1. Communicate with your agencies, they are your chosen partners.
Share your marketing plan, it is not a trade secret, it’s a road map. How can you expect your agency to deliver an effective plan if you don’t share all the information? If you are not clear with your direction, how can you expect them to deliver? Writing a
marketing brief is a best practice that will help you clarify your thinking and clearly articulate expected deliverables. Clearly sharing your business objectives and strategies will ensure you are all rowing in the same direction. Withholding strategy or other tactical details only makes the agency you are paying a ton of money, less effective. You can never overshare with your agency.
2. Short term decisions can have long term impacts.
What do you hope to accomplish with this decision and what are the long-term repercussions? Does this decision align with your long-range plan? Although these are challenging times, let's not make short-sighted decisions that negatively impact the brand or things like price integrity. Don’t drop your price, rather, execute short-term, fenced promotions. Promotions don’t necessarily mean discounts either. Consider focusing on demand periods with value-add packages. How can you yield additional dollars out of peak days to maximize your revenue?
3. Freelance is good.
The business landscape may look a lot different when we emerge from COVID-19 and hiring freelancers is an opportunity to reduce operating expense risk when every dollar counts. Freelancers are a great way to get high-level talent at a fraction of the cost and limited commitment. Just because you can’t add a full-time position or don’t have the budget to afford the talent you need doesn’t mean the work stops.
Remember, freelancers are free agents, not part of any company's permanent staff and hiring a freelancer helps you avoid the cost of taxes and benefits associated with health insurance, paid time off and other miscellaneous benefits. Working with freelancers offers a limited risk solution vs hiring a permanent, full-time employee.
4. A social presence is especially critical for small businesses where word of mouth marketing is the main driver
As people turn to Facebook and other community groups for recommendations, a social presence enables your friends and customers to easily tag and share your information. It's free, and keeps you top of mind in the community. It enables you to communicate quickly and effectively with new customers in a convenient way for them. You need to be where they are, not the other way around.
5. Summarize your marketing plan into one sheet and hang it in your workspace
A marketing plan summary is a great way to keep you and your team aligned throughout the year. An objective, 3-4 strategies and 4-5 tactics per strategy will easily fit on one page. As opportunities arise, you can use this summary to answer one quick question. Does this fall within our current strategy or is it a distraction?
After twenty years with Six Flags and a couple more with Merlin Entertainments, I decided to take my show on the road as Get It Done Marketing, a freelance marketing business focused on the attraction industry. With over 20 years of experience in amusement parks, water parks, resorts, FEC’s and city center attractions, Get It Done Marketing is well positioned to provide cost-effective solutions to your unique needs. Visit getitdonemarketing.com to learn more.
These five #marketingbits were partially published in the AttractionPros Suppliers Speak e-book in November 2020.