It’s time for our annual “what we’re thankful for” post, and this year, as we did in 2014, we’re serving up the main dish, T-U-R-K-E-Y, as we look back at some of our top priorities in 2015. Got some turkeys of your own? Let us know about them in the comments below.

Happy Thanksgiving from Sales Renewal!

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T is for “Traditional” Marketing: Sure, it’s obvious that in 2015 businesses need to market themselves online using inbound marketing tactics (your website, SEO, content marketing, social media, blogging, downloads). But unless your business is 100% online, ignoring the tried-and-true forms of marketing, the ones that operate in the real-world, like advertising, direct mail, events & trade shows and in-person local events, is a disaster waiting to happen! After all, these “traditional” forms of marketing have stood the test of time, are the best way to reach the widest possible audience in the shortest amount of time and are particularly effective in B2B marketing or for higher-end products.

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U is for Understanding Your Customers: Prospects at different places in the buying cycle – awareness, consideration and purchase are the key stages –see their problems in different ways, from different perspectives. Understanding these perspectives can help marketers make decisions about everything from the best keywords to the best content that’ll accelerate prospects through the buying cycle.

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R is for Results: You can have what you believe are the best marketing programs in place, but unless you’re rigorously benchmarking your efforts and tracking all 4 types of leads (web site submits, phone calls, email and in-person), you won’t get a 360 degree of your marketing and could be making poor marketing investment decisions. Here’s one example of how analytics helped improve results.

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K is for Keywords: The more things change… Of course, the days when the main goal was to rank #1 for a keyword have long gone. But keywords are still, well, key to marketing – from developing content for a website to monitoring actions resulting from SEO efforts.

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E is for Email Marketing Taken to the Next Level: Email marketing is still one of the best, most cost effective ways to reach prospects and customers. But the days of relying solely on traditional “push” emails (one email, sent to a general list) are waning. Using information from “U” – understanding the customer – we can take advantage of the opportunities that list segmentation and lead nurturing / automation offer for a cost-effective, targeted and personalized way to move prospects through the sales funnel.

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Y is for Yes: At Sales Renewal, we believe that yes, small businesses can market like big businesses. In today’s complicated marketing environment, businesses need to draw on many different marketing strategies, services and tactics to generate sales and qualified leads. The key is finding the best mix for your business, and thanks to the large universe of affordable possibilities, as well as sales-enabling technologies, the playing field has never been so level.

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Serve this TURKEY all together, and you have the solid foundation for a marketing strategy that any business can use to grow their leads and sales:

• An integrated mix of Traditional and Digital Marketing Programs, that maximizes its effectiveness drawing on an Understanding of your customers and their path through the sales funnel to convert from leads to sales.
• Analytics helps you use Results from your activities to measure the success of these marketing programs, from knowing the best Key Concepts and Keywords to use in SEO and PPC to taking advantage of the sophistication that Email Marketing, including automation and lead nurturing, can bring.
• So, Yes, we are thankful that in today’s world, small businesses can market like big businesses.