Effective marketing in the digital world today is the best value for your money. Read how to grow your company using marketing in the digital world today.
If you are a CEO/Owner of a business, this could be one of your most important articles ever. Especially if you are over 50 years old.
Effective marketing is the best value for your money and must be done to survive. The best product in the world is no good if no one knows about it. The reality is that platforms today can expand your audience a thousand-fold in minutes at a relatively low cost.
Educate yourself and read on.
Marketing in the Digital World
Many of you have heard this but it bears repeating. Buyers prefer to perform considerable research online before engaging in the Sales process. That means many prospects have already done their homework and may have decided to purchase. Now you must make sure it is your product they read about and want to purchase.
Strong interest in working with your company can be initiated with targeted messaging and content to the right channels to educate the buyer. Why should they buy from you versus your competitor? What value do you provide?
As you can see, Marketing is no longer just about collateral, flyers, tradeshows, and articles. It is also about brand awareness and ultimately generation of qualified sales leads.
Digital Content – It is not enough to just have a website in today’s market. If you want to grow, you need a coordinated effort across multiple online media platforms that all point back to your website. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, and LinkedIn are the major outlets today and all have their respective audiences.
Make sure and understand the different audiences so you produce relevant content. Millennials and Gen Z today spend more time on Instagram than they do Facebook. LinkedIn is for business relationships whereas Facebook is more personal. Twitter is limited in the number of characters, so you need a single sentence or two with a picture to generate interest and a link to your website.
Each can generate interest in your product and direct the buyer to your website. However, you must make sure your content is easy to understand and quickly portrays the value your product can provide. Otherwise, they will go somewhere else.
Educate yourself about each of these platforms and learn about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), ranking, digital advertising, etc. Make sure your content incorporates keywords that describe your product and/or service. Most of these platforms have tools that allow you to research relevant keywords for your product, service, competitors, and industry. Learn what was the content that interested the prospect enough to reach out? Understanding where the prospect came from and why can greatly increase your ability to understand the pain they need resolved and generate highly targeted content.
A typical approach for Marketing is to leverage a product like HubSpot to help attract visitors, host web pages, and manage interactions with your leads. It helps understand how the buyer got to your website and what they did while they were there. If your site is designed properly and gathers enough relevant data, a Sales lead may be the outcome. Tools can be used to further qualify the opportunity into a lead worthy of your Sales team’s time.
HubSpot is then integrated with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software like Salesforce. Your Sales team accesses the CRM and can see qualified leads, with relevant data, to contact and work through the Sales process. There is much more to it than this, but you get the idea.
Tight integration between Marketing and Sales
It is important for there to be a well-defined Sales process that incorporates the entire buyer’s journey. We’ll get into the specifics of that later.
A high performing Marketing team is tightly integrated in the Sales process from both a communication and qualification process. There should be a constant feedback loop from Sales back to Marketing. What worked? What didn’t? Can the lead in the future be better qualified?
There will always be some conflict between the departments. Marketing generates leads and Sales works the lead to close deals and generate revenue. If deals are not closing, Sales may blame Marketing because of the poor quality of the leads. If Marketing provides too many leads, Sales may not have enough time to work them all.
Constant communication and tight integration between the departments is key. When growth starts happening, they must be aligned to succeed.
Blogging gives your site a voice, so let your business’ personality shine through. Choose a great image to feature in your post or add a video for extra engagement. Are you ready to get started? Simply create a new post now.
Additional Factors for a High-Performing Marketing Team
Consistent and High Value Content – Consistent and relevant content will drive customer engagement. Too much content will drive them away. Establish a plan with a schedule and stick to it. It does not have to be earth shattering, just relevant to your product and the value it provides. Statistics have shown 7 touches are required before it sticks. Not sure about that in today’s market but the concept is clean. Be consistent and it will pay off.
Monitor Competitors’ Content – What are they doing and why? What is your differentiator? How do they compare to your messaging and content? You should have no surprises from your competitors.
Monitor Online Reviews and Comments – This is critical for small and medium sized companies. Your online reputation is critical. When you have done everything right up to this point and then a prospect reads a negative review, you can lose the opportunity and never even know about it. There are software products out there that will monitor social media accounts and report on any interaction about your company. If there is a positive review, have someone thank the respondent online. If negative, provide a valuable response in a timely fashion. No company is perfect but owning your reputation is paramount. You should monitor all the key platforms mentioned above along with Yelp and Glassdoor.
Digital Ads – You can spend relatively small amounts of money and have well placed advertisements on social media. Google is the best today. They have analytics about all kinds of search terms. Select the ones relevant to your product and see about the price. You can pick and choose based upon your budget. You can even have your company appear at the top of the listing of search results (even those specific to your competitors).
Final Thoughts
For a smaller company, this amount of work and content can be overwhelming. Fear not. There are marketing services companies and individuals out there that are well versed and can do much of this for you. Speak with a consultant to best understand your needs and level of effort required, both short-term and long-term. You can hire staff, outsource, or leverage a blend of both. Keep in mind, what may be daunting to you is second nature to recent graduates and Millennials.
If you'd like to discuss further, contact me at www.richhallgroup.com/contact