5 Details to Add to Your 2017 Marketing Plan

Marketing Tools & Tips Web Marketing & SEO

Whether you’re interested in video marketing or plan to expand your email marketing portfolio, 2017 is the year to do it.

It’s nearly impossible to keep up with new marketing trends these days—much less have the resources and time to build them into your marketing plan and execute. This year, choose just a few new things to try, even if they aren’t new in the industry (hello, guest posting). A refresher may be just what your plan needs to boost engagement, impressions and overall marketing success.

Video Marketing Tests

Add video to your marketing plan

Video marketing is one of the fastest growing areas of the industry, with 65 percent of marketers planning to increase their mobile ad budgets to account for video (Hubspot). This year is a great time to test your video marketing chops and see what excites your specific audience.

Despite being a newly popular frontier in marketing, there are already many resources available to guide your efforts, see a few below:

· 7 Tips for Launching a Video Marketing Strategy
· 3 Steps to Creating a Video Marketing Campaign
· 10 Practical Tools to Help You Start Your Video Marketing Campaigns
· What to Know About Instagram Live Video

A Guest Posting Program

Add a Guest Posting to your Marketing Plan

Guest posting gets a bad rep thanks to “spammy” outreach and poor link building practices. However, I’ve now successfully run three guest posting programs and, as I explain in this article for Bitly, it’s actually one of the best ways to get high-quality content for free. If you do it right, you’ll get free blog posts, from experts in the field, on a regular basis.

Not to mention, it’s an excellent way to get high-quality links back to your website if you choose to write a blog post for them as well. However, guest posting is only valuable when you follow a few basic, but important, rules:

Create guidelines to ensure the work that’s coming to you will need as minimal editing as possible. You’ll slowly build a pool of authors who are good writers, passionate about the industry, and can contribute more regularly.

Regular Non-Sales Email Marketing

Regular Non-Sales Email Marketing

Email marketing is still one of the best methods for reaching customers. In fact, a shocking 80 percent of marketers said email was their primary channel for lead generation, according to Mailigen.

To keep customers interested, it’s important to send a mix of emails—not just sales-based. One too many sales emails will cause subscribers to lose interest; soon enough, they’ll see an email from you and delete it right away because they know it’s going to be another sales pitch.

Here are a few new types of emails to send:

A Coupon Distribution Plan

Add a coupon distribution plan to your Marketing Plan

Coupons, or online discounts, are an excellent way to drive new and recurring customers. In fact, coupons have the potential to increase monthly revenue by up to 40 percent, according to a November 2016 survey by CouponBox. Surveyed retailers reported earning $29,435 in monthly coupon sales.

However, if you don’t distribute your coupons and announcements about discounts well enough, they won’t be effective. What good is a BOGO deal if no one knows about it? While adding a banner to the top of your website is smart, there’s more you can do to drive coupon-based sales. Here are a few ideas:

Drip Email Campaigns

Add Drip Email Campaigns to your Marketing Plan

Companies like Hubspot make it easier than ever to set up drip email campaigns. These allow you to stay in touch with every potential and current customer, whether they’ve just signed up to receive announcement emails or purchased a product.

The process is simple: You create a variety of tracks for each type of potential or current client and set up a timed email flow, which automatically delivers the email you’ve created and specified based on the parameters you’ve selected. For example, a free trial campaign may look like this:

Whether you’re interested in video marketing or plan to expand your email marketing portfolio, 2017 is the year to do it. Every year it gets increasingly harder to stand out among a crowded group of competitors, but being forward-thinking with marketing is one of the best ways to set yourself apart from the rest.

Jessica Thiefels

Jessica Thiefels has been writing and editing for more than ten years and spent the last five years in marketing. She recently stepped down from a senior marketing position to focus on growing her own startup and consulting for small businesses. She's been featured on Forbes and has written for sites such as Lifehack, Inman, Manta, StartupNation and more. When she's not working, she's enjoying sunny San Diego with her husband and friends or traveling somewhere new. Follow her on Twitter @Jlsander07.

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