A good product is not enough to stand out on the market. Although it is the basis of success, you still need to effectively inform customers about it – so that they can choose it from other available on the market. And this is marketing in the most general terms. And how to make it effective? What factors influence the effectiveness of the promotion? Learn now how to implement effective marketing and enjoy business growth.
Effective Marketing
Marketing is an extremely broad concept that covers all activities related to communication with the customer, ultimately aimed at selling products. Due to the fact that it is such a vast area, it is sometimes difficult to find yourself in a sea of available opportunities. So what to do to focus on success and step by step increase your business potential?
A good marketing strategy is an absolute foundation
There is a lot of room for improvisation in life – for example, when you prepare a new dish according to the recipe, but you depart from the instructions and act “your own way”. Remember, however, that doing so carries the risk of failure – your dinner may end up in the basket. And while it will be a rather small loss, you invest capital in marketing activities, and not a small amount. You will pay a lot for unsuccessful decisions – especially since your competition is awake.
Therefore, thinking about effective marketing, you can not leave anything to chance. Research shows that marketers who plan their activities and set clear goals are almost 400% more effective. And this means that before you move on to planning specific campaigns, you need to take a few steps back and master key issues.
Define what you offer to the market
We start from the basics, straight from a business plan, but there is no other way to success. If you have already done your homework and defined exactly what your brand brings – go to the next section. What if not:
– start by listing the current range of services or products you offer,
– list their strengths and weaknesses, as well as
external opportunities and threats – that is, make a classic SWOT analysis,
– analyze your business environment and see what
competition offers. It is important how many competitors you have and how they
work to attract customers,
– specify who you direct your products to
Creating one, collective group of target customers is not enough – especially when your products are targeted at a wide range. Therefore, go a step further: outline the persona of individual types of customers. It’s about clarifying who each potential customer is. It is important that you:
– named each person and (best) assigned a picture to it (visualization will
help in planning),
– defined demographic information about her – i.e.
age, gender, place of residence, but also professional status and level of
wealth or interest,
– clarified what each person is interested in,
their problems and needs, as well as where you can meet different types of
clients.
Develop a short and long term marketing strategy
Before you start refining what and where you will publish – specify what results you expect. This applies to both a short, e.g. several-month perspective, and to a long-term perspective. Make sure your goals comply with SMART rules, including measurable, realistic to achieve, specific, important for the organization and defined in time. For example, you can assume that you will improve your sales results by 5% over the next six months. Effective marketing – to call it that after all, it must be measured.
Adjust the strategy of achieving business goals to the needs of target customers
For example, if you want to increase sales in e-commerce channels, and your recipients are, for example, women aged 35-50, you need to think about where they are online and offline and what they expect. All marketing activities – from typical banner ads to ATL campaigns – must be designed to appeal to their expectations and engage in action.
Specify campaign budget
There is no such thing as an unlimited advertising budget. And this means that you need to reasonably distribute funds allocated for promotion. So how? It all depends on the specifics of your industry and the goals of the campaign. However, online communication is playing an increasingly important role (if not crucial). Importantly, if you invest money well into online promotion, e.g. inbound marketing strategies, you’ll enjoy high ROI (return on investment). The assumed budget is one of the main points to which we will refer effective marketing.
Plan a schedule for specific activities
Therefore, specify what elements your campaign will cover, where and to what extent it will be conducted and when. At this point, you are ready to move from planning to action.
And the most important: do not forget that a very important element of effective marketing activities is their constant monitoring and audit. Without control over what results the campaign brings on a regular basis and how it had a general impact on sales results or acquiring leads – you will not know what to improve and how. It is also important to:
– each marketing campaign was coherent – both “internally”, so
that the presented messages are not mutually exclusive, and in the context of
the overall image of your brand,
– focus on accompanying the
customer with the purchase rather than intrusive sales – suggest and share
knowledge instead of deciding for the recipient.
Effective marketing strategies, or what?
The basics are behind us. And now it’s time to look at what currently works best in marketing strategies. Remember: the advertising and customer communication market is changing dynamically. Therefore, you also need to constantly change your actions, adapting to current trends and requirements. So what should you bet on now?
Smart SEO
Where do you usually look for information about products and services today? The answer is simple: on the Internet. The best friend when shopping is Uncle Google. And if so, it is important that your offer is visible in the search results – and high. Therefore, SEO and positioning activities are an essential element of a modern and effective marketing strategy. But remember: Google’s algorithm is constantly changing and today only promotes valuable and credible content. Therefore, make sure that you entrust to specialists who know what they are doing.
Content marketing
Good, valuable content just makes Google like you more simply. That is why content marketing is the present and future of the promotion. It’s about creating engaging and valuable content – especially for your website, as well as for other communication channels, e.g. on social media. The more useful and engaging content you avoid, the easier it will be for you:
– strengthen SEO activities (provided that you optimize the texts in terms of your strategy, e.g. by enriching them with headlines and keywords),
– arouse customer interest and trust – the more information you give them, the better image you will create. And this will ultimately translate into financial results.
Acquisition of sales leads
The process of convincing a customer to buy from you, not from competitors, is … a process. Sometimes it takes a long time, and months pass from the moment when the consumer hears about your brand or product to complete the transaction. The secret to success in the long term is therefore to accompany the customer at every stage of the marketing funnel and subtly remind you of the solutions offered.
The basis, however, is obtaining sales leads, and thus basic data (e.g. name and email address) – so that you can send potential clients various types of messages that will become an impulse for them to act.
How to get leads? There are many ways. Various types of landing page types work well, but not only.
Remarketing and effective marketing
It is also an important element related to the acquisition of leads. What is the point In a nutshell, it’s about using marketing automation tools to display ads to customers who have already expressed an interest in the offer. For example: a person has already visited your online store and even put some things in the basket, but eventually changed their mind. The way to get her back is to show her ads related to your offer – e.g. on social media and on the following pages that she will visit. Such delicate but repetitive “reminders” can work wonders and become an impulse to buy.
Mailing and effective marketing
Although most of the emails you send to customers as part of your mailing campaigns will remain … unread if you prepare and direct them well – you have the chance to increase your turnover. This is possible when you combine mailing with remarketing elements and direct good messages to the right people. For example, an accidentally sent message with general content and a non-intriguing subject will rather go to the trash. But if a potential customer a day after he visited your store, he receives a message with a discount about a few percent on the products he saw – the effectiveness of the message will be much higher. Of course, these are just a few examples of strategies that should be included in a modern marketing campaign – so that it is effective.
But remember: Your success depends primarily on precise and sound planning. The better you understand their needs and the more accurately you plan your campaign – the more satisfying its effects will be.
