Reach the Peak: Coordinating Your Marketing Efforts

Marketing gives you the opportunity to reach a new target market segment while building deeper relationships with your current customer base. You can promote a new product or service, offer a promotional discount on a favorite product or share insight into how your service solves a problem for your target market audience. Coordinating your marketing efforts allows you to create a streamlined campaign and present one brand image to a target market segment. Before you start, ask yourself the following three questions.

• Is your priority focus on a new target market audience or a current target audience?
• What is your campaign budget for SEO, PPC, and other online marketing tools?
• How many different marketing tools will your campaign involve?

Once these questions have an answer, your campaign is ready to begin. These ten tools can help you coordinate marketing efforts for the campaign. 1. Use Branding and Content Your brand is what sets you apart from competition regarding visual appearance. It is the image or slogan that customers recognize your company by and what they look for when going online for information. That brand needs to be the central element in all of your campaign efforts. Make sure each marketing piece across the various marketing tools that you use includes that brand image or slogan. It is vital when you are introducing a new product or service that customers would fail to associate with your company if the brand image or slogan was not present. Incorporate that brand image or slogan into the content pieces that you use for the campaign. Work on tying the content word choices into highlighting how the product or service that is the focus of your marketing campaign is an extension of your brand image. Show customers in words how this product or service will continue to solve the problems they have or the desires they need to fulfill. They look to your company for resolution of these issues in the past so providing reassurance that you will continue to meet these needs with the new campaign will benefit your bottom line. 2. Optimize SEO and Organic Results Although there has been a recent focus on the importance of content in marketing pieces, search engine optimization still plays a central role as well. SEO keywords should have a place within your content pieces where they feel natural to the rest of the content. Use the same set of SEO keywords throughout all of your marketing pieces to create a unified approach to what you are offering. These are the same keywords that your target audience uses to conduct online searches for more information on a topic. Customers look at organic search results as the starting point to an issue and using SEO keywords will pave the path that leads them to your website. From there, the interaction with your marketing campaign can begin. 3. Have a Business Listing As you start a marketing campaign, make sure that your business directory listing is accurate and up-to-date. Each directory listing needs to include the contact information for your company, the website address and any current promotions that you are currently running. Having an accurate business listing in several different online locations gives customers and potential customers the opportunity to locate your business. Here are a few examples of the directories that you want to have a business listing entry.

• Google Places and Google+
• Bing Places
• Yelp
• Yahoo

These are just a few suggestions that you should follow. There may be other directories that are also relevant to your company because of the industry you are in or the product line you offer. 4. Being Mobile Friendly Having an online presence is vital for your company, even if you don’t quite understand how the Internet works or feel that it can benefit your business. Consumers go online to research a company before reaching out to contact you. Consumers who receive your marketing pieces may wish to receive directions to your store, find out your store hours or download a promotional coupon before making a purchase with your company. Incorporate your website into all aspects of your marketing campaign to take advantage of the potential to reach a new segment of target market customers that may not otherwise come in contact with your company. 5. Have a Responsive Website Once your marketing campaign is active, consumers will interact with it across several different mobile devices. Customers may use a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, or a traditional desktop computer to access your website for more information on your offer. They will use these same devices to access your social media channels to take advantage of your promotions features or see how other customers are interacting with the campaign. The social media channels will already have a mobile-friendly presentation. However, your website may not. It will be the starting point for most customer interaction and if that occurs on a mobile device that prompts your website to display incorrectly, it could turn a customer away at first glance. It is imperative that your website appears mobile-friendly so that your customers can do actions such as download coupons or get directions to your store with ease. 6. Be on Social Media Incorporating your social media channels into your marketing campaign is as essential as having a website. Potential customers will go from your website to one or two of your social media channels as a way to learn more about your product, service, or company. Having a streamlined presence starting from your website and extending through your social media channels presents a uniform appearance that customers trust. You can benefit from having a guide that helps you optimize your marketing efforts on social media channels. That resource guide is available here and provides valuable information that can help. Use the Ultimate Marketing Summit Guide to boost your brand's marketing efforts!   Create content posts for each social media channel that promotes your marketing campaign. Content pieces should prompt your social media audience to take further action with your company or take advantage of a coupon you offer. Actively answer questions that customers ask about the campaign and post updates on sales offers and promotional discounts as well. 7. Engage in PPC/Paid Searches You should include paid searches in a marketing campaign. These searches feature your company information in cost-per-impression advertisements in the side menu bar of a search engine results page. It is a cost-effective approach to online marketing because you only pay for each time your advertisements makes an appearance on a search results page. It increases the number of potential customers that come in contact with your brand because you can select the sponsor search results page where your ads will make an appearance. You can also engage in PPC advertising as well. Pay-per-click advertising is an inexpensive element to include in your marketing campaign. You create advertisements that appear on websites your target audience frequently visits. Each time potential customers click on an advertisement, they are taken to a specific landing page on your website. There they can take further action with your company, and you only pay for the ads that have engagement actions. Throughout the campaign, you receive reports to indicate how each ad is working. It allows you to make changes if necessary to ensure the campaign produces the results you desire. 8. Use Remarketing Advertisements There will be times when potential customers come to your website, look at a page or two, and then leave without taking further action with your company. Remarketing Advertisements work to capture the attention of these individuals as they engage in other online activities. You can have banner ads and pay-per-click advertisements running that keeps your brand image in their mind. The goal is to have these ads prompt potential customers to re-visit your website and make a purchase or take action with you this time. 9. Maintain a Positive Reputation It is impossible to make every individual who comes in contact with your company happy. Despite your best efforts, someone will always leave unhappy with the experience of working with your company. With that in mind, focus your attention on the customers that are happy with your company. Make ‘thank you’ posts on your social media channels personally thanking customers for their positive reviews of your company. Offer a promotional discount on their next purchase or send a coupon for a free product of their choice. These actions work towards establishing a positive reputation for your company. 10. Optimize Appearances Customers will take part in promotional activities from companies they like. You can be one of these companies by staying active in your online presence. Have fresh content on your blog as often as possible. Share pictures of product production or service development across your social media channels. Give customers a sign that you are active and ready for their business. These tools make the most of your marketing campaigns. It gives your marketing pieces a streamlined approach across all of the tools that you utilize in a campaign. It works to ensure your marketing efforts receive successful results that impact your bottom line.