertising campaigns. (Except that typos always make an ad look ugly.) Your audience and your product are unique. Discover your own best practices through testing. Use industry research to inform your starting point. Then, refine your ad creative, sales conversion process, and customer communications through testing. A simple headline change could yield significant returns.

Resolution 4: Simplify
There are many opportunities to simplify in online advertising. Simplify banner ad design. Simplify the customer experience. Simplify the email subject line. Simplify your online form. Of course, you do not want to trim too much and loose the message of your campaign. But, as marketers, we tend to enjoy juicy promotion detail, gathering additional data by adding fields to forms, and including one more product shot in the banner ad. Resolve to cut through the marketing-speak and excess design to simplify your online advertising in 2008.

Resolution 5: Show Customers You Care
The best way to show customers you care is simply by listening to them. Also review your customer communications for writing tone and style to make sure it is professional, but also personal.

Now that I have made these resolutions, I must overcome my cynicism and meet each of these goals. As a reminder, these resolutions for 2008 will remain on my bulletin board throughout the year. What are your online advertising resolutions to for 2008?



This news arrived on: 12/27/2007

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