New data from the Business Chicks Community Survey in response to Covid-19 shows that two in three women are spending more on creative/design software, email marketing CRM platforms and social media.

The numbers indicate that Australian women are exploring ways to expand their businesses and bounce back from the pandemic.

Briony Hunt, Business Chicks Content and Marketing Manager said, “record numbers [of women] are now running their own show.”

Genevieve Brock, General Manager, Content and Acquisition of Business Australia (pictured above) added that it is now more important than ever to target marketing approaches.

She said, “we are seeing a lot of SMEs re-examining their core offering, how they deliver it and how they reach and talk to their clients.”

“We have seen businesses successfully transform their offering in the last year, [which] has prompted a re-examination of their marketing strategies as well. There are so many platforms where you can spend time marketing your SME, but it’s critical that there’s a clear plan, in order to maximise results.”

Brock identified ten core tips on rebooting marketing strategy, which are shared below:

Identify the key problem you need to solve:

Do you need to find new customers, are your existing customers not returning, are your potential clients not dropping into your store, or are you hoping to get more share of your wallet? Be precise about the problem and define it.

Identify what might be holding you back:

Now that you know where your missed opportunity is, do some investigation/analysis as to what the gaps might be – have you not been advertising, is your customer experience an issue? Perhaps your product is not appealing to your current customer.

Validate your hypotheses by looking at data:

You don’t need to do a fully-fledged market research study – you can get great insights simply using data like Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, or simply seeing what’s trending on Facebook and Instagram. You could host your own focus group with some existing or prospective customers to understand who your brand/business appeals to/doesn’t appeal to and why – it’s also a great opportunity to understand who you’re competing with.

Identify your target audience:

Businesses often try and go after too many target audiences versus crafting their proposition around one key audience – the more specific you can be on this, the more targeted and insightful your creative and media selection will be.

Determine your budget (financial and time):

The amount you spend on marketing will depend on your business goals and how much you need to stimulate customer activity, calculating your marketing spend as a proportion of your revenue can help you stay on track to ensure profitable investment. It’s also important to consider the time you’re investing in marketing so you can calculate the return on effort.

Determine your channel:

Different channels will help achieve different outcomes – social media can be great for attracting new audiences utilising geo-targeting and demographic/firmographic insights. Search engine marketing and optimisation is great for nurturing or converting customers who are close to a purchase decision, while direct marketing tools like email, messenger and SMS are powerful for driving customer loyalty and repeat purchase.

Find the right tech:

Once you’ve established some wins on a small scale it’s great to consider how to scale and automate as much as possible or marketing will become very time intensive. Social media scheduling tools and trigger-based direct marketing are great ways to keep an always-on-demand funnel for your business.

Constantly test:

If you’re investing your budget in advertising, it’s very important to be constantly trying different approaches. A/B testing special offers, different creative, new audience targeting are all ways you can aim to improve your return on marketing investment and advertising efficiency.

Obsess over your learnings not your results:

You won’t always get it right, but if you constantly iterate and test one thing against a new initiative, you’ll be able to optimise your return on marketing investment over time. It’s a great way to engage your employees too as their input and observation of results helps them to feel a part of your business success.

Repeat, refine and scale when you’re ready:

Seeing positive results? Continue the cycle and carefully decide when you’re ready to scale your marketing. You’ll need to consider other cost implications like customer service, staffing costs, etc so that you are striving towards profitable growth.