7 Ways to Refresh Your Marketing for the New Year

Marketing

Dec 15

When was the last time you read through your social media about section? Verified that all the links on your website still work? Checked the greeting message on your voicemail?

It’s easy to “set it and forget it” when it comes to the initial creation of your marketing materials, but oftentimes that leads customers to outdated information as well as at a dead end if not everything is in working order.

With the New Year, take the opportunity to refresh your marketing in the following ways:

Listen to Your Voicemail Greeting

This one is super easy to forget to check! If your voicemail greeting contains incorrect information or doesn’t reflect new changes to your business (i.e. how else to reach you or if your business name changed), be sure to re-record it.

Update the copyright year in the footer of your website.

But not to © CURRENT YEAR! Your copyright notice should read as a range with the starting year being the year you started using your specific website design, branding (i.e. logo), copy (text), photos, etc.

Make sure your branding is consistent.

Your brand is what differentiates you from other businesses, whether they’re in your industry or not. A brand is made up of the outer personality, which is your logo, typography, color palette and photography, as well as the inner personality, which your brand voice and how it comes through in your website text, social media captions and more.

Make sure the colors, fonts and brand voice are the same throughout all your marketing materials. Look at your website, email newsletters, social media post graphics, business cards, rack cards, event flyers, ads, etc.

By ensuring that all your marketing materials and digital platforms adhere to your brand, you build brand awareness and familiarity with potential customers. Your business will also look snazzy and professional!

To make it easy, create a brand guide. A brand guide is a cheat sheet that contains the HEX codes of your brand color palette as well as font names. This tutorial will show you how to use Canva to create a brand guide.

If you worked with a graphic designer on your branding, they may have already sent you one.

Spruce Up Your Social Media About Section and Branding

There are many layers to the backend of social media profiles that it can be easy to overlook certain sections when you’ve made changes in your business. Check in on the following:

Verify that your contact information is correct

Even if some of your contact information isn’t public, it’s wise to ensure that it’s up to date. You never know when you’ll need to reset a password!

Check the email address associated with your account, as well as any customer-facing email addresses.

Also look at your phone number, address and business hours.

Refresh your bio

The bio (or about) section – no matter how short – can be the line that converts admirers into customers, or not.

The standard formula is “I help TARGET MARKET with THEIR PROBLEM by YOUR OFFER.”

This is certainly effective, but you’re welcome to have fun and mix it up a bit. Just make your bio is clear. You can also use emojis for emphasis and to make scanning easier!

Use a photo of you or your logo mark as your profile picture

If you’re a solopreneur or you’re the face of your business, I recommend using a professionally shot picture of yourself that reflects your brand colors. Make sure you’re looking right at the camera to build connection with your audience. (Looking away from the camera can make you seem aloof!)

Otherwise, use your logo mark, which is the icon in your logo minus your business name. If you make a product, you can use a product photo for this.

It’s best not to change your profile picture too often, as it’s always present next to every single post. Maintaining the same, on brand profile photo is the foundation of building brand awareness on Instagram.

If your logo is being awkwardly cropped when you upload it, this tutorial will help.

Optimize your website link

As business owners we’re often promoting multiple offers at a time. And that one “link in bio” isn’t going to cut it. Enter Linktree.

Linktr.ee is a free service that allows you to create a page with numerous buttons. You'll use your Linktree link (mine's linktr.ee/missmegabug) in your Instagram bio's website line and whenever someone clicks on it, they'll be brought to multiple buttons to click on.

This allows you to link to multiple offers, blog posts and other links.

You can also customize the look of your Linktree (to an extent). There is a paid version, but the free one is totally usable. This tutorial will show you the ins and outs.

If you’re web design savvy, you can add a page of buttons that will allow you more customizations and better branding. Mine is missmegabug.com/links.

Search your website provider (like Squarespace) then “custom Instagram link tree” for a tutorial.

Customize your Instagram Highlights covers

Highlights appear below your link in bio and above your posts. They’re in the shape of a circle and you can click on each one (just like Stories) to see the collection of Stories classified as that Highlight.

You can update the thumbnail photo of your Highlights to be on brand. I recommend designing a custom graphic to maintain the branding of your Instagram account using Canva, a free cloud-based design software.

Head to Canva and create am Instagram Story canvas. On the left sidebar you’ll see Templates. Type in Instagram Story Highlights Covers for a jumpstart.

This tutorial will show you how to design a cover and upload it to Instagram.

Spruce up your social media about section and branding

There are many layers to the backend of social media profiles that it can be easy to overlook certain sections when you’ve made changes in your business. Check in on the following:

Verify that your contact information is correct

Even if some of your contact information isn’t public, it’s wise to ensure that it’s up to date. You never know when you’ll need to reset a password!

Check the email address associated with your account, as well as any customer-facing email addresses.

Also look at your phone number, address and business hours.

Refresh your bio

The bio (or about) section – no matter how short – can be the line that converts admirers into customers, or not.

The standard formula is “I help TARGET MARKET with THEIR PROBLEM by YOUR OFFER.”

This is certainly effective, but you’re welcome to have fun and mix it up a bit. Just make your bio is clear. You can also use emojis for emphasis and to make scanning easier!

Use a photo of you or your logo mark as your profile picture

Otherwise, use your logo mark, which is the icon in your logo minus your business name. If you make a product, you can use a product photo for this.

If your logo is being awkwardly cropped when you upload it, this tutorial will help.

Optimize your website link

As business owners we’re often promoting multiple offers at a time. And that one “link in bio” isn’t going to cut it. Enter Linktree.

This allows you to link to multiple offers, blog posts and other links.

You can also customize the look of your Linktree (to an extent). There is a paid version, but the free one is totally usable. This tutorial will show you the ins and outs.

If you’re web design savvy, you can add a page of buttons that will allow you more customizations and better branding. Mine is missmegabug.com/links.

Search your website provider (like Squarespace) then “custom Instagram link tree” for a tutorial.

Customize your Instagram Highlights covers

Head to Canva and create am Instagram Story canvas. On the left sidebar you’ll see Templates. Type in Instagram Story Highlights Covers for a jumpstart.

This tutorial will show you how to design a cover and upload it to Instagram.

Test the links on your website and social media channels.

Nothing is more frustrating than clicking on a dead link. Not only does it leave potential customers at a dead end, it could also discourage them from wanting to work with you.

Head to www.deadlinkchecker.com to verify that all the links on your website are in working order. It’s free!

Also comb through each section of your social media profile to verify that each link is still active.

Check your Pinterest pins

Are you a pinner? Download the free PinCheck app to verify that the links on your pins are still active.

Customize your 404 page

Create a custom 404 error page so that if someone lands on a broken link on your website, they’re not greeted with a boring string of error text. On a custom 404 page, you can also add popular links to give website visitors somewhere to go. Check out mine at www.missmegabug.com/404.

If you designed your own website, search “custom 404 page” and your website platform, such as “Squarespace” for a tutorial.

Check in on your SEO.

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps your website appear as close to the top of related search results as possible. It’s super important, but it can also be overwhelming.

If you’ve already set-up the SEO on your website, check to make sure that your keywords are still accurate to what you do and that the backend settings on your pages have been filled in. You’ll want to check these sections:

Page and site titles - When scanning your website, search engines prioritize your title tags, which are site titles, page titles, blog post titles and headings on your actual website pages. Because these titles also appear in browser tabs, it’s essential that they contain the proper keywords.

i.e. “About Miss MegaBug” includes my page name and business name.

Website copy - The actual text on your website should include your relevant keywords along with the page name. Make sure to write as you normally would and incorporate keywords naturally. There’s no need for a bunch of unnecessary repetition.

Footer - An often overlooked place to incorporate keywords is in your website footer. Because the footer appears on every single page of your website, it’s an absolute bang for the buck to include a line about your business.

i.e. Miss MegaBug offers online business and marketing courses to female entrepreneurs who are just starting their businesses.

Always include your service location, if applicable.

i.e. MegaBug Photography offers wedding photography in the Littleton, NH as well as the White Mountains of NH area and beyond.

Meta descriptions - Meta descriptions allow you to add more information about your website and pages. While page and site titles are brief, a meta description can be up to 160 characters.

Not only do search engines scan your meta descriptions when determining if your website will appear in search results, potential visitors read them to determine if they actually want to visit your site.

Be sure to include keywords strategically but write your meta descriptions in cohesive sentences.

Image file names - What you name the photos you upload to your website matters. Be sure to title the image with the name of your website and relative descriptors, whether it’s the name of the page your photo is on, the blog post name or the product.

i.e. Miss MegaBug_About_Meg Brown.jpg

Alternative text - Alt text allows search engines to index images on a website and include them in search results. It appears in a box while hovering over an image or in place of an image if the image fails to load. (Alt text is also relied on by the visually impaired.)

Alt text is very specific. Be sure to describe the image’s subject and context, use keywords sparingly and refrain from starting your alt text with “picture of…” or “image of…”. Note that alt text is limited to 125 characters.

Learn more here.

Ensure that your hours are posted correctly online.

Comb through your Facebook page, Google Business, your website and anywhere else your hours are posted to verify that they’re up to date.

If you haven’t done this already, this tutorial demonstrates Facebook and this tutorial demonstrates Google Business.

Bonus: Increase word-of-mouth marketing and reviews.

The most effective form of marketing is referrals. Consider offering a discount or reward for customers when they refer your business to someone who then makes a purchase from you.

To increase your number of online reviews (which you can then use as testimonials on your website), post links to your profile on industry review sites like TripAdvisor, as well as your Google Business and Facebook pages. You can add these links to your website, wrap-up emails to clients, social media and more.

By targeting these seven areas, your marketing will be refreshed and ready for the new year!

P.S. This post is the full version of a post I wrote for HoneyBook. They edited my post to add their own resources, and you can check it out here.