How to Take Advantage of the New Year Market

• 9th January 2017
• Leanne Hyland

The beginning of a new year is an unrivalled milestone in our calendar, resulting in dramatic shifts in outlook and behaviour for a large chunk of the population. Thoughts of self-improvement, healthy lifestyle alterations and goal-directed aspirational activities migrate to the forefront of our minds, following a more relaxed mindset over the festive season.

From January, there lies massive opportunities for brands to deliver targeted messages and campaigns to consumers with personal and professional resolutions – with fitness and financial stability topping the list.

Seize the window of opportunity

To maximise web traffic and conversions at this time of year, brands should note the importance of timing. While January sees an explosion of keywords related to ‘health’, ‘diet and fitness’ and ‘gym membership’, these drop off dramatically by the end of the month. So be quick and provide relevant content in the right place and at the right time to reap the benefits.

Optimise for a mobile audience

Almost 70% of people in the UK now own a smartphone, and you can be confident that come New Year they’ll be using these devices more than any other to search for inspiration, advice and motivational tips online.

Mobiles allow consumers to act on resolutions ‘in the moment’, regardless of where they are, and through keyword research you can target those who are receptive to marketing strategies at this time of year. So if you haven’t already, now is the time to optimise your website for mobile and cross device conversions.

Use Adwords to build relevant keyword lists

Listing against fitness specific or money-saving keywords at the start of the year can help you to boost conversions, but make sure all promotions are personalised and relevant.

Avoid keyword stuffing at all costs. Although it may seem as though the more specific keywords you can cram into content or meta tags the better, search engines will penalise this when crawling your page – leading to banning of sites or low rankings in search results pages.

Do your research and jump on this year’s marketing trends

Research suggests that advertising spend is likely to decrease globally in 2017 as a result of business owners taking an increasingly more sophisticated approach to marketing strategies.

Priorities are changing across social media, where business marketing is now commonplace. Small and medium sized businesses are taking more control over the analysis of consumers engaging with their brand. No longer is this a measure of likes or reactions, but clicks, posts and engagements.

Brand authenticity is also due to grow with increasing importance. Consumers are steering away from faceless organisations and large chains, preferring instead family run businesses and organic brands run by those with who they can relate.

Take all of these suggestions into account and your New Year should start with a bang.