As the year comes to a close, most businesses’ (with the major exception of Retail) start to slow down preparing for yet another boozy countdown on the 31st. However, if you’ve got a little left over in your Marketing Budget for 2018, then December can provide a once-yearly window of sales-increasing opportunity.
Whilst your competitors start arriving to work late, leaving early or jetting off to somewhere warm and sunny, you can sneak in and take advantage of a slightly less saturated market. It’s likely that some if not most of your biggest competitors have put their advertising efforts on hold until 2019, which allows more space for your company’s story to be told AND if you choose your December Marketing efforts wisely, you’ll also be setting the foundation for a record breaking Q1.
Lastly, but definitely not leastly, if you don’t use up that last of those promotional dollars before end of year, you’ll lose it. Don’t waste that surplus by increasing your existing AdWords budget, or blow it on a an ill-thought-out Facebook boosted post.
You still have time to create quality content that will transition to the new year. Don’t settle for your current year end sales figures, and don’t waste the perfect opportunity to finish the year with a bang and start the new year right. Folks, there’s still time to beat those targets and get those bonuses!
Let’s take a look at 3 WISE ways in which you can make the greatest impact with the remainder of your marketing budget for this year.
1. Say Thanks!
December is the perfect time to take stock of the highs (and lows) of the year, and to set your goals for 2019. It’s also a great time to reach out to customer base and thank them for their continued loyalty and patronage. The end of year message should not feel like a sales push, or like those long letters you get from great, great aunt someoneorother that are entirely self-focused.
Aim for a balance between sharing your success’ and new years goals, AND giving back and adding value. The best messages feature you and your staff in fun, humorous and endearingly human scenarios. Some feature a gift in the form of a discount code or offer or e-guides; Your Guide to _____ (enter your area of expertise here). Another popular approach is sharing how your company gives back to charities or local causes both for the holidays and throughout the year.
Finally, perhaps the most successful method to share and say thanks is through Video. Whether it’s a professionally produced Company Overview (that you can also use on your site, social media, youtube etc), or a fun and casual message shot on an iPhone, when shared via social media or email blasts Video gets much more attention and retention that images and text alone. Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined (Source:SmallBizTrends)
2. Revamp Your SiteStart that Spring clean early and get ahead of your competitors by switching up some of the content on your online home now. Refresh photos, add new products and services and update you Clients pages and Staff bios.
A great place to start in on your homepage by reading aloud every word. Bored halfway through? So are your site visitors. Less is more, so look for ways to condense messages (whilst maintaining your brand voice of course). Better yet, look to swap outdating images and paragraphs with video. Viewers retain 95% of a message after watching it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text. (Wirebuzz) Looking for first page Google Search results in the new year? Including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80% (Source:Unbounce).
Ideal website videos include a Company Introduction/Overview, a Product Video that highlights your latest and greatest, or a How-To Instructional Video that helps build buying confidence in your customers.
3. Create Brand Video
Yes, we are a video production company and are likely a little biased when it comes to the importance of including video in every stage of your marketing campaign, but in our defense, we aren’t the only people to predict that video will be essential in 2019:
- By 2019, global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic (Source: SmallBizTrends)
- YouTube reports mobile video consumption rises 100% every year (Source: Hubspot)
- Sponsored video content views on Facebook has jumped 258% since 2016, and shows no sign of stopping through 2019. (Tubular Insights)
You’re now thinking (quite wisely I might add): “I want to use the rest of my 2018 Marketing Budget on a video (or three)!”
BUT….how is that possible? There’s only a month of 2018 left – how can anyone create a Brand Video or Online Commercial in such a short time period (whilst still having time for eggnog fueled festivities)?We find the greatest hurdle for most of our clients considering video is the timeline and the expense. We’re here to tell you that original, engaging video of the highest quality with a very short timeline and limited budget IS POSSIBLE. How can we be so sure? We do it all the time. In fact, some of the tightest deadlines we’ve taken on have resulted in internationally acclaimed awards. Give us a call and let us throw some ideas at you that are not only entirely doable before the end of this year and we guarantee that working with us is always a stress-free and fun-filled process. +1 208-336-1427 // info@frontrunnerfilmsllc.com
PS: Worried that a video released in December will be forgotten by January?A whopping 80% of users recall a video ad they viewed in the past 30 days (Source: Hubspot)
