It’s almost 2018. Do you know how you’re going to grab new customers next year?

Let’s face it—this is a busy time of the year. Holidays. Travel. Family. Days off. Organizing tax information. It all seems to fall right before the holidays, which only makes your life as a marketer more difficult.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan for the new year.

In fact, now is the perfect time to set up a marketing plan for the new year.

To take lessons from the failures of last year.

To expand what worked throughout 2017.

To build on what you achieved all year long.

If you’re happy with the progress you’ve made over the past year—but you know you want more out of your mortgage or insurance business—let’s explore some tips for starting up a fresh marketing plan after the new year.

Tip #1: Stop Ignoring Entire Media

Let’s say you’ve had a somewhat successful year in one advertising medium. That’s great. You’ve taken the time to optimize your site and make the most out of every ad you place.

But what if you’re wondering why your business isn’t growing fast enough?

It may be time to incorporate an entire new medium into your advertising strategies, including:

• Facebook Ads. The high degree of customization allowed with Facebook ads makes it a favorite with online marketers. Other types of sponsored search, including Google Adwords and sponsored Tweets, can be just as effective. If your problem is simply not getting enough traffic, maybe it’s time to push your foot on the marketing accelerator.
• Landing Pages. Do you use offline media to advertise your business, but don’t have anywhere for them to go? It may be time to build a fresh landing page designed exclusively for one specific campaign. This allows you to customize and tailor your message, which in turn boosts the potential conversions you can make as you draw in more potential clients for your business.

Is there more? Of course—there are always ways to find new avenues to bring in potential leads. But if you’re ignoring these large media, a fresh year is a great way to get started at what you’ve been putting off for too long.

Tip #2: Start Thinking in Terms of Campaigns

If your advertising feels haphazard and improvised, there’s a good reason for that.

You’re not putting in the proper planning.

Stop thinking about advertising as something that you do without a thought, and start thinking of your marketing in terms of campaigns.

A campaign can yield you wonderful new information.

A campaign can have brand consistency and on-point messaging throughout.

A campaign has definable, measurable goals.

Make sure you put together the proper analytics at the start of a campaign. This will ensure that you get the data you need to make adjustments for the next campaign.

You don’t have to attack this with any specific sort of plan. Planning is the plan. Whether you want to do monthly campaigns, quarterly campaigns, or make the entire year a new campaign—it’s all up to you.

What’s important is that you approach it with a new state of mind. You’re not going to simply advertise—you’re going to use the resources at your disposal to unlock the secrets of your audience.

The key here isn’t so much a tactic as it is a shift in mindset. Make 2018 a year of campaigns, and once you start keeping your marketing efforts accountable to their results, you’ll notice an immediate improvement.

Tip #3: Take the Time to Do the Little Things

Do the tips above already sound like something you do? Then it may be time to use this fresh start to re-emphasize the little things you can do in your marketing journey to inspire more action from your potential clients. Here are a few ideas:

• Optimizing your voicemail. If you receive voicemail messages a few times per day, you can put it to work and potentially generate leads simply by recording a new message. Give them a link to visit, for example—you never know when one potential phone call turns into a potential client, even when you’re away.
• Optimizing your email signature. You want to talk about volume? Let’s talk volume. How many emails do you send in a typical week? That’s an audience of colleagues, potential leads, clients—all of whom can potentially send you referrals. Make your signature interesting, to the point, and make sure that it tells someone who might be interested in your business where they can sign up.

The beauty of optimizing these two “little things”? It has a big long-term impact. Every time you send an email, once optimized, you’ll have a little built-in advertisement doing the work for you.

Tip #4: Define Your Potential Clients—All Over Again

If you don’t know who your potential clients are, it only stands to reason that your 2018 marketing efforts aren’t going to be very effective.

Think of it as golfing without knowing where the pin is.

Your ideal clients will have specific demographics, behaviors, and needs. It’s up to you to not only define these, but to begin to customize your branding to coincide with these needs. You’ll want to position yourself as someone who can deliver exactly what it is you’re looking for.

If you do it right, that fact should be obvious as soon as they sign on to your page.

The same information can inform much of your marketing strategies.

It can inform the kinds of Tweets you send out, or the photos you post to Facebook. The more you learn about your clients and who they are, the better you’ll be able to position yourself and capture their attention. Without that knowledge, you’re simply golfing in the dark. Make sure you have a pin to aim for in the future.

Tip #5: If at First You Don’t Succeed…

…try, try again.

There’s no guarantee that your new marketing efforts will succeed right away.

There may be some adjustments to make on the fly.

But if you follow the tips here, you can make 2018 a different kind of year. You can make it the kind of year in which you will figure out everything you wanted to know about your potential clients.

You can make it the kind of year in which you finally get serious about your marketing efforts. Rather than doing just enough to get by, you can make it a proactive year, where marketing isn’t just another line item in your budget—it’s a priority for you so you can grow your mortgage or insurance business to new levels.

Want a better way to do that?

Then I recommend you get started with a free trial of leadPops before the year is out. Doing so will not only show you the “ropes” of building an effective marketing presence online, but will help you get started so you’re ready to tackle the new year in a completely new way.

Don’t just let your marketing happen. Make it happen—and use the new year to make a resolution: you’re going to reach out to potential clients like never before.