Are you worried about investing money into a marketing strategy that fails to capture leads? Fortunately there are numerous ways to engage your audience, you just have to figure out the best outlet for you. Follow our marketing tips to improve your sales and drive more customer awareness to your brand.
These are five aspects every marketer fears when developing new campaigns. . But don’t worry, we’ve hacked each concern with concrete solutions:
Lacking a Sufficient Marketing Budget
If you want your business to grow by a certain percentage each year, the same percentage needs to go into your marketing budget. This can seem really scary, especially if you’re already pinching pennies during the process of jumpstarting your company. But until your company is well established, a larger marketing budget is necessary to gain exposure.
The new marketing platform MindBody uses 40% of its revenue toward marketing, and sees a 37% revenue growth each year. Whereas larger brands like Google or Apple spend less than 15% of their revenue on marketing because they already have a large awareness.
A Vital blog post claims “unless you are Apple, spending less than 10% of your revenue isn’t going to cut it… companies in their growth phase need to invest heavily in the mechanism that promotes, sells, and creates growth.”
Next time you’re uncertain where to allocate your funds, when it doubt, invest in marketing and you’re almost guaranteed results.
Failing to Target the Proper Audience
When you first start a business, you need to decide your buyer persona. This is a depiction of your ideal customer. Pinpointing what you desire in your “dream customer” can help you identify who to target in your marketing automation campaigns.
Writing messages for specific audiences will make it easier and faster for your marketing team to convert higher quality leads. In the long run, a targeted approach also makes the voice of your brand more distinct compared to competitors.
Targeting your audience has numerous benefits:
– You’ll define your voice
– Build customer loyalty
– Properly allocate your budget
Having trouble deciding who you want to reach? Certain automation tools allow you to view the other sites your customers visit. Browsing these sites can give you inspiration and insight into what your customers are buying and what they prefer in messaging.
When you think about your audience, it’s better to think small. Finding your niche audience is cost-effective because now you know exactly where to distribute your marketing budget.
Fear of a Low Return on Investment
Did you know websites and emails received the highest ROI in 2016? What’s great about digital ads and marketing automation is you can set your preferred budget depending on your business size and income.
According to Webstrategies, implementing a target ratio is highly encouraged so you and your marketing team are on the same page about profit. This ratio is for the amount of money you spend on marketing, versus the amount of profit you receive. For every $1 spent on marketing, you want at least $5 in profit from your product or service. A 1-to-5 ratio will ensure you have the ability to cover overhead costs, the cost of marketing, and still profit.
Making your objectives clear will ease the stress of ROI. By using the solutions and tips listed above, you should be setting yourself up for a successful ROI rate.
Uncertain How to Integrate Digital, Print, and Email
You’ve learned how effective a digital presence can be, but did you know print ads can also present a high ROI?
Magazines are target-specific outlets providing a definitive buyer persona with no effort on your end. Although print is harder to scale because of a lack of analytics, offline advertisements are still a prime opportunity to re-engage potential consumers.
As for direct mail, 2016 showed an increase of 43% in customer response rates through mail ads. Putting direct mail right behind email and social media as the most effective marketing outlet.
Research shows 84% of millennials read their mail. When people spend more time reading a physical ad, a stronger emotional response is created. You can enhance this emotional response by adding creative additions like postcards or stickers in the mail too. These are easy ways to have your audience share content with their friends.
If you have the budget for print, don’t miss out on this opportunity! Integrating a print and digital plan can ensure re-engagement across all platforms and offer valuable insight into the best way to intrigue customers.
Unable to Identify the Right Platforms and Technologies for Your Industry
Just like how you need to put effort into identifying your audience, you also need to identify which platforms and technologies are right for your business.
On average, B2C companies see a 50% higher conversion rate when using email marketing, and B2B companies see 60% increase in revenue growth. These results prove that all businesses should be using a marketing automation platform (MAP), but the question is, which one?
B2C businesses flourish on Instagram and Facebook where the main focus is captivating visuals and product imagery. Twitter and LinkedIn are ideal for B2B or SaaS companies who want to promote professional blog posts and business insight. All of these social media platforms have different demographics too. Younger crowds tend to focus on Snapchat and Instagram, whereas older generations are most active on Twitter and Facebook.
As for your marketing automation platform (which every business should use to increase email traffic!), Klaviyo is great for ecommerce and Eloqua is ideal for B2B. A little bit of research or advice for a marketing strategist can help in deciding which platforms your company should utilize. Rather than dipping into all of these technologies, a couple hours of research can save you time and help you focus on what’s best for your business.
Time to Strategize!
Using this input, it’s time for you and your team to sit down and figure out an approach to your marketing. Promoting your brand can seem intimidating and expensive, but all your marketing efforts will improve exposure and engagement to your brand!
