As we near the end of 2014, here’s a look at what your marketing to-do list should include in the coming year so you know what your priorities need to be.

The focus in 2015 will be on:

• Testing and optimising in order to create a better customer experience
• Providing users with relevant and useful information and solutions
• Discovering innovative ways to reach your audience with content and providing more value online, rather than the using stale methods of promotion.

It’ll also be the end for marketers who constantly pitch and preach to potential customers as users have already started to ignore those who do nothing but sell, sell, sell.

It’s those brands that inform and excite that will win in 2015.

If you want to be one of them, read on to find out what you should focus on in 2015.

Create more relevant and inspired content

If you want your audience to interact with your content, make sure that every piece of content that you create is relevant and meaningful. Only by offering personalised content will you be able to increase the number of sales, inspire users to stay longer on your site and foster customer satisfaction.

In 2015, the importance of reaching out to your customers in writing will grow. So, aside from infographics, white papers, case studies, newsletters, you should also get a blog, if you don’t have one already. It’s one of the most effective ways to reach and engage your audience with high-quality and relevant content.

Get more use from each piece of content you create

Be smart about the ways in which you leverage and re-purpose your content. If you’ve put a lot of time and effort into creating an in-depth piece of content, you can get more out of it if you distribute it in multiple ways.

For example, if you’ve worked really hard on a white paper or a case study, why not also transform it into an infographic, a video or some slides to squeeze value in more touch points? So, make sure you’re not just focusing on creating great content but also on presenting it in a creative way.

Discover new ways to promote your content

Publishing great content is only the small first step to growing your business but keep in mind that value comes from distributing it so that it reaches your audience.

Building relationships with various publications as well as reaching out to authority journalists, bloggers and any other influencers in your field are just a few ways to ensure your content reaches your prospects.

And, of course, let’s not forget social media, which is an amplifier for content, helping you to get your content where your audience is spending its time.

Find the right social channels for your business

While Facebook is indeed the most dominant social game in town, it’s not the only one. With so many social media channels popping up, finding the right voice for your audience in the right location is a serious challenge.

So, in 2015 don’t just focus on Facebook. Do some research into your audience to find out where they’re spending time online so you can then figure out which social channels to focus on. You might even discover that Facebook is not one of your strongest channels but Instagram or Pinterest.

Create and share video, but not necessarily on YouTube

The use of videos for marketing purposes has been growing. But it’s no longer about creating a TV commercial, putting it up on YouTube and waiting for it to go viral. Not anymore.

There is an increasing interaction with videos shared on channels other than YouTube, particularly with short videos on Twitter’s Vine channel or short GIFs on Tumblr. Facebook is also catching up and they announced that they’ve had more desktop video views than YouTube this year.

So, what can you do? Look at how you can use video to produce content in more creative ways. Whether you choose to create a short Vine showing how a product works or a 3-minute video sharing some legal tips and advice, make sure that in 2015 video is on your to-do list.

Go back to guest blogging

Google’s Matt Cutts never said that guest blogging is dead. He just said that if it’s done strictly for SEO, just to get your link out there, then it’s a bad idea and it can harm your website.

Due to misinterpretations of his comments, he later clarified: “I’m not trying to throw the baby out with the bath water. There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.). Those reasons existed way before Google and they’ll continue into the future. And there are absolutely some fantastic, high-quality guest bloggers out there.”

So legitimate guest blogging that focuses on providing informative, interesting, relevant content will again rise as a popular strategy come 2015 – definitely something that you need to put on your marketing to-do list!

Find out how customers interact with you

The days of guessing what your customers want and like are long gone. So, if you’ve not yet started using analytics tools to find out more about your customers and their experience on your site, then you need to get with the programme.

In 2015, customers will generate a vast amount of detailed information and you are expected to use all kinds of tools in order to make sense of all that data.

Don’t know which tools to use or how to interpret that data? No worries, our in-depth guides are perfect for helping you get started:

• Get to grips with Google Webmaster Tools
• The right SEO tools for the right tasks
• A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics

Wrapping up

In 2015, your marketing should consist of multiple moving parts, all working together to maximise the impact of your business. Choose the channels which best work for you and then budget with confidence.

What’s on your marketing to-do list for 2015? Let us know in a comment below.