In the last few months of the year, companies already have their sights set on 2016. Whether in planning their next campaign, their next big piece of content or new messaging, it’s easy to go into cruise control as the year winds down. After all, your campaign isn’t going to move from start to finish in 2 months, right?
You may not have time to launch a campaign from scratch by the end of 2015, but you do have time to beef up your marketing and sales efforts. Some of these efforts are small, literally a single change. Some of these will require some thought and aren’t guaranteed to pay off by the end of the year. In any case, all of these initiatives are potentially powerful for improving your sales and marketing operations, and reinforcing a harmonious relationship between the two.
1. Audit Your Content
Looking forward by looking back
Many marketers go back through old content to update logos, fix broken links and update product information, but there are hidden opportunities in your content that go beyond updates.
First, take a 50,000 foot view of all of your content. Pull everything up and look at it through new eyes. Does the intended take-away still ring true? Are there new data points that you can integrate? Next, see how the content is being used and the results you’re getting, both in leads you’re generating from your website and how sales reps are using content when interacting with prospects and customers.
You’ll find that there might be content that nobody uses (or even knows is still out there). If there is, take a look at why no one is using it. It may need a massive overhaul: different format (PowerPoint is not your only option), different copy, different graphics. With all the content laid out, you might discover that one piece of content is duplicative of a few different pieces of content. Sometimes, the best course is to simply get rid of the content clutter.
As you go through this process, think of the ways that you can use older content in fresh ways: new formatting, new perspective for a different buyer persona, or even breaking a longer piece of content into more digestible chunks. Want to dive deep into auditing? Moz has a comprehensive step-by-step guide.
2. Engage Influencers
They may be closer than you think
When you think influencer, you probably think of an industry expert, but Leadtail tells us, there’s 4 other types you can engage, and you don’t have to wait until next year to see results.
Employee Advocates: Your employees have wide-ranging networks across Twitter, LinkedIn and beyond. Encourage them to post your content (though if they only post your content, audiences will tune out). Some companies have used gamification to get employees engaged, while others emphasize the learning opportunity for employees who may not be as well versed in the now crucial field of social media. When your salespeople engage in social selling, they’re also meeting buyers where they live.
Press, Analysts and Thought Leaders: Look around for important people in your field and journalists who write about your field or who speak to your target audiences. It will be more work for you to get them (versus your employees) to write about you or retweet your content, but it can have a big pay off. Start by taking time to engage with their content, whether sharing it or commenting with your perspective. By the end of the year, you can establish a mutually beneficial relationship and increase the reach of your content and as well as your brand.
Brand Advocates: Who will your potential customers trust more than anyone else? Your current customers. By honing in on the customers who love your product and company most, you can start engaging them in the same way that you would the other types of influencers. It could pay off with a guest blog post, a testimonial or even a partnership in 2016.
But how do you find out which of your customers can become brand advocates? That brings us to…
3. Survey Your Customers
Surveys aren’t just for B2C
Though you can’t hand your customer a survey on the back of a receipt like a retail store would, you can and should survey them. The Mezzanine Group offers a few tips on how you can accomplish this, either through a senior manager or through a third party (or online, depending on your field and size).
The focus should be on how satisfied they are with your products and services, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions like “How is your impression of the product now different than when you first heard of us?” or Yes or No questions about the sales process.
Through surveys, you can look at your sales process and your messaging, and hone how you can improve it in 2016. You can use the list of customers who love your company the most to focus on people to engage and turn into advocates.
4. A/B Test Everything
Small changes yield big results
You’re probably running A/B tests right now. If you’re not, start now and if you are, do more of them. Change a single thing on a website or an email workflow and compare the results. Depending on your business’s size, you’ll run the test for a small sample of your visitors or for all of them. Also depending on your size, you can complete these tests and get results within a few days. So, what kinds of things should you test? Optimizely has a list of 71 things to A/B test, including:
- Change the color of a Call-to-action (CTA) button
- Have 2 versions of a page with your eBook, one gating it with a form and one not
- Have a landing page with a tone that’s either serious or jokey
- Test a blog post with two different titles
- Use a stock photo or use a photo of your employees or customers
- Test two different fonts
- Remove the top-level menu from your landing pages
- Change the order of menu items
- Change headlines in ads
- Send emails on different days or in different orders
Sometimes, these tests will show you that your hunch was completely wrong. Other times, you’ll just confirm that you were right in the first place. No matter what the results, A/B tests can offer powerful lessons that you can use for the rest of 2015 and beyond.
5. Analyze Your Toolset
Power Your 2016 Initiatives
Q4 is a perfect time to analyze what tools you have, what tools you’re lacking and what tools it’s time to let go of. The list of fantastic marketing and sales tools is too long to go over here, but finding room in your budget for the right tools can help make room for more impactful initiatives in 2016 by opening up more of your budget for other things or by increasing the efficiency of your sales and marketing teams. Some examples of tools aside from the standard CRM and marketing automation include:
- A social selling tool to help sales navigate new media and an abundance of content
- A tool like Mention to keep track of who’s talking about your brand, your competitors or your industry
- A way to empower field sales reps with access to easy access to the best content for their sales meetings
Although you may not turn the world on its head in this last quarter, there are a lot of great opportunities to impact your sales and marketing teams. What kind of initiatives have you had success deploying as the year winds down?
Photo: Sands of Time by River Siren
Melissa Andrews
VP of Marketing
Melissa became a “Flyer” in 2013. As VP of Marketing, she drives B2B marketing efforts through a comprehensive and agile marketing strategy, allowing her to enhance brand awareness and grow inbound lead generation. She is a key liaison and expert on combining creative, technical, and effective sales-generating customer engagement strategies, which has helped solidify Mediafly as a technology leader. She has over twelve years of experience in results-oriented marketing, customer relationship management, customer communications strategy, and B2B sales operations support across a variety of industries. She joined Mediafly from Ariba (an SAP company). Melissa graduated Cum Laude from Rollins College with a B.A. in Organizational Communications and International Relations and holds a Master’s Certificate in Project Management.
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