If you’re struggling to grow your business, there is light at the end of the tunnel and it’s all about your marketing strategy. Not having a marketing plan is one of the most common reasons startups fail.
We know that a sales transaction is required to support the growth of your business so the question becomes how do we get to that sale over and over again. How to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses and who will be your target clients/customers. Most people answer this question incorrectly by saying, everyone is their target.
Before we can move on, the first decision that is required is which marketing actions will we take. Making phone calls, running ads, posting on social media, telling our friends, setting up a booth at church, these are all viable options to take. We will also need to consider how frequent we will take actions, and what amount of resources will be required to consistently support the process.
To get we like to focus on the most critical element of marketing and that is the amount of resources available to do what we want to do things regularly. The cost does matter. We know that our personal lives that doing things one time does not usually move the needle forward.
Another critical factor is making the decision to spend marketing dollars across multiple platforms simultaneously. Many industry experts agree that having an integrated plan that aligns every aspect of marketing communication (digital advertising, social media, content marketing, events, print, advertising, and sales funnels,) to deliver one unified message is the best practice.
This simple but powerful marketing technique ensures that prospects and customers receive consistent messages every time they interact with your brand and any element of your marketing campaigns.
Before we move on, we must think through another component before taking action and that is to identify the message that we want to share and ensure that we are prepared to deliver the right message to the right target audience at the right time and with a proper analysis having taken place which makes testing essential.
4 Steps To A Successful Marketing Process
- Step 1: Analysis
- Step 2: Strategy
- Step 3: Action
- Step 4: Measure
Consider Smart Marketing Objectives
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
Once you have identified the marketing process and frequency align the activity to a specific business goal, then combine the below direct sales tactics (or a similar lead generation activity to your collection).
3 Direct Sales Tactics That Will Produce Leads
- Track Your Sales Funnel – (SF) The journey that you want potential customers to take. (i.e.: website lead form)
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) – Tool to manage and analyze customer information and interactions. (i.e.: Salesforce, Zoho etc)
- Loyalty and/or Referral Program (LP, RP) – Opportunity to encourage clients/prospects/customers to continue to buy from your to use your service.
It is also important to note that growing your business requires consistent actions that are focused on continually expanding your customer base by reaching new people often. An extension of this thought can take many directions, here we will focus only on the most advantageous components, which is to use historical sales data and top trending marketing techniques.
Top 3 Trending Digital Marketing Techniques
Email Marketing Automation – Communicating with active users by sending engagement based and personalized content that is segmented to track performance. With this approach you are able to set and send behavioral follow-up content. By having a targeted list of users, you are directly aligned to the people that are most lively to make a purchase with your brand.
Voice Search – is a new but proven trend that uses audio technology that allows users to speak into a device to produce a search query quickly. The most common platforms that are being used today are Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa. There are many advanced versions of voice search that can modified to specific brand products and services and this trend is increasingly improving search engine queries for many brands.
The reason for this success is the advanced convenience, fast response time and the simplified way to align the user experience directly to the brand product/service. Having a quick and easy way for users to engage with your brand is highly recommended for all marketing touch points to improve customer satisfaction levels.
Live Streaming Video – Instagram, Facebook and Youtube – This FREE real time engagement tool allows viewers to ask direct questions and get an instant response, as well as have the ability to replay and view at a later time. If you take the time to review and analyze the profiles and actions of the audience that engages with your live content you have a birds eye view into your target audience preferences that can be used in other marketing channels.
By adding top trending marketing techniques into your marketing plans you are setting your business up to grow with objective driven actions that will produce results. Keep in mind; even the marketing actions that produce the expected results should still be evaluated and possibly replicated on other channels. The actions that do not produce the expected results should be modified and a corrective action should be implemented. By measuring every marketing action you are able to identify where to focus your efforts short and long term.
One of the most significant factors to note when identifying marketing techniques to grow your business is that success happens when a strategic marketing process is in place. There is a series of actions required to reach said goal and measuring and testing is the way to success. Being impatient and expecting instant results never works, and juggling too many uncorrelated marketing items is a major distraction. Instead consider using a strategic approach to your marketing program.
Key Takeaway
Since we know that email marketing is leading the charts in the current era of digital marketing as one of the most cost-effective methods to drive results, we can include this channel without breaking the bank. So there is no reason that you should not be sending emails to your targeted account. By including email marketing automation into your marketing mix, you are set to take your business to the next level.
Common Marketing Rule
to remember is : “70-20-10” . This rule takes into account a focus on marketing actions Now, Next and New.
- 70% of time spent on “Now”
- 20% of time on “Next”
- 10% of time spent on “New”
In addition to the cost effective aspect of email marketing this tactic has a high level of opportunity to integrate your account-based marketing (ABM) efforts as well as a “Now” function.
Overall Benefits of Using The Right Digital Marketing Strategy
- Generate more leads
- Increase Inbound sales
- Improve Communication with Targeted Customers
To get started with an email marketing campaign – sign up for Constant Contact here.
Schedule a FREE Marketing Consultation with our team here.
