5 Tips for Branding and Marketing in the New Year for 2013

Are you ready for 2013?

Do you have your marketing plan in place? Outlined your stair steps to sales for new clients to existing products or existing clients to new services?

What are the tools and tactics you’re going to use? Are they the most effective - both in results and cost? Easy enough to implement or easy to make a mistake?

Here’s my 5 tips for branding and marketing in the 2013:

1) Don’t give up on Direct Mail just yet: While no one can argue that print media has taken a nose dive, you may not want to discount all the “old school” direct marketing techniques just yet.

Don’t forget at the start of the new year, new US mail postcard rules go into effect with new postcard rules for smaller sizes and address orientation go into effect from the USPS. This is important information to have if you are thinking about using postcards as a marketing strategy. While using a postcard maker to make your marketing material you can use these new rules as a guideline.

2) Test something new: Do you have a new years resolution for marketing? I’ll bet that mobile is top of the list. However who really wants to see an “ad” on your little phone screen while you’re trying to reply to a text, an email or shoot out a photo for another post?

If you really wanted to advertise your brand and try something new, you could order some custom wristbands from a website like www.sleekwristbands.com to give out to clients and customers. Using a product like this will really increase your brand awareness so why not give it a try?

3) Media matching: Make sure you match the media with your target market.

Is it just me, or has some of the social media hype lost it’s shiny halo for marketing? I find that more and more, people are looking for something that works, not just the latest “cool” thing.

Facebook, while hitting 1 billion accounts, often still doesn’t deliver the marketing results that companies want… and can be confusing to implement — even to those in the know (like Mark Zuckerburg’s sister Randi!) with confusing settings.

4) Consider using PR over Ads: PR has the implied endorsement of the media vehicle. Getting free publicity that has some legs can be more cost effective than advertising and last longer too. Looking for some “free” publicity? I’m “regifting” Joan Stewart’s Best Tips of 2012: http://budurl.com/Bestof2012Tips.

5) Write down your marketing plan: It seems like a no-brainer, but written marketing plans have a much high opportunity for success. Even if it’s on the back of a napkin. Who’s your target market? What’s the message you want them to take away? How will you reach them? What’s the measure of success, so you know it was effective?

Bonus Ask for help! A lot of people don’t like to ask for help, but why wouldn’t you when there are so many specialist companies out there that can help with marketing strategies? They are easy to find - for example, if you are an interior design company then a simple search for ‘Marketing for Home Service Providers‘ will bring up a selection of companies that can specifically help you and your business. Something simple like this could really be the boost you need to take your business to the next level.

I’m looking forward to a great 2013 — it’s going to be a fantastic year.

What’s your branding and marketing tips for 2013?

Author: Chris Brown

Business owner operating a marketing consulting firm. Online Publisher. Keynote Speaker.

9 thoughts on “5 Tips for Branding and Marketing in the New Year for 2013”

  1. Good beginning of the year article. Glad to see that PR is a very viable marketing tool as well. It does cost, however. Good PR takes a lot of time to nurture, and a plan for it may be the best investment an entrepreneurs could make.

  4. Having a written plan not only keeps you organized as you go through the marketing process, but it establishes benchmarks to use when tracking the success of your efforts. Keeping your marketing organized helps you identify which areas of your marketing are effective, ineffective, and areas that need improvement.

  6. I’m an attorney in California and I’ve set up a new domain to market my practice. I want to make it a podcast or a video blog that will have short audio and/or video clips short legal tips.I’ve been experimenting with imbedding video on my 360 page. I also have a blog on my regular law office website that is powered by Blogger.com. Blogger.com is okay, but I am looking for recommendations on the best blogging platform to do a podcast or video blog.I’m sure that I will need to host the video on a third party such as YouTube or Yahoo video, but I should have enough storage space and bandwidth to host the MP3 files on my own site. Any suggestions?

  7. Keren:
    I would suggest using WordPress over Blogger. I started this blog on blogger.com (blogspot) and after 2 years moved it. Moving is painful and I think it’s better to start and stay with one platform.

    For audio tips in your podcast, I would use Blubrry PowerPress plug in to upload your MP3s. For video, I would post them to YouTube and use SEO keywords in the description. Then embed and link the video in your blog. Embed so people can watch and link so the people who subscribe via RSS can see it.

    Hope that helps!
    Chris

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