5 Tips For Your Marketing Strategy
Hopefully by now your 2015 marketing strategy will be under way and starting to show some short term results, but are you confident you’ve got your priorities right and covered all the bases? As the scale and diversity of the marketing landscape continues to expand, it has become understandably difficult for businesses of all sizes to know whether they are using the right channels and tools for an effective marketing strategy.
With so much to consider, here are some of the fundamentals that you should look to incorporate into your strategy if you haven’t done so already…
Understand the value of your data (and the responsibility that comes with it)
There has been a lot of talk about ‘Big Data’ in the last few years, with everyone jumping on the ‘buzzword bandwagon’ and giving their two cents about how businesses should be ‘embracing it’.
The simple truth is that, as data becomes readily available from more and more channels, it’s value to marketers has increased. When organised and analysed correctly, data about your customers and marketplace will provide valuable insights to guide your marketing activity and enable you to make informed and confident business decisions.
Gathering and managing data needs a strategy focused on three factors:
- How and from where you will gather data? (e.g. Google Analytics; Google Adwords; your CRM system; email marketing software etc)
- How you will store and analyse the data? (e.g. your CRM system?)
- How you will use the data for insights and marketing purposes
One thing to keep in mind is that the collection and use of customer data comes with a responsibility. People are becoming aware of the value of their own personal data – from contact details to Internet browsing habits – and the onus is on companies to earn consumer data rather than to expect it.
The key is to be transparent and honest with your use of data. There is now an increased expectation for SMEs to clearly define the benefits to consumers of sharing data with them, and to explain how and why they collect data in human terms as opposed to providing a privacy policy in classic ‘legalese’.
(Re)think your social strategy
‘Social’ doesn’t mean Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc etc – these are just platforms. Instead ‘social’ can be said to define the shift in the relationship between brands and consumers from classic ‘broadcast’ and advertising towards one of engagement and two-way conversation.
Most businesses have some kind of social presence, but many don’t really know why beyond a vague notion that they should be there because their customers and competitors are there. The truth is that 10 of the FTSE100 companies still don’t have a Twitter handle because they’ve realised that it isn’t a priority channel for them.
Don’t make the mistake of looking at social channels on their own – understand how they fit into your overall marketing goals, and utilise their strengths accordingly.
Social is about listening, conversation, engagement and (once again) insight, but it still needs to have a tangible value. Whether it be at a conversion, awareness, engagement level, it’s important to set discernible goals for your social activity, and to know what success looks like.
And lastly, don’t give your most junior staff member control of Facebook and Twitter… They can be powerful PR channels and great drivers of awareness and enquiries as well as great listening tools, so don’t waste them!
Make the most of your ‘owned’ web presence
Whatever the key function of your website, the likelihood is that it forms a significant part of your digital footprint. Even so, many businesses still fail to make the most of their websites, and to take control of their ‘owned online space’.
Much of this is down to a perceived lack of knowledge and a legacy of web and SEO agencies making websites seem overly expensive, technical, and not something for clients to be directly involved with.
A lot has changed in the past few years, and advances in technology have led to better website content management systems. Although there is still a technical aspect to making your website discoverable and engaging, much more onus has been put on high quality content and contextual relevance (basically the search engines have gotten cleverer and decent websites will now perform better than ‘optimised’ websites) – and this is where SME’s need to focus.
Although your website may be a significant proportion of your ‘online property’, it certainly shouldn’t be all of it. There is plenty more valuable property to claim, and it isn’t difficult to do so. For instance, Google business listings are now inherently tied into Google+, but you still need to claim and populate your listing. For some businesses this also opens up the opportunity to receive reviews and to show up in local search results for highly relevant search terms.
In short, the more online references you control and are populated with up-to-date information, the easier it is for people to find and interact with your business.
Be realistic about content marketing
Like ‘big data’, ‘content marketing’ has been a popular term in the marketing world for the last few years. The rise of content marketing is partly due to the way that search engines now rank websites, and also to the expanding social web, which fundamentally revolves around high quality content of varying types.
So producing content is important for businesses in all sectors, but that doesn’t mean you should pour your marketing resources into writing articles, producing videos and setting up profiles on every platform under the sun.
More important is to take a realistic and measured approach. Don’t overcommit, but devise a strategy that centres around:
- Producing content only in formats and on channels that are relevant to your audience
- A content creation schedule that is realistically sustainable
- A means of making your content work for you once it’s in the public domain
The third point is overlooked most often. If you produce high quality content that is desirable to your audience, why shouldn’t you ask for something in return? I’m not recommending anything as extreme as putting your blog articles behind a paywall, but asking for an email address to download a white paper is much more acceptable and gives you some insight into exactly who is reading your material.
Don’t think in silos
It has been argued that there is no such thing as ‘digital marketing’ anymore – we are now just marketing in a digital world. Too many businesses still conduct their marketing activity in silos rather than considering the wider picture and an overarching strategy for success.
PR, social, web, advertising, media, print – there are countless ways that these now overlap, and considering them in silos will only lead to wasted time and wasted marketing budget, a luxury few of us can afford these days.
The future lies in considering all channels when running marketing campaigns, choosing those that work for each situation, and ensuring that they work together for stronger results.
Strategy and insight underlies everything – once you have those in place, you’re on the road to success.
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