Following is a guest post from our friends over at Long & Short of It, masters of ideation, customer insights and market research. They like to say they “dig and find lots of data and then turn it into actionable insights.” Following is their guest post.
A well-crafted strategic plan is the roadmap that guides your organization from its current state to its desired future. But how do you ensure your plan is robust, actionable, and aligned with your vision? The key lies in a skillfully executed strategic planning session or series of sessions.
Whether you’re developing a new plan or refreshing an existing one, these sessions provide a structured framework for bringing diverse perspectives together, fostering open dialogue, and creating a shared understanding of your organization’s objectives, strategies, and tactics.
Bringing in someone outside the organization to facilitate allows everyone to participate and it ensures the sessions run smoothly, on time, and accomplish the goal of creating a plan. No side tracking here.
Whether you bring in someone or go it alone, here’s a step-by-step guide to mastering the art of strategic planning:
1. Define Your Objective
Begin by clearly articulating what you want to achieve. Is it increasing market share, launching a new product line, or expanding into untapped territories? This objective will serve as the North Star, guiding every subsequent discussion and decision.
2. Gather Insights
Make sure the team has a deep understanding of the organization’s current state. This may involve analyzing financial performance, studying customer data, and evaluating the competitive landscape. These insights will inform the strategies and tactics.
3. Develop Strategies
With your objective and insights in hand, it’s time to map out your strategies – the “how” of achieving your goal. Craft broad yet clear strategies, each with a line of sight to the desired outcome.
4. Break It Down Into Tactics
Once your strategies are defined, break them down into actionable tactics. These are the tangible steps that will bring your plan to life, complete with assigned owners, timelines, and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs).
5. Align and Commit
Throughout the sessions, ensure everyone is on the same page, addressing any misalignments or concerns. By the end, your team should be fully committed to the plan, with a shared understanding of their roles and responsibilities.
6. Plan for Execution
But the plan isn’t complete without a clear plan for execution. Establish regular check-ins, accountability measures, and a process for monitoring progress and making necessary adjustments.
The true value of these strategic planning sessions lies in their ability to bring diverse perspectives together, foster open dialogue, and create a sense of ownership and buy-in from everyone involved.
So, gather your team, roll up your sleeves, and contact us to facilitate this transformative journey. With a well-crafted strategic plan in hand, you’ll be equipped to navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and propel your organization towards its vision of success. Let’s do this!
In the fast-paced world of social media, staying organized and strategic is crucial for success. With countless platforms to manage, diverse content to create, and an ever-changing digital landscape to navigate, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed without a clear plan in place. A content calendar helps your content creation process, maximizing efficiency and driving results. In this blog, we’ll explore why you should create a content calendar and how it can benefit your business.
Consistency
One of the most significant benefits of a social media calendar is that it helps you maintain consistency in your posting schedule. By mapping out your content in advance, you can plan out the type of content you’ll be posting to keep your audience engaged. Consistent posting helps you stay on top for your brand and plan for future posts.
Strategic Planning and Alignment
A content calendar enables you to take a strategic approach to your content by planning out product posts, holidays and messaging in advance. By aligning your social media efforts with your overall goals, you can ensure that your content supports your objectives and drives results. Additionally, having a visual overview of your content calendar allows you to identify gaps, overlaps and opportunities for optimization.
Efficiency and Time Management
Creating a social media calendar allows you to optimize your time more effectively. By having an idea of what you’re posting each month, you can work more efficiently and avoid last-minute scrambling. This will free up valuable time needed and allows you to focus on other aspects of your business.
Adaptability and Flexibility
While a social media calendar provides structure and guidance, it also allows for flexibility and adaptability in response to audience feedback or product delays. Having a planned content calendar doesn’t mean you’re locked into the schedule or unable to pivot when necessary. Instead, it provides a framework that allows you to adjust and iterate based on changing circumstances, ensuring that your content remains relevant and responsive to your audience’s needs and interests.
Improved Collaboration and Communication
For teams or individuals working collaboratively on social media content, a calendar serves as a central hub for planning coordination and communication. By sharing a common calendar, team members can stay aligned on upcoming initiatives, track progress and collaborate more effectively. This fosters a sense of accountability, transparency and teamwork, leading to smoother execution and better outcomes.
Creating a content calendar is a smart investment of time and can benefit your overall goals. From maintaining consistency and strategic planning to improving efficiency and collaboration, a well-crafted calendar can be a game-changer for your social media efforts. So, if you haven’t already, it’s time to start planning and organizing a well-executed social media calendar.
In today’s digital age, where attention spans are shorter than ever and competition is fierce, companies must continually seek innovative ways to connect with their audience. YouTube is an online video platform and a powerhouse for content creators and businesses alike. In this blog, we’ll explore why companies should embrace YouTube in their marketing strategy and how harnessing the power of video can drive success.
Massive Reach and Global Audience
With over two billion logged-in monthly users, YouTube has a massive and diverse audience spanning the globe. By establishing a presence on YouTube, companies can tap into this vast audience pool and reach potential customers wherever they may be. Especially within the trades, where users are constantly searching for how-tos and information on products.
Engagement and Interaction
Unlike traditional forms of advertising, YouTube offers unparalleled opportunities for engagement and interaction with its audiences. Through likes, comments, shares and subscriptions, companies can foster meaningful connections with viewers, cultivate brand loyalty and spark conversations around their products or services. Additionally, features like live streaming enable real-time engagement, allowing companies to connect with their audience in more dynamic and authentic ways.
Visual Storytelling and Brand Building
Video is a powerful medium for storytelling, enabling companies to convey their brand message and values in a visually compelling way. Whether through product demonstrations, behind-the-scenes glimpses or customer testimonials, companies can leverage YouTube to build awareness, inform their customers and differentiate themselves from competitors.
SEO Benefits and Increased Visibility
As the second largest search engine in the world (after Google, its parent company), YouTube offers significant SEO benefits for companies looking to increase their online visibility. By optimizing video titles, descriptions, tags and thumbnails with relevant keywords, companies can improve their rankings in YouTube search results and attract more organic traffic to their channel.
YouTube represents a dynamic tool for companies looking to elevate their marketing efforts and connect with consumers in meaningful ways. By leveraging the platform’s massive reach, engagement opportunities, visual storytelling capabilities and SEO benefits, companies can expand their brand presence, drive sales, and build lasting relationships with their audience.
Did you know that “Hug a Plumber Day” takes place on April 25? Every year, this day is a reminder to celebrate plumbers as they typically don’t receive enough credit for their work.
From late-night emergencies to routine maintenance, these professionals handle it with dedication and expertise. From tackling over-flowing toilets to stubborn clogs, they spare us from inconvenience and frustration.
Without plumbers, our world wouldn’t be sanitary or operating. At Sonnhalter, we are thankful for the hard work and commitment that plumbers have. We’ve had the opportunity to see plumbers at work and have heard their stories. Plumbers do so much more than unclog drains and fix leaky faucets. It’s plumbers who install the miles of piping that make hot, cold and process water and gas utilities possible.
As we celebrate Hug a Plumber Day, let’s remember that our appreciation extends beyond a single day. Let’s strive to recognize and honor the vital role plumbers play in our lives. To all the plumbers out there–Thank you. Together we shower you with gratitude.
Understanding the importance of social media analytics is key to unlocking maximum success for your business. Every like, share and comment helps companies to leverage their content and gain valuable insights to their audience, content performance and overall strategy. In this blog, we will dive into social media analytics and why they’re crucial for maximizing impact and achieving your goals.
Understanding Your Audience
Social media analytics provide you with audience demographics and behaviors that can aid you in content creation. By knowing metrics such as age, gender, location and interests, you can have a deeper understanding of who your audience is and what resonates with them. This information will allow you to tailor your content to better meet their needs, increase engagement and build stronger relationships with your community.
Evaluating Content Performance
Analyzing your social media performance and engagement is essential to maximizing your content with your audience. By examining metrics such as shares, comments, link clicks and likes, you can identify trends and patterns in your content performance. For example, you can see when the best posting times are for your business and what type of content performs the best, like products, behind-the-scenes or company news. Knowing these insights will help you to refine your content strategy, focus on what works best and optimize future posts.
Monitoring Brand Awareness
Brand reputation is everything in 2024, and social media analytics allow you to monitor your brand awareness or also commonly called brand sentiment. You can track mentions, tagging and comments of what people are saying about your company or products. By listening to what people are saying about your brand online, you can address any issues or concerns in a timely manner and foster a positive brand image.
Making Strategic Decisions
Ultimately, social media analytics empower you to make informed strategic decisions that drive results. Adjusting your content strategy allows you to make confident decisions that are backed by real evidence. This approach to social media development ensures that your company is constantly improving and staying ahead of the curve of the ever-changing social media platforms.
In conclusion, social media analytics are not just numbers on a screen – they are powerful tools for driving growth, engagement and success. By leveraging analytics to understand your audience, evaluate content performance, monitor brand awareness and inform strategic decision-making, you can unlock the full potential of your social media presence and achieve your goals. So, don’t overlook the importance of social media analytics – dive in, explore, and let the data guide your journey to success.
Social media trends are always changing, especially year after year for B2B marketers. In a recent post from WTWH Media, they break down six social media trends that you need to know about for 2024. In this blog, we will be taking a look at each trend and why you might want to incorporate them into your 2024 strategy.
Trend One: SEO
SEO isn’t just for your website but can be used on your social media platforms as well. Google is always ranking and optimizing search results for users. Creating practical and helpful social media content can help to drive traffic to your account. Consider adding keywords to captions, descriptions and hashtags to your posts as leveraging SEO can lead to a 30-percent higher engagement rate.
Trend Two: Social Media Platforms
Over the years we’ve seen many social media platforms pop up, but this doesn’t mean your brand should join every social media app you see. When it comes to social media, brands should prioritize quality over quantity. Companies should focus their time and energy on platforms that resonate with their target audience.
Trend Three: AI
AI is here to stay in 2024! AI can help marketers brainstorm content ideas and provide support to save time while giving valuable insights. Several platforms have AI tools for marketers to use such as listening tools, AI-generated images, writing assistants and more! While AI can assist with ideas, marketers are still the brains and leaders when it comes to marketing.
Trend Four: Authenticity
While AI-generated content is spreading, it’s important to keep high-quality, human-led content at the top of your strategies. Right now, nonpromotional content is the number one type of content consumers don’t see enough of from companies. Think about the type of content you’re posting for your audience and think about what they might find valuable. Leaning into community engagement and nonpromotional content can build trust with your audience. Try showcasing employees, company events or even behind-the-scenes content to strengthen brand reputation.
Trend Five: Influencers
Influencers are for every company, especially within the trades! Many brands are having success with utilizing micro- and macro-influencers. When working with influencers, you can target your audience and showcase your products to them. Other influencers for your brand are your employees. Employees can provide trusted expert content and drive authentic engagement for your brand.
Trend Six: Video
The growth of video has skyrocketed, particularly short-form video content. This doesn’t mean you can’t use long-form video, and since social media keeps expanding their video length, we might see an increase in how long videos are. At the same time, the human attention span has shrunk to 8.25 seconds. If you’re not already, think about adding videos to your marketing mix for social media. Videos are a great way to capture the attention of your audience and provide valuable information they’re seeking.
If you’re not already using one of the ideas listed above in your 2024 plan, think about adding it! With the everchanging social media platforms, it’s important to stay on top of the game against your competitors. Check out the full article from WTWH Media to learn more.
