The following article was written by Adinah Brown, content manager at Leverate.
It is often said that people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan. For many small businesses, their marketing strategies consist of implementing one great idea here and then another one there, without following a plan or method. Like hitting the trunk of a tree on one side and then the other side, then a little higher, then right below is the hard way to go about felling a tree. Similarly, a marketing campaign will fail if not tackled in a methodical and consistent way.
In order to ensure marketing success, here are some tips from some of the most renowned marketers around:
Create a high-level plan. Marketing is ever-changing, last minute requests are prominent and marketing landscapes tend to shift. With this constant push and pull, it is easy to become sidetracked and forget where you are going. Having a high-level plan helps marketing teams keep their eyes on target, whether it is conversion increase, revenue generation or anything else, regardless of how many smaller projects. A high level plan will guarantee that no matter what the task at hand is, you are always working towards top corporate goals.
Define your personas. Describing your potential customer audience in detail. Include not only demographics, but also behaviors, attitudes, likes, goals and skills, this will allow you to accurately tailor your marketing automation campaigns. The better and more specifically you define your target market, the better you can customize your messages and grab consumers’ attention.
Find the right channels. Defining the channels you will use to distribute your information will allow you to speak to your audience where they are at. Consider the preferences and needs of your customers and find a synergy between various types of media, such as digital, offline, social media, mobile, etc. Consider also doing some cross-channel promotion to engage with your audience in multiple places over several instances along the sales cycle.
Measure and scale. A marketing effort that can’t be measured is a marketing effort wasted. Marketing is no longer a creative process that looks cool. Marketing activities need to be aligned and contribute to the corporate goal and marketing teams must be able to bring actionable data to prove a campaign’s worth. Establishing KPIs for each of the marketing activities you plan and using analytic tools to measure the results is crucial. Determine ahead of time how you will be reporting on the success of a certain campaign or program so you can make analysis and comparisons later on. Additionally, make sure that the way in which you set up a campaign is methodical so you are able to iterate and scale up if needed.
Think mobile. Given that mobile searches have far surpassed the number of desktop, mobile marketing is one of the most critical tools in today’s marketing strategies. Generate valuable and context-driven content that can be consumed on mobile in order to engage with your audience anytime, anywhere.