5 Tips for Marketing Your Business in the New Year

After a rough couple of years, the weary world is holding onto the promises of a new year and a fresh start in 2022. (Hopefully, it doesn’t turn into 2020 too, amiright?) As you know, more consumers are shopping online than ever before. And though the “giving season” will be over on January 1, now’s the time to get your campaigns ready for the year ahead so you don’t fall behind. Here are 5 digital marketing tips to jumpstart your business goals and marketing strategy in the new year:

1. Send a New Year’s email – Your emails are more likely to be noticed around New Year’s once inboxes quiet down after the Christmas chaos. This is especially true if you’re thoughtful about your messaging and make it worthwhile for customers to open the email. One way to do this is by sending exclusive offers to select groups of your subscribers, plus email-only deals that you’re not listing on social media or your website.
   
   Not running a promotion? How about asking for feedback instead. We all like to feel heard, and we all have something to say. But deeper than that, to successfully meet your marketing or sales goals, you NEED to know how your customers feel—especially if there’s a problem you’re not aware of. Consider sending a survey to “Help us serve you better in 2022.” This valuable feedback can help you reshape or rethink your marketing strategy altogether. 
2. Customize your content marketing – Because we are so inundated with noise across all social media platforms, it’s important to create material that adds value to your customers’ lives. What do we mean by this? At this time of year, most people think about “starting over,” resetting our mental health, or bettering ourselves and our bodies. Focusing your New Year’s content on self-care or offering a remedy to simplify your customers’ lives is valuable information that relates to most people. If your content doesn’t relate to your audience, your strategy won’t work. Period.
   
   Once you have your content nailed down, take your idea and share it consistently across all your marketing channels to extend your reach as far as possible—website, social media, email, etc. 
3. Amp up your Social Media presence and get more traction – You can’t deny the power of social media. Encourage interaction, heighten brand awareness, and create buzz by hosting a contest on social media. Not only do people respond, they share on their pages and share with their friends via comments to maximize their chances of winning. We all like winning, no matter what the prize.
   
   Don’t want to run a contest? How about running a lightning promotion. There’s science behind impulse buying, and this is a great way to get your product into more hands (and increase sales). And if it’s done right, you can relatively easily expand your customer file. 
4. Run a New Year’s promotion – There’s no better way to close out the year—and give your sales a boost for next year—than by running a festive promotion. Every person with an email account receives HUNDREDS of promotional emails around Christmas. But the influx of holiday promotional emails all start to dwindle around New Year’s day. This is the perfect time to get your customers’ attention. It’s also an opportunity to do some subject line testing to see what makes your customers click into your emails.
   
   Subject line testing is also called A/B testing. Basically how this works is you have two different subject lines. You send one to half of your send file, and the other to the other have of your send file. Then, you see which one performs better. Once you know what makes your customers’ click, you can formulate your subject lines going forward to yield profitable results. 
5. Launch new products – Out with the old, in with the new. Right around the new year is a great time to promote what’s new. If you’re early enough, you can even tease that something new is coming to peak interest and hold your customers’ attention. Whatever you are promoting should include benefit-driven copy, explaining what the new product is, how it is better than past products, and how it will benefit your customers. You might also consider offering new customers a deal on their first purchase. Or, play on emotion to garner appeal—center your product marketing messaging around New Year’s resolutions to further increase your chances of success.

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