If you do not market your product, service or brand as a whole, nobody knows you exist. There are so many tools you can use for your marketing strategy today, it’s a daunting process.
But you have to choose nonetheless.
In today’s modern market, it is not about whether you market your product, service or business. At the end of the day, you know that you have to in order to succeed and grow your brand.
Rather, it is now more about how you choose to market to your existing and potential customers. Whichever way you go about your marketing process, it needs to be effective; it has to really work and drive revenue. Otherwise, you have a lot of potentials and no way to actualize it.
Today, we give you the top 10 marketing tactics to enhance your business performance so that you stand apart from your vast competition. After all, it’s what we do.
What is a Marketing Tactic?
Marketing tactics are the way that you get the most out of your strategy. They are the actions you take that guide your promotional efforts for one of your products or services. Above all, they are the actions that allow your promotions to influence your particular marketing goals.
Marketing tactics are the product of your forward-thinking and outstanding ideas. All of the content that you or your marketing department creates falls under your tactics.
Remember: your content falls under your tactics. They play into your tactics. The type of content you create is not the same as your marketing tactics.
Take a case study, for instance. This case study is your marketing tactic. Whatever relevant content you output for that case study is to promote and execute it, not the other way around.
Your content for the tactic could be copy for your blog, social media posts or videos.
Marketing Tactics vs Marketing Strategy
So now you know that marketing tactics are different from your content. Likewise, your marketing strategies are different from your tactics.
Your strategy is your layout of marketing-related business decisions. In your strategy, you define what you will and will not do as you make those decisions. As you formulate the entire strategy, you figure out your marketing direction.
Think of it as a roadmap, blueprint or game plan for how you will engage with your target market.
Now, think of your marketing tactics as the particular activities you employ to implement your strategy. E-commerce marketing, for example, might use tactics like:
- Backlinks and other SEO tactics like keywords
- Blog posts for website visibility
- A well-crafted social media presence/pages
- Targeted Facebook ad campaigns
One more way to think about it is like this: your marketing strategy is your toolbox. Your marketing tactics are all the tools inside of it.
What is a Good Marketing Tactic?
The marketing tactics you use depend widely on your business.
At the end of the day, the best metric you can use to determine if it’s a good one or not is whether it’s effective. This means that you have to use tools that show you data you can analyze.
Can you put your finger on whether your marketing tactics push you towards success? If not, you can pretty much guarantee that it’s not one of quality.
Similarly, if it does not give you any results at all, it’s not worth it. But you do need marketing tactics. You need to experiment a little bit to see which tactics get you the best results; your company is one-of-a-kind and has specific needs. However, we want to see you succeed without too much room for trial and error.
That’s why we have the top 10 marketing tactics out there today. Keep reading for more.
10 Marketing Tactics Every Salesperson Should Know
You have goals for your organization. Every company has them, but they are particular to your own professional journey. They can be as broad as wanting to boost revenue next quarter or improve your business marketing efficiency.
But you also have specific ones, like to enhance employee morale by ten percent by the next time you survey employees in two months. Maybe you want to train one particular up-and-coming marketer on how to conduct proper customer analysis.
The reason we compiled this comprehensive list is to give you options. After you go through them, you can stop dreaming about your goals. Instead, you can put them into action.
Pick exact goals and timelines on the top of your list of priorities. Which one of these marketing tactics will get you closer to achieving that goal? Which one is feasible? Do not go beyond your means with them. If you do, you will waste time and resources and go home at the end of the day feeling disappointed.
Most businesses use a combination of these tactics to execute a certain marketing plan. You know what’s best and most reasonable for your marketing team, and we are here to help.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is one of the best ways you can optimize your content marketing.
When you use SEO tactics and SEO tools, you create content as you actively use SEO principles. It is an organic way to boost traffic with quality leads, unlike most PPC tactics.
It is when you develop and enhance the properties of your web pages and web content. You do so with keywords, hyperlinks, appropriate content distribution and more. All of these aspects ensure that when someone searches the web for specific information, they stumble upon your content with little effort.
This is a top-tier tactic to take advantage of when you want to offer marketing packages to your ideal buyer.
Here are the most popular types of content for SEO:
- Web pages
- Blog posts
- Guides
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Marketing tactics like pay per click, or PPC, are a part of the various paid tactics. That means that you as a company spend money to place your content somewhere outside of your internal resources.
You can place PPE ads on social media platforms like Facebook or on a search engine like Google. A lot of external websites have room for your PPC ads.
Pay per click allows you to place your digital advertising within media networks. Its name is perfectly apt. This is because you only have to pay every time that someone clicks on your content.
If you are not familiar with using this tactic, you are probably familiar with at least seeing it while you spend personal time online.
Have you ever looked something up on Google just to get general information? Maybe you have a last-minute vacation coming up. You type in to your search engine “cheap hotels in Beverly Hills, California.”
Your first search result is from Priceline.com. It says something like “$39+ Hotel Deals” or “Book Hotel Rooms 60% Off.” If you look at the left-hand corner, it says “ad.” This is PPC hard at work.
Here are the top three common types of PPC:
- Google AdWords ads
- Bing ads
- Retargeting display ads
Sponsorship Marketing
Like pay per click, sponsorship marketing is another paid tactic. But it is a different sort of holistic approach to PPC.
With sponsorship marketing, you have to set aside a portion of your marketing budget. Use that money to secure your brand’s representation in set events, for instance.
There are tons of events you can find for big names in your industry. If you are in the food industry in any capacity, for example, there are a lot of food truck and tasting festivals. You can extend your reach through sponsorships at events like that. Also, consider sponsorships for podcasts or webinars.
Influencer Marketing
Have you ever opened up your Instagram to check up on your favorite influencer? Maybe you scroll through and come across a post where they’re holding up their “new favorite product” and raving about its benefits.
The brand of that super-incredible product or service? They’re using influencer marketing for all it’s worth.
At its most basic, influencer marketing is when a well-known person posts a positive review of:
- Your overarching brand
- A product your business sells
- Services your business offers
You can find these types of endorsement ads on a lot of famous social media accounts.
Some popular content here would be:
- Ads
- Emails
- Web pages
Content Curation
You know about content marketing. But that can get a little unclear since it is such a broad category of marketing.
Content curation is an excellent way to whittle down your content marketing tactics.
It happens when you cluster different pieces of content that you, your business or your employees do not own. In other words, you pick (or curate) content from sources that you or your business did not create.
Then, you share that content with your customer base and target market. A Pinterest board is a great example of how to curate content from external sources.
The most common types of content for content curation is:
- A social media message
- Blog posts
- A content hub
Referral Marketing
Like we said before, paid marketing is when you purchase content or brand placement. Then, you put that content on platforms like a:
- Website
- Print or digital publication (like a magazine or online quarterly publication)
- Social network
- Search engine
Earned marketing is when an external party gives your brand, product or service exposure. This external party could be any number of sources, but some examples are:
- Another brand
- An influencer
- A publication
They put the coverage about your company, product or service in their own content that they then draft and publish.
Referral marketing is a mix of both earned and paid tactics. Here, you have to motivate and incentivize your customers and loyal brand followers. Then, they will share their positive attitude and experiences about your brand, product or service with the rest of your target market.
You may have seen cases of this on your personal social sites. Some “everyday people” who follow a certain brand post their referral links for others to use on a brand’s site.
Here are the most common types of content for referral marketing:
- Blog posts
- A message on social media
- Website badges
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is similar to both referral and endorsement marketing.
Again, it is a hybrid of earned and paid marketing tactics.
But the key difference with affiliate marketing is that influencers are the ones who you give incentive to. Then, your influencers (or “affiliates”) share their positive experience and feelings about your brand, product or service with your target buyers.
The common types of content for affiliate marketing are:
- Blog posts
- Emails
- Webinars
Live Streaming
Live streaming is a bit different from the rest of the marketing tactics we have gone over so far. This is because it is an event-based tactic. With live streaming, you record your meeting as it happens live.
As you record it in real-time, you share it with your target audience. People who watch it get an inside look at how your meeting evolves with your live-streaming platform.
Tons of different social media networks have the option for live streaming. Facebook and Instagram are just a couple of your options. Then, everyone who is already interested in your business and who subscribes to your pages knows when you start the live stream.
Common types of live-streaming content are:
- Facebook Live
- A podcast
- Conferences
Guesting/Guest Posting
Guesting or guest posting is an exciting marketing tactic. Guesting is when you shine the spotlight on a guest poster. You give this external source content, information or appearance opportunities. They use any of those to extend your reach within your target market.
You can do so with outlets like webinars, podcasts or blog posts.
Online Tools
Everyone likes to feel like they belong and that you include them in the goings-on of your brand.
Online tools are an interactive way to do just that. Use them to provide solutions for your current and potential customers.
You can use an analyzer, optimizer, calculator or tester.
Conclusion
The number of marketing tactics out there for you to choose from is vast. Sometimes, it feels like those options don’t target you and your unique brand.
But here at Business Marketing Engine, we do. We are a full-service marketing agency. Our team of qualified experts knows how to help you plan, build and grow.
Do you have a specific problem you need to solve? No matter what your obstacles are, we are the hurdles that get you over them. It’s time to stop taking risks that aren’t working and take advantage of our risk-free trial.
What kind of fresh marketing tactics will you put on the menu today? Contact us now and we’ll figure it out with you.