Marketing and innovation play hand-in-hand. In fact, you need both to be successful. What truly is marketing? Investopedia describes marketing as the activities that companies take to sell their products or services. Typically, marketing includes advertising, selling and delivering products and services to consumers and other businesses.
“Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.”
— Milan Kundera, Writer & Playwright.
Before the internet, marketing stuck with print pieces and television. Once the world wide web took over, companies started to include digital marketing in their company strategies and goals. Between the constant change of trends, consumer behaviors, economy and products, some businesses get lost in the marketing world. That is why we want to help. In this guide, you will learn about the 10 facts that most people forget about marketing.
Publish Blogs
The days of people purchasing magazines are slowly coming to an end. With the internet easily at everyone’s fingertips, most people read blogs over magazine articles. Just because you are not a company that focuses on fashion, beauty, food, home, lifestyle, etc. does not mean you cannot dive into the blogging world.
Every single niche has something to offer. Easily write blogs about your product or topics revolving around your items. For example, if you sell medical supplies, you can write a variety of medical-related articles that can then link back to your products. A good tip to remember is that you want at least two internal links to direct users to other pages on your site.
Send them to any page, whether it is a product or an informative page. The reason why you want to have two or more internal links is that your main goal is to keep customers on your site. The more customers you have on the more chances of extra revenue.
Get Consumers Attentions
You have less than 15 seconds to persuade consumers to scroll through your website. That means you have just a few seconds to look inviting, show them who you are and have an enticing call to action or product. While this task may seem harrowing, it is 100 percent possible. In fact, we have been helping people do this for years.
Since consumers’ behaviors change constantly, there is no solid way of gaining their attention, especially since each target audience has different attention spans as well. Instead, understand your consumers first and then create marketing campaigns and assets that they will click on or shop.
Have a Mobile-Friendly Site
Most people use their cell phones to look up things online. How many people do you know that do not carry their phone on them 24/7? Consumers love shopping and browsing online as well as just scrolling through the internet. Most of the time marketing teams create assets based on desktop dimensions; however, some users use mobile screens to view websites.
Once these consumers visit a site that does not structurally fit their phone, they immediately jump off the site. If you want mobile users to continue browsing your site, you need to have a fully optimized and responsive mobile version.
Utilize Social Media
Over 3.6 billion people use social media. With this many people scrolling these platforms, you have so many chances of advertising to many different people. All social media sites have some way for you to market, whether that be through ads, pages, events, hashtags or even influencers.
You should always view every post you publish on social media as a chance to market your company to your existing and potential audience. Depending on the type of brand you are will help you determine the type of platform you need to go with. For example, fashion companies tend to go to Instagram, while technology companies go with LinkedIn.
Research, Research, Research
Just because you completed school does not mean researching and learning ever ends. The one thing you need to remember about marketing and the digital world is that it is in constant motion. Therefore, always research your audience, products and competitors. The moment you fall behind is the moment you start to lose people and revenue.
To stay ahead of your competitors, monitor them but also their campaigns. Then, see how consumers are reacting and respond back through your advertising efforts. However, always stay respectful and do not call out other companies. While this may seem tedious, it is crucial to stay on top of all aspects of the marketing world.
Understand and Improve Your SEO
In the digital world, search engine optimization (SEO) is a must for every brand. In general, SEO helps you increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your website. However, remember that there are many moving parts in SEO, and each one plays a significant role in how you rank in search engines. There are even multiple types of SEO: on-page, technical and external.
Proper and specific steps for each type must occur for your SEO efforts to run smoothly. Some people spend years mastering SEO. It is definitely not something that you can learn in a day. However, you can learn the basics of it fast.
Learn and implement successful SEO measures fast by reading articles, watching videos and using SEO-specific tools and extensions. If you want your search engine optimization to be fully optimal, work with a seasoned marketing firm with SEO experts on staff.
Match Your Audience
Your audience is key in marketing. Without an audience, you will not have anyone to market to, which in turn will cause your business to crash and burn. We do not want your company to go up in smoke. Therefore, we are here to help you understand why an audience is so vital. In general, you need someone to see and buy your products. Without customers, you have no revenue.
Once you have an established customer base, expansion is the next step. An easy and fast way to expand is to have your customers share and recommend your company. Yes, consumers are the ultimate marketing tool. Reviews and recommendations are vital for every company to improve.
People love shopping from brands that include past customers’ thoughts. As you know, you can buy almost any product or service on the internet. Consumers read reviews to ensure that they are getting the best item or experience for the amount they spent.
Find a Target
When you first start your company, you may try to market to everyone and anyone. Broad marketing will instead askew your testing and monitoring and also push you back behind other companies with an established audience. Before you start marketing, you need to know who your customer base is, what they want, how they want it and what their budget is.
First, know your demographics (age, location, interests, etc). Then, find out how your products will benefit their needs and wants. From there, create assets that match what they want. The more you advertise to your intended audience, the more chances you have of gaining more customers.
Be Ready for Change
The one thing to always remember in marketing is that consumer behaviors and trends are constantly changing. One month your customers are clicking on one thing, and the next month they are ignoring it completely. As a business that strives to be successful, it is your responsibility to monitor and track your consumers.
Do this by checking to see what they are clicking on, what they are searching for and what they are buying. Once you do that, A/B test and change your marketing efforts to match their behaviors. If you stay on top of what your shoppers want, your website will continue to grow in traffic and revenue.
Use Marketing Extensions and Tools
In the heat of building a company, people sometimes take everything by the horns and forget about the additional tools that can give them an easier experience. If you are not using additional tools and extensions to help you with SEO, publishing, website management and more, then you need to stop everything that you are doing and start researching.
Tools like Hootsuite, Google Analytics, Google Search Console and more can help you build your brand and website. Plus, many of these additional features are free or have free trials! If you want premium features or upgrades, look into subscription-based tools.
Marketing is not for the faint of heart. If you hone down on your marketing efforts, then your business will flourish for many years. While you work on your marketing game, do not be afraid to look back on these 10 facts that most people forget about marketing.
Do you need help improving your marketing efforts, website, social media and email campaigns? Contact Business Marketing Engine today. We have a team of skilled experts who know the ins and outs of everything digital.