A business needs to have a clear goal before starting a marketing campaign to know how much effort is required and what results they can anticipate. It’s also important not to be short-sighted with your marketing budget because it needs to be proportional to the size of your business and its market share.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is the act of promoting and selling your product or service. The purpose of marketing is to communicate the value of a product. This can be done simply by establishing what your audience is, identifying the points of engagement with them, and designing a strategy that ties these two together.
Marketing strategies are what will help any business grow. When marketing campaigns are organized well, it results in higher customer engagement and brand awareness. Digital marketing is now an integral part of marketing strategies and has a profound impact on the success of any marketing strategy.
Here are the 4 Marketing Best Practices
1) Have a Clear Goal Before Starting Your Campaign
Don’t start your campaign without having an idea where you want it to go or what you want it to achieve for your company (i.e., “I want people who visit my website for more than 5 minutes”). You need something specific so when you measure success, there will be no doubt in your mind about whether or not the campaign was a success. If you don’t have a specific goal, all of your metrics will just be numbers with little meaning.
2) Don’t Neglect Your Internal Marketing
You might think that you can only improve the image of your company and brand by reaching customers through marketing, but the opposite is also true. If you don’t improve your internal marketing efforts (i.e., employee retention, customer service, and product development), you will not be able to outdo your competition in the long run even if all of your external marketing campaigns are a success.
3) Create Relevant and Meaningful Content
If you are going to have a lot of content online, you need to make sure that it is relevant and meaningful; otherwise, people will not appreciate your efforts. You may think that you can get away with having tons of irrelevant content because you understand what your business does. However, if you don’t pay attention to the needs of your customers and audience, they will not care about all of the work that you’re putting into your content. In the end, it’s always better to create 1 or 2 pieces of content that people will enjoy than to have 20+ pieces of irrelevant content.
4) Don’t Forget About Mobile
It is an important part of your marketing strategy because mobile use has increased by more than 200% in just the past few years. Since mobile is growing at such a fast rate, you need to make sure that your website is mobile-friendly, so people can find what they are looking for on their phones or tablets and will consider making a purchase. It’s also important to note that many traditional marketing strategies still work for mobile devices such as email, SMS marketing, display advertising, and affiliate marketing.
Some of the Best Marketing Strategies
Social Media Marketing
Building your brand on social media is an effective way to engage with followers and increase the number of people who visit your website. You can achieve this by utilizing a variety of platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn Tumblr Instagram, Pinterest among others. It’s important not only to be creative when using these sites but also to keep in mind traditional marketing strategies such as having clear goals or measuring ROI (returns on investment).
Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise your business, but you need a solid email campaign if it’s going to work. You don’t want an unprofessional-looking or poorly written email that has no call for action because then people won’t open them and they’ll probably think less about your company too!
To make sure that you are successful with email marketing, keep these tips in mind:
- Ensuring that your email has personalized content for each customer you’re sending it to. (i.e., use their name and a personal message).
- Always provide valuable information or a call-to-action in your emails so that people will open your emails in the future. For example, if you’re emailing them about a new product, use an image of that product and give them a link to click on so they will find out more information.
- Send emails at times when people can respond such as during lunch or dinner time; not right before bed because people aren’t going to be thinking about buying something from you.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Google and other search engines are marketing tools, so you need to make sure that your site is optimized for them. You can do this by implementing SEO strategies such as using keywords throughout your website, creating relevant content, and inserting links (related content) where appropriate. Make sure your landing page is also optimized for a high search ranking if you are using PPC (pay per click) or other types of advertisements because that is where people will be directed to.
The best part about SEO is that you don’t have to pay money upfront for it because you can create high-quality content that search engines will reward you for in the long run. All you have to do is write relevant keywords to your content about your industry and use a tool like Moz to see what kind of traffic your website gets from search engines, how much competition there is for top keywords, and more.
The drawback of SEO is that you have to wait at least a few months before you start seeing results from it so make sure that your website is upfront with the keywords that you’re targeting.
Internet Marketing/Affiliate Marketing
Internet marketing involves using various online strategies to promote your business and Affiliate Marketing means partnering up with companies who will pay you for every customer that you refer to them.
For Internet marketing, there are lots of options available such as creating an email newsletter and sending it out regularly, blogging and commenting on other sites with your anchor text (i.e., the URL that people click on at the end of your comment), writing guest posts for industry websites, designing infographics, and much more.
One of the best ways to make money by partnering with affiliate marketing companies is through product reviews. These companies give you coupons or a commission for each product review that you publish on your website and then direct people to their site so they can buy the product.
To be successful at either Internet Marketing or Affiliate Marketing, you need to be dedicated to it and you need to build a solid reputation for being reliable and making good recommendations.
Search Engine Marketing (PPC)
Search Engine Marketing, or PPC, such as Google ads, is another way to advertise your business. The difference between PPC and SEO or any other form of marketing is that you pay a certain amount each time somebody clicks on your ad.
It’s important to know where you want to focus most of your advertising because some companies won’t let you run ads for all of their products.
If you do decide to use PPC, make sure that your ads are clear and enticing so that people will click on them instead of the others surrounding them. You should also be diligent about tracking your PPC using programs such as AdWords and Analytics so you can see what’s working for you and make adjustments as necessary.
To be successful at PPC, you first have to understand the keywords that people are typing in when they’re looking for products like yours. Then you want to create ads that are directly related to those keywords and you also want to make sure that your landing page is optimized so people will have a great experience when they get there.
Inbound Marketing
Inbound Marketing involves focusing on improving your website and then attracting the right people to it. It focuses on creating content that is valuable for your audience so they’ll want to return to read more of it or see new updates.
For example, you can create a blog where you write about how-to articles related to your business but that also appeal to the general public. Another strategy is to create helpful resources on your website that customers can download for free but that will help them learn more about your industry and what you have to offer.
Another great option for Inbound Marketing is creating video tutorials like screencasts, YouTube videos, or podcasts related to your business because video content tends to get shared more often than any other type. If you have a physical location, consider creating an events calendar on your website so that people can see what upcoming events you’ll be having and they can easily find out how to attend.
Finally, make sure that you are regularly updating the content on your site because Google is getting better at identifying outdated websites and penalizing them. A great free tool for creating an easy-to-update blog is WordPress which is what this article was written in.
Offline Marketing/Direct Mail
If you don’t use the other methods of marketing and rely solely on Offline Marketing, then you’re missing out on a lot of potential customers. This form of marketing has been around forever but we still see it a lot today because of the low cost and the ability to target specific demographic groups quickly.
If you’re planning on using Direct Mail for marketing, then don’t overdo it. You should send out only one or two mailers a month so that you can give your audience time to respond to them and remember your company. And be sure to list your business name and website on every piece of mail that you send out because these are the two main factors in building your brand awareness – which is what direct mail is all about.
Advertising
Advertising can either mean Print Advertising or Broadcast/Television Advertising. Print Ads are generally considered better at building long-term awareness and trust because people tend to save them rather than throw them away. This form of marketing is also highly visual, which means you need a high-quality color printer to make sure your images are sharp and vivid.
Print Ads can be very effective at driving traffic to your website but they can get expensive quickly. For instance, a full-page ad in a magazine or newspaper can be very expensive but a smaller, quarter-page Ad might not cost as much. You should also consider using Print Ads to generate leads and then follow up with potential customers over the phone.
Of course, nowadays most people prefer watching TV rather than reading newspapers and magazines. So if you’re going to advertise on TV, make sure it’s during a time slot when your target audience is watching. Also, consider using other forms of media to support your Broadcast/Television Advertising because you can reach a lot more people that way, and some products lend themselves better to this type of marketing than others (a product like soap or toothpaste would work much better than a product like insurance).
Content Marketing
For a business, quality content can be one of the best forms of marketing because you’re offering valuable information for free. Not only that but when people see your name associated with it, they’ll begin to think of you as an expert in your field and might trust your products more.
With this type of marketing, you’re also potentially building a relationship with your customers. So you’re not just reaching out to them once and expecting something in return. Instead, you’re providing them with information that will help them perform a certain task or complete an important process – all for free. For example, if you sell printers, then you can create instructional guides on how to use the product properly so the customer will gain value from your product beyond the initial purchase.
Summary
We’ve discussed the Marketing Best Practices and Strategies that will help any business stay afloat because they are proven and tested. You can use them for your own marketing campaigns, too.
By using these basic guidelines, you’ll be able to create a customer experience that’s memorable and valuable – which is what all customer experiences should strive to be. And remember: If you’re not sure how to get started, then research your customer’s buyer’s journey and use that as your guide. It will help you set attainable marketing goals and develop a customer experience that is sure to result in more business.
You can build customer loyalty with the customer experience you provide them which will result in repeat business and customer referrals. Don’t forget to follow customer experience Tips and Techniques to deliver an optimum customer experience.