Hey there!
In our final TPM Take for 2017, we’re looking to get you ready for the new year.
Our top three reads focus on what marketing experts believe you need to know ahead of the new year. Our first article focuses on the top three disruptive marketing trends as we move into 2018. The second article we’ve chosen gets into the nitty gritty of delivering stronger digital experiences for your brand. Finally, we want to ensure you’re on solid ground by helping you choose the best digital marketing channel for your business.
Season’s greetings from all of us at Total Product Marketing! We’ll be back with all the latest industry trends and insights in the new year.
Top 3 Disruptive Marketing Trends For 2018
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billeehoward/2017/11/12/disruptive-marketing-trends/
As marketers take stock of this year in preparation for the next, they would do well to keep in mind disruptive trends that are hot on their heels. In this latest article by Forbes, author Billee Howard of Brandthropologie highlights three key trends to help get you and your business right and ready for the new year:
- Trend #1: Place brand purpose at the heart of business strategy. Corporate social responsibility and cause marketing was the source of a lot of marketing activity in the recent past. Today, the notion of “brand purpose” helps organizations identify their long-term mission which, in turn, helps them create meaningful experiences. In 2018, keep brand purpose at the core of your efforts for engaging clients and nurturing prospects.
- Trend #2: Embrace emotional engagement. Unlike rational engagement, which focuses on stimulating your mind, emotional engagement focuses on touching your customers’ hearts through effective storytelling. Transform storytelling by establishing emotional connections throughout the customer journey.
- Trend #3: Don’t be afraid to mix creativity and technology. In an environment of increasing competition, customers are looking to buy into products and services that they believe in and can make statements through. Use 2018 to use data to generate and deliver stories that create lasting connections with customers.
Empower your organization to emerge as much as a leader in their industry by capitalizing on these three up and coming trends.
TPM’s Take
At the core of these disruptive trends is the ability to create storylines that convey authenticity and trust. Our article, 4 Profitable Secrets to Help Create MSP Success Stories breaks down a four step process for you to help develop storylines and process around those storylines to connect with your customers. Although the article is focused on MSPs, all organizations can use this process to set the stage for 2018.
Digital Marketing Techniques That Will Help You Dominate Online
Did you know that 63% of marketing and sales professionals find generating traffic and leads from their website as their top marketing challenge? That’s according to HubSpot’s latest State of Inbound Report. If your organization struggles with the same issue, consider investing time and resources towards implementing multiple digital marketing techniques to boost your online presence in the new year.
Crucial techniques to consider include:
- Website and content: When was the last time you took a good look at your website? Does it make it easy for new and recurring visitors to access your company’s products, services and contact information? Content that is geared towards your audience, including articles and branded infographics, can help your visitors keep on top of industry trends and insights.
- Customer communications: You’ve nailed your content plan and execution — but how easy it is for your website visitors to contact you? What about social media? Are you able to keep a pulse on what your customers are saying? Keeping in touch with your customers on a consistent basis makes your business more reachable and authentic. Make sure you streamline customer communications by getting your outbound email outreach and social media marketing right.
- SEO and PPC campaigns: If you want to be found easily online, investing in your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns is essential. Successful organic and paid search campaigns allow for a consistent flow of valuable search traffic. With over 100 billion Google searches taking place per month, a branded PPC and local SEO campaign are exceedingly resourceful.
TPM’s Take
For businesses to compete in today’s digital landscape, companies need more than just an established online presence to attract new customers and retain clients — they need relevant content and the ability to be easily found online. Since content is one of the key methods to help your business dominate online, we’ll help you ace the content creation process with our blog posts, An Efficient Content Process for the Tech Industry and How to Create Great Content Your Audience Will Care About.
How to Choose the Best Digital Marketing Channel for Your Business
https://yourstory.com/2017/11/choose-best-digital-marketing-channel-business/
Despite the importance of digital marketing for businesses today, many small businesses are especially challenged when it comes to choosing the right channel to meet their goals. This article will help you understand who your target audience is and how to reach them.
The first step to choosing the right digital marketing channel for your business begins with your audience. Define your target audience on two levels: basic demographics and audience type. If a digital media platform allows you to reach one or more of multiple audience types — including consumers, influencers, and payers — then it is a potential medium for your business.
Key platforms for consideration:
- SEO and SEM: Google processes 3.5 billion searches every day, allowing users the ability to search for information, businesses, and services in less than a second. If your audience is searching for products and services in your industry, SEO can help you optimize your website content to help your website rank higher in Google’s search results. Similarly, search engine marketing allows you to run ads on specific key phrases relevant to your industry. You can create an account on Google AdWords and analyze the search terms in your industry to see how you would place for specific terms related to your business. Invest in SEO and SEM if you want to drive more instant clicks and conversions on your website.
- Facebook: Facebook makes it very easy to determine whether you should invest in the platform before you spend any real money. By opening the Facebook Ad interface, you can determine whether you have a sizeable audience for your products on the platform. Use Facebook if you want greater engagement on your content and posts and to drive brand awareness of your product.
- LinkedIn: If you’re a B2B business, LinkedIn is a serious contender for your attention. The platform provides a simple ad interface with detailed targeting options to reach out to your specific audience. The platform gives you a variety of options for payment, including the option to pay for clicks or pay for impressions.
- YouTube: YouTube allows your business to be discovered by audience targets that watch videos. To determine just how much of your audience uses the platform, you just need a free YouTube account and a channel. Once you start creating your ad, you can see if your audience is large enough on the platform as it will give you the estimated number of people you can reach out to with your campaign.
To determine whether a platform is right for your goals and purposes, answer the following three questions:
- Is your target audience (influencers, consumers, payers) on the platform?
- Are your competitors promoting their business using the platform?
- Are the results (engagement, views, subscribers, followers) your competitors are getting from the specific platform positive?
If the answers to each of these questions is a yes, you should start using the platform to promote your business.
TPM’s Take
Remarketing, which is an advertising technique to target people who have shown interest in your business, is the natural next step to boosting your digital marketing efforts. You can run remarketing campaigns on all of the platforms mentioned in this post. To get a handle on remarketing and use it as a tool for boosting your online efforts, read our blog post, Convert More Traffic Using Digital Remarketing Solutions.
|
