New Year – New Digital Strategy

A new year is upon us, which means out with the old and in with the new. Why not set your business off on the right foot with a new digital strategy for 2021?

This year, we’re more excited than ever to welcome in a new year, and hopefully start saying goodbye to some of the 2020 madness. Has your business undergone some fundamental changes in the last year? And what about your clients? How have their lives changed? To ensure that your online presence is relevant this year, it’s a good idea to start planning your 2021 digital strategy now.

Has your business changed since 2019?

2019 feels like a lifetime ago and perhaps your business looked very different back then. To identify what your digital strategy should be, it’s important to identify how coronavirus has changed your business. This could include:

  • A different target audience: The types of people you want to reach might have been altered during 2020. Your previous ideal customer may now not be able to afford your service, or a consumer demand for local goods might have brought you a whole new client base.
  • New operations: Coronavirus might have reshaped the way your business operates, whether it’s offering a new takeaway service or offering click-and-collect.
  • New business structure: How has the structure of your business changed? You might have moved entirely from office to remote working or have an increased or decreased workforce.
  • A different supply chain: Coronavirus has forced many businesses to look to new suppliers either due to slower importing times or, unfortunately, because some businesses have closed.

However your business might have changed, it’s important that you recognise these alterations and consider them when formulating your new digital strategy.   

Has your digital presence kept up?

If your website needs updating, you haven’t got around to starting a newsletter and your social media needs improvement, there’s no need to feel guilty. 2020 has been a testing year, especially for business owners and for many businesses this year has pretty much just been about surviving. So perhaps you’ve had to scale back on elements of your business, and your digital marketing might have been one of these.

Hopefully, coming into 2021, your business has adjusted (somewhat) to its new order, and you can now start thinking about having a more active online presence. If you’ve stopped posting on social media, publishing blogs and sending out newsletters, then a new year is a great time to start again; but be wary of just picking up where you left off: it’s likely that your old digital marketing strategy will feel out of date. That’s one of the reasons we’re offering a free one-hour digital strategy review with our experts, where you can start to nail your social media and website strategy.

Is your audience the same?

One of the key things you’ll want to consider when formulating your 2021 digital strategy is whether your audience has changed. When identifying your new audience, here are a few important factors to weigh up:

  • What types of people is your business attracting? Is this the same group as before the pandemic, or a different group? After you identify who your customers are, you can start tailoring your messaging online to appeal to them.
  • What types of people do you want to be attracting? As well as the people who are already taking up your services, there might be a different client base that you would also like to be working with. You’ll also want your digital marketing to focus on attracting these ideal clients to your business as well, without alienating your current client base. To do this you could start to map out different customer journeys and start implementing specific marketing targeted at different group of people.
  • Is your audience using the internet differently? There’s no point chucking out great content if no one is going to see it. Why not sit down and evaluate how your customers (new and old) are using social media and whether this has changed. For example, if your business is aimed at stay-at-home-parents, are they using different channels? Maybe they got really into TikTok during lockdown with their kids. Or they might be using social media at different times; previously, your ideal customer might have flicked through social media on their commute on a train going to work. Now, they might be soaking up that extra hour in bed and unlikely to be checking Twitter during the early hours. Identifying how and when your customers are using social media will ensure you’re reaching an optimum number of potential clients.

If you’d like to discuss your digital marketing plan for 2021 with an expert, then please get in touch to book a free one-hour digital strategy review.