This year has been a good but an eventful one. I continue to be grateful that we work with some inspirational small business owners who are awesome at what they do and feel fortunate to have also worked on some exciting projects across the year. At time of writing we are finishing the marketing planning cycle for many of our clients. I love this time of year and this process as it helps us as a team to reflect, celebrate our successes and ensure we start the new year with renewed energy, focus and purpose.
In the wider, macro environment things have also been eventful in 2023. We have sadly seen the war in Ukraine continue, the fighting in Israel start, the coronation of King Charles III, the women’s England Football Team make it to the finals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup (20 July – 20 August), Cop 28 and sadly lost many iconic public figures, to name a few.
RIMU Marketing has also had a good year and there are more exciting things planned for 2024 and we will explore that further next month, but for now I wanted to reflect on 2023 and share some of our highlights and learnings with you:
January
We talk a lot about understanding our ideal client and a way to verify your understanding is to ask them. With this in mind in January we crafted a survey for small business owners to greater understand the challenges they were facing for the year ahead. It was really interesting and demonstrated there was a need to understand an economical approach to marketing. This insight has guided our content focus this year.
February
February is typically a difficult month with rubbish weather, but we started to answer some of the key questions asked by our small business owner audience such as: “Marketing Ideas On a Budget”.
March
March always brings a sense of hope with the longer, lighter days. Our focus was on email marketing to help the small business owner make the most of this important tool. In March we shared our blog “8 Most Frequently Asked Email Marketing Questions”.
April
In April we celebrated our 9th business birthday, I am still not quite sure how we are nearly at the 10 yr mark, and ran a free webinar “Shake Up Your Marketing” to mark the occasion. Click here to watch on catch up.
May
I meet a lot of small business owners, and sometimes they have a mental barrier to fully implementing their marketing. With this in mind, Inspired by the Magic Coaching model, I was delighted to launch our Marketing Coaching programme which is designed to help people overcome some of these challenges.
June
As an industry we have seen a huge growth in the usage of short video content across all marketing channels, a trend which is set to continue into 2024. With 96% of people having used video to learn more about a product or service, this is definitely a media to focus on. This year we were delighted to work with the brilliant Press Play Online team to create our new video, showcase how as a team we can help our clients.
July and August
The summer months were a time to enjoy some to rest, relax and reflect on the year so far.
September
As many of you will know charity is something close to our hearts at RIMU, and we try where we can to support charities either through fund raising or giving our time. This year I was delighted to run the Windsor 10k, not only did I complete it in a personal best time, but I also raised over £1,000 for local charity The Baby Bank.
October
With Halloween and the festive season on the horizon we talked a lot about how you make the most of this time of year, by creating seasonal campaigns. If you are planning your seasonal marketing campaigns for 2024, grab a cuppa and read our blog “6 Festive Marketing Campaign Ideas”.
November
In November we started our 2024 marketing planning cycle. This time of year is brilliant to take stock, reflect on the achievements and successes of the year and clearly define ambitions for 2024.
December
This is a time for enjoying the festive season, I wish you all a happy and healthy 2024!
In Summary
There are many exciting trends on the horizon for 2024 which we will explore next month. As a final summary of 2023 – A marketing year in review, it was also interesting to see what people have been searching for online this year. As you may expect the Ukraine war and the coronation feature quite prominently.
I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and happy, healthy 2024. Enjoy the downtime, and of course, if the team and I can help you to kick-start your marketing in January, please get in touch to arrange a discovery call.
