How To Identify Which Digital Marketing Strategies Are Right For You
A lot is vying for consumers’ attention these days, and you need to differentiate yourself from the competition, that is what marketing strategy is all about. The good news is you have a lot of useful tools at your fingertips from social media to blogging to search engine optimization (SEO). However, the bad news is with so much available it can sometimes be an overwhelming task to pick the right strategy for you and your brand.
Without the right marketing strategies backing your business, growth is extremely difficult and getting the precise mix of strategies is not easy either. You need to effectively target your message to the best audience for your product so you can boost visibility and increase sales. But fear not, at Power Digital we have worked with customers to help them understand the best strategies available and work with them to implement a plan.
Types of Marketing Strategies
There is really no limit to the number of strategies available, or that you can use at one time. However, certain techniques are more widely recognized and proven more effective than others at reaching your audience. We’ll talk more about how to pick a strategy in a minute, but first, let’s look at some of the most popular options you have available. This is by no means a complete list but will help you get started.
Content Marketing
Content marketing consists of putting out relevant and valuable media for your audience to consume. You can do this in a number of different ways from social media and video to blogging and syndication.
It’s 2018, and we all know what social media is, but harnessing the power of it is a different story. Some businesses have been built solely using social media proving it’s prowess as the queen of marketing techniques. There are a number of platforms available, some of the most notable of which include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. But regardless of the platform, it is important to be your authentic self. Now more than ever, consumers are savvy and can sense when you are trying to sell them on something, it makes them weary. But if your posts are genuine, you’ll quickly build rapport and have an army of loyal consumers. This is vital to a successful content marketing strategy.
Before there was social media, there was blogging. Nearly every business has a blog, but most don’t blog well. It is crucial to post valuable content that will engage your audience. You might try to build some followers by authority blogging on a platform like Medium or LinkedIn with links back to more robust posts on your own blog. Syndicating your content like this can help attract the right consumers who are interested in learning more about your product or a problem you can help them solve. You always want to offer solutions.
Influencer Marketing
As the popularity of social media has increased, so has the presence of influencers. These individuals have large groups of loyal followers that you can leverage to raise your brand awareness. This is what is known as influencer marketing (clever, right?) and can be a very effective strategy for the right brand. With these types of partnerships, you’ll usually provide an influencer with a free product, or a monetary compensation, in exchange for posting about your brand to their audience. With the right influencer, they will be able to help increase sales.
Persona Marketing
Persona marketing is based on designing buyer journeys for your prospects by categorizing them into semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers. These depictions are what is known as personas. It is an effective technique your business can leverage to be able to better relate to your key buyer demographics and to deliver more relevant marketing content and messaging.
Affiliate Marketing
Sadly, a lot of marketers don’t understand or recognize the power of affiliate marketing, or more commonly known as word-of-mouth campaigns. When utilized correctly, affiliates can provide massive growth for a brand. You can choose to either work with another brand as an affiliate, bloggers and the like, or you can even leverage your everyday consumer. By rewarding customers for sharing your product, you can greatly increase your brand visibility and, in turn, increase sales.
How to Pick the Right Marketing Strategy
It is important to recognize that you don’t have to choose only one strategy, you can mix and match to come up with the best solution for your brand. However, it is critical that you remain focused otherwise you run the risk of trying to do too much at one time which could lead to poorly run campaigns or initiatives. If you are just getting started, try selecting the most effective strategy to begin and then add more later as you become more confident. Here are some tips for selecting the best digital marketing strategy for you.
Identify Your Goals for the Year
Before you can choose a strategic approach, you must know what you are trying to achieve. Do you want to drive revenue, increase brand awareness, or boost your SEO rankings? The answer will help you determine if you wish to invest in efforts focused at the top or bottom of your funnel. For example, if you are trying to look at the top of your funnel to increase your brand awareness, you are better off leveraging organic social campaigns and content marketing. For bottom of the funnel conversions, however, you will want to invest in pay-per-click advertisements or paid retargeting ads on social media to re-engage potential customers.
Understand Your Audience
You won’t be able to effectively implement a strategy without first understanding who your audience is and what they want. In order to provide them with relevant and timely messaging, you need to know where they spend their time and what their purchase behaviors are. This is where a strategy like persona marketing can make a huge difference. By targeting all your content or ads to a specific and carefully crafted persona, you are more likely to see successful conversions as a result. Armed with the data a persona offers, you will be able to engage with the different segments your audience in a whole new way.
Know Your Budget and Timeline
Key to picking the right strategy is knowing when you need to see results and what you are willing to spend to get there. These factors will help determine the appropriate strategy. For example, Facebook is a “pay to play” network meaning you’re going to have to spend a significant amount of money to be seen. Similarly, pay-per-click campaigns can be expensive depending on the competition of your industry and associated keywords. And SEO techniques take time to see noticeable results. If you are tight on cash or time, you’re better off spending your energy elsewhere.
Unfortunately, there is no cookie cutter strategy that will be effective across the board for all brands. If there was, most marketers would probably be out of a job. Rather, the best campaigns are custom fit to match the specific objectives of each company. Once you know your goals, integration is key to efficiently running a campaign that produces results. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed though, choose the best strategy for one of your goals to get your feet wet and then begin to implement a complementary strategy. Soon you’ll be managing your brand’s digital marketing strategies with ease.
