Marketing Minute: Resolve to be a better marketer – Jan 2024

By Paul Friederichsen

By now, many of you have probably determined your marketing budget for 2024. With that, you have some idea of where and how you’re going to invest it over the next 12 months. But setting aside what your campaign looks like now in Q1, you may still be developing your messaging for the next nine months. Will 2024 be better than last year?

STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS
By all accounts, this year will be a challenge. There is the cloud of economic uncertainty, ongoing inflation, international tensions, and, to top it off, it’s an election year. What difference can you make?

Unless you do something differently, you can expect the same results. So, here are ten suggestions for New Year’s resolutions that may improve your results despite the headwinds. Whether you are a marketer in manufacturing, distribution or retailing, or a service provider, some or all may apply to you.

1. Resolve to be consistent. 2024 will be an “interesting” year, so brands must project consistency of message and purpose as a counterweight to the prevailing up-and-down social climate. Remember, whatever your message is, the marketer will tire of it long before the customer will. Stay the course. Remain faithful to your value proposition and keep pounding away at it. Frequency and repetition are your allies. Those who take marketshare in 2025 can smile about the share of mind they captured in 2024.

2. Resolve to make people care. You care. Your mom may care. But outside of that, no one cares about your marketing. Each of us is exposed to thousands of marketing messages daily, so while your message is important to you (as it should be), it’s one of thousands vying for attention. So, how do you make your target customer care enough to spend a couple of seconds on your ad? Empathy. Know your target audience so well that your brand resonates with their desires, and they will care what you have to say.

3. Resolve to delight and inspire your customers. Never let the facts get in the way of a good ad. You should never lie, but you should never bury your message in bullet after bullet of the truth either. Even in B2B advertising, emotions “buy” the brand, and the facts rationalize the decision. Attract and inspire your customer first. Then lead them to engage to confirm their choice is the correct one. This is the fundamental concept of campaign strategy-leading them with a breadcrumb trail to a sale.

4. Resolve to hit the road. One of the challenges in floorcovering, or in any industry for that matter, is the rivalry between sales and marketing. As a manufacturing marketer, you must spend some amount of time with the sales department, calling on dealers or distributors. If you’re a retail marketer, spend time on the sales floor. Unless you do that, you will never understand your customer’s customer, nor the challenges or opportunities ahead, as well as firsthand experience can indicate.

5. Resolve to be smarter. Because we are so busy and our inbox fills up every day, we tend to become complacent about our professional growth. Of course, you should keep up with industry news. But also force yourself to learn more about brand strategy, media trends and marketing case studies-not just in the flooring industry but in others, as well. As you absorb this knowledge, your mind’s file cabinet of ideas will grow, and you’ll be amazed how that will come in handy during a presentation or ideation session.

6. Resolve to be pragmatic. Regardless of what you may have been told, there is no magic media bullet that will solve all your problems. Most marketing campaigns in the flooring industry require a mix of media. Obviously, this mix is based on a variety of factors and must be tailored to meet the budget, achieve the objectives and reach the intended audience. But to hear that “print is dead” or “social media does not produce results” is simply not true.

7. Resolve to be analytical. Accountability is the rage. Use data and analytics tools to track the performance of your marketing campaigns. Analyze the information to make data-driven decisions and optimize your strategies for better results. However, resist the temptation to use this as a crutch or to focus solely on achieving higher metrics while losing sight of achieving the most important metric: higher sales.

8. Resolve to be a better marketer moving forward. After this next trip around the sun, will you be a better flooring marketer? If you succumb to the day-to-day, same-as-last-year’s routine, you won’t. On the other hand, if you resolve to do any of these resolutions where you know you need improvement, you will be different. You will be better, and your brand will be the better for it.

9. Resolve to respect the CFO. For some marketers, this can be a tough resolution to keep, especially if the bean counter is prone to be dismissive about the value marketing brings to the bottom line. By seeing the world from the perspective of accounting, you may actually become a sharper marketer. Be open to a healthy collaboration. Look for ways to deliver a stronger ROI. You may discover ideas and gain insights from accounting that may surprise you.

10. Resolve to be a partner. There is a saying among marketing agencies: “Good clients approve your work; great clients appreciate it.” If you are the client, you’ll get more out of your agency, freelancer or media service if you adopt a partnership attitude. Don’t treat the agency as an order-taker. Bring them in on the strategy development, be transparent about the budget and expectations, and turn them loose. Great clients stimulate great work, and great work drives greater results. Don’t cheat your brand’s potential in 2024.

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