By Holly Wang, Marketing Specialist at Commtract.

With 2019 now underway, we’re reflecting on the past year and applying those lessons learnt to the year ahead. How can we more effectively manage our teams and workload throughout the year? Chances are you have already planned what your marketing and communications activity will look like for 2019 – below are 5 tips to consider and come back to when creating or revising your plan.

1. Are you reaching the right audience?
– Whether you are a B2B or B2C firm, it is crucial that your plan is always customer focused and leads back to the “so what?” benefit for who you are ultimately serving.
– Though it may seem like a basic requirement, this is an easy oversight to make as companies lose the customer lens and prioritise other parties.
– More importantly, you want to ensure you have the right resources in place to ensure that you are not just reaching your audience but engaging with them and delivering compelling messages. Which leads into the next point…

2. Make content great again:
– In a time of information overload, deliver your content in chunks. Keep it short and concise.
– Collateral such as short videos, infographics, and thought leadership pieces continue to be very popular.
– One of our very own talented Commtractors recently wrote an article on writing simply and avoiding jargon – check it out here.

3. Mo money, mo problems:
In financially tough times, it feels like every company is scaling back budgets and cutting costs. However, don’t feel restrained with a low budget – see this as an opportunity to get creative and explore new avenues. Maybe it’s time to start engaging freelancers, or utilise specialised agency services?
– Specialist freelancers provide the opportunity to take your communications activity to another level. They can assist through initiatives such as content creation and thought leadership for your marcomms or fresh copy writing, editing and proofing to ensure you can relax and know that a professional is in control. A social media or digital strategist could make all the difference to your business’s future growth strategy, marketing, branding or graphics specialists could refresh your look and feel. Our community of experts at Commtract can do all this and more.
– Looking for ways to make the most of your PR budget? One of our Commtractors shared 7 tips to do so in this article here. Why not give them a try this new year?

4. Make sure you check up on it, work up on it:
Set up regular times in your calendar to iteratively review and see what is working against the ROI benchmarks you have set, whether it be every fortnight or month. With digital marketing and marketing analytics the new norm, the performance of all marketing activity is now closely tracked to ensure that it is actually generating a return.

5. Make wiggle room for change:
Be open to changing your plan – you’ll always be getting inspiration and creativity comes at the most peculiar of times. Pay attention to what other companies are doing, you might walk straight past a business that you could partner with. Some of the most spontaneous ideas are the most brilliant.

The team here at Commtract wish you a very happy new year and if we can assist with any of the above, don’t hesitate to contact Holly or the Commtract team.