4 Types of Marketing Strategies That Actually Work for Businesses
Should you pay for Facebook ads? Should you hand out pamphlets? Should you rent a vendor booth at the local fair to hawk your business? If you have a business, big or small, these questions have most certainly been on your mind. The landscape of marketing changes and in the last few years those incremental changes have become so rapid, that it is hard to keep up. We are here to help you navigate the wild world of marketing strategies and bring you four ideas that actually work for businesses.
Digital Marketing is the Way to Go
Before we break down the ways you can boost your marketing know-how, let’s focus on why the following strategies are of the digital variety. Firstly, digital marketing can easily be trained with simple analytic tools. Did you make an ad and want to see how well it performed? Digital marketing resources make it easy to see how many people saw your ad, how many people clicked on it, who was reached with the ad, and how many meaningful engagements occurred. This information is paramount in creative future effective strategies that take your ad into the big leagues.
Secondly, there is no geographical limit to digital marketing. Anyone with the internet can access your ad. This means the small group of potential clients you might onboard by going door to door in your local neighborhood is vastly multiplied by proverbially knocking on the digital doors of clients across the globe.
Email Marketing
Starting things off, we have a tried-and-true marketing strategy. Email marketing was once a tenuous game, with some predictions that this strategy would not be viable in the 2020s. However, here we are in 2022 seeing a positive surge in email marketing campaigns.
Recent data shows email marketing had an ROI of 122%. Not bad for a strategy that was predicted to fail.
A good email marketing campaign requires an engaging title, real value to the customer, a clear call to action, and a concise but appealing tone. The best part of email marketing? The base cost is 0 dollars, which makes it ideal for companies who want to test the waters and see what comes next. Check out the ivesp blog for more tips about sending a great message!
Video Marketing
In a previous Site Hub blog, we discussed the importance of creating a connection with your potential audience. In that post, we discussed how the human voice adheres clients to your brand by giving a typically faceless company relatable features. This is the same methodology as video marketing.
Video marketing is typically more engaging than other kinds of marketing because videos inherently tell a story through the lens of the person making the video. Do you have dogs that need adoption? Are you running a sale on iPhone chargers? Are you offering a brand-new archery course at your summer camp? These are all stories that are neatly tied into short, visual bursts that not only market your products or services but relate your business to a need or desire in the audience’s life. That connection will often inspire clients to click, watch, and be moved.
With the accessibility to capture devices nowadays, some ads are recorded on a phone, while some companies choose to hire outside help to give a professional touch to their videos. Regardless of the way you go, video marketing is a strong choice for advertisers.
Have a Social Media Presence
It’s the heyday of social media. Everyone and their grandmother has some kind of online presence. Sure, seeing your ex-coworkers constant complaints about their Saturday lunch can be overwhelming, but a good marketer looks at it like this: everyone who has a social media account is a potential customer.
By maintaining a social media presence, whether, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, or Snapchat, companies can endear themselves to future clients. Something funny happens at the office? Post about it. Have an idea for a quick 30-second ad? Snap a video. Is your company going through a major change that you want everyone to know about? Sum it up in a few words and send it into cyberspace!
The key to social media is that it ultimately makes the distance between consumer and company smaller. Clients can reach out via Facebook messenger to ask questions or set up an appointment. Interested parties can like and share posts on TikTok or Instagram. Not only do you have fans of your company, but they might even do some of the marketing-heavy-lifting for you.
Influencer Marketing
This is a relatively new concept that has proven to be a successful marketing model. The term influencer refers to any creator who has a large enough social media following that, should they promote a product or service, turns likes into profits.
The trick here is to find an influencer that aligns with your company’s goals and ethics. There can be a success in crossovers, but to promote your vegan restaurant on a dairy-farm influencer’s account is probably a bad idea. Finding like-minded, charming personalities to help sell your product or service will go a long way, especially if their follower count outnumbers yours in spades. Take advantage of their voice and let them work for you.
Identifying an influencer is pretty easy, although keep your expectations in check. If you’re a local dojo, it might be hard to get Brad Pitt to advocate for you. Rather, look to who in your community might be able to help. Have a recognizable reporter stop in to take a class and build the foundation of your digital presence that way. As you grow, your scope increases, and, who knows, maybe someday Brad Pitt will respond to all your DMs.
Try New Things!
With four, solid ideas in the bag, the path is open for you to market in a way that works for you. The most important thing is to try new things and do what works for you. Marketing is always changing and trends come and go. You might be the one to adopt an early version of a trend and it might pay off in ways you can’t imagine. Good luck!
