Check out Kevin Simon's post on linkedin here.

It’s a new year and one of your goals may be to improve your marketing efforts. There are new mediums to explore in social media and marketing! Even if improving marketing for your practice was not one of your a resolutions, it is important to take inventory from the previous year. Below are a few tips on how you can prepare to dominate marketing in 2016:

1. Spend time evaluating the brand of your practice - A growing brand will amplify your marketing efforts. Have you taken the time to think about how you want your brand to evolve this year? A strong sense of brand will improve your marketing and give your employees a better sense of what they represent.

2. Evaluate your social media platforms - The one thing that is constant in marketing and social media in change. You can take measures to ensure that you are prepared for change. Adopt to other platforms, learn them and integrate them into your strategy. If you created an Instagram profile for your practice that you did not upload any photos to in 2015, delete it!  Move on and focus on the platforms that work for you.

3. Calculate your marketing ROI - Each year, some marketing platforms soar in popularity, while others don’t perform as well. In order to better your bottom line, you will have to make some decisions based on the ROI you are getting across platforms. Cutting spending in some areas will create more of a budget for new, more effective channels. Not sure of your ROI?  Here is a link to a calculator that can help:  http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/06/27/how-to-calculate-the-roi-of-your-social-media–campaigns/

4. Take a look at your demographics - As time goes on, your target market may be shifting. Your customer personas are at the center of your marketing efforts. Should you add a new persona? Should you remove something from your persona to reach your demographic?

5. Try something new - In the new year try something fresh! Experiment with new mediums and you might be surprised with the success and their ease. There are new methods like virtual reality marketing and email marketing 2.0. Have you tried Periscope?