Hi friend,
The holiday season is a necessary time to reflect and slow down. During the holiday weekend, I enjoyed family time and worked on a jigsaw puzzle with my mom one evening.
The puzzle reminded me of a marketing roadmap as I fit the pieces together to build an idyllic winter scene.
Each piece represents a different part of the journey, and the goal is to figure out how they all fit together to get to the destination. At first, you’re cruising through the start of the puzzle by creating the frame, but things get complicated and confusing. You have a handful of similar colored pieces, but they don’t fit together.
At this crossroad, you have a choice — keep pushing through or take a step back to recalibrate how you want to approach the completion of the puzzle.
This feels similar to how we navigated 2022 at Aimtal as a team and with clients. We had a clear vision, goals, and plans for the agency and our clients. And throughout the year, there were changes, shifting priorities, and many surprises along the way.
But in Aimtal fashion, we didn’t give up. Instead, we got curious.
We leaned into our process to analyze, optimize, and improve through every big win and bump in the road.
We learned a lot in 2022, and I’m excited to share those learnings with you. I hope these insights will help you build your future marketing roadmap for 2023!
Here are a few of our learnings from dozens of client marketing campaigns and programs in 2022:
- Video took center stage as top-performing content across channels
Several of Aimtal’s clients made the right decision to invest in video marketing this year. Video was the top-performing content type for our clients, especially on social media, and contributed to big lifts in organic SEO rankings. Curious about what this looks like in action? Watch two YouTube series produced by Aimtal — DevSecTalks and What’s That.
- There’s still interest & appetite for webinars and live-stream events
The Zoom fatigue didn’t hit as hard as predicted in 2022. Our client’s audiences continued to attend and engage in webinars & live-stream events on LinkedIn. These opportunities to showcase your company’s expertise and solutions will continue to be an essential driver of qualified leads. For example, a qualified lead attended a webinar of an Aimtal client and then booked a demo with their sales team on that same day. This opportunity resulted in a new customer for the client valued at over $300k!
- Email is still an effective tactic for nurturing leads
Email marketing continues to thrive. As I explained in last month’s issue of Aimtales, B2B buyers actively seek information. Email is an effective way to proactively engage leads to help in their consideration and buying process.
- Google Display, Google Text, & YouTube Ads were the best for driving top-of-funnel awareness and website traffic
These platforms had a lower cost-per-click for our clients and were the most effective in attracting the right audiences. LinkedIn was the best platform for mid-funnel lead nurture and engagement.
- Investment in SEO optimization resulted in big ranking lifts
One learning we quickly discovered and applied this year was optimizing existing blog posts and website content. For example, we refreshed the content, backlinks, and metadata of a blog post for an Aimtal client, and within two months, the post had an 85% increase in keyword rankings and 38% increase in average time on page! 2022 takeaway: don’t reinvent the wheel. Improve what you already created!
As you plan for 2023, take a step back and identify some of your learnings from 2022. Sometimes the puzzle is pieced together incorrectly, but if you take a moment to look at the big picture, the right spot will reveal itself.
Cheers to a new year! ✨
