Top 10 Marketing tips for 2019

Having a strong marketing strategy requires more than adjusting your priorities year after year. Always remain on the lookout for new technologies and opportunities to stand out from the crowd and keep your business one step ahead.

 

1. Find opportunities to Diversify

Most marketing budgets today don’t allow businesses to pursue every distribution channel at once. It’s therefore wise to carefully select channels that are most likely to bring strong returns from your investment, which often differs by industry. Look for opportunities to diversify your strategy by researching your audience. Identify niche sub-channels where you’re able to cut through the marketing noise, such as on YouTube, social media groups, etc. Then you can diversify your strategy knowing the payoff will be worth the investment.

 

2. Embrace Paid Social

Over 80% of social marketers use Facebook ads, who’s advertising revenue continues to grow. Paid advertising options are now also available on Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter. Social media platforms are tweaking their algorithms, making it clear to brands that paid promotion is a must if you want to get visibility. If you want your social strategy to maintain or gain momentum, then embracing paid social is a must.

 

3. Focus On Your Existing Content

Most marketers today understand they need to produce large volumes of content to build a traffic base. It’s easy to focus on creating new content and overlook the value in your brands’ existing assets. If you want to keep up with today’s competitive markets, it’s important to use your current content to its fullest potential before spending time and money on producing new material.

For example, you can:
Identify your most popular content and use these insights to inform future content you create.
Update old content with new data, visuals, or perspective and try republishing to gain more reach.
Re-purpose old content as an infographic, video, slide deck, etc. You can also turn a series of blog posts into an ebook guide or report.

 

4. Nurture Brand Advocates

Consumers look for recommendations from their peers to make purchase decisions. Your own customers are a powerful resource to help you reach new audiences and drive conversions. To make the most of your brand advocates, create campaigns to incentivise them to spread your message and their experiences with your business. Create an online community or offer rewards for referrals, for example. You can also create a branded hashtag and encourage audiences to use it on social media.

 

5. Optimise User Experience

Creating a message that speaks to your target audience is only the first step to success in online marketing. It doesn’t matter how great your content is, it won’t drive conversions without excellent website user experience (UX) to go with it.

So make sure you’re constantly testing and optimizing UX to drive marketing goals. This includes improving site speed and navigation, ensuring your content is easy to consume on mobile devices, and more.

 

6. Connect Online and Offline Strategies

Creating a consistent customer experience online and off is an important aspect of memorable marketing in 2019. More and more businesses are using in-person events to influence audiences and drive sales, but they often think of them as isolated from online marketing initiatives. To get the most out of in-person marketing, first, identify what steps you want your audience to take after the event (e.g. engage with your emails, sign up for a free product demo, etc). Then create an in-person experience that nurtures them on this journey.

 

7. Prioritise Authenticity

Consumers today are well aware that the content businesses create is agenda-driven. They’re not likely to respond positively to “salesy” content, so brands need to develop better strategies to build authentic relationships with their audiences. One of the best ways to prioritise authenticity with your marketing is by creating live content, such as live streaming via Facebook.

 

8. Create a Memorable Message

There are only so many ways to directly promote your products and services through marketing. Sometimes it’s worthwhile to stray away from your main marketing agenda to tell stories that make your brand more memorable and likeable. The more creative you get with storytelling, the more likely you’ll stand out and improve your brand image.

 

9. Build Partnerships

Advertising is a great way to broaden your reach both online and offline, but it doesn’t compare to the power of a strong recommendation from knowledgeable influencers. Collaborate with other major players in your industry to reach a new audience and gain a stronger following. You can also enlist the help of influencers to serve as your brand advocates on social media and the blogosphere.

 

10. Make Performance Analysis an Ongoing Strategy

Any experienced marketer knows the importance of performance analytics to fully optimise their strategy. But waiting until the end of a marketing campaign to analyse and adjust seriously limits the potential benefits of the overall performance.

Don’t rely purely on past performance to inform future efforts — make adjustments to campaigns in real-time based on the latest insights. Your marketing automation platform should offer various ways of analysing the performance of your marketing efforts throughout a campaign or particular period.

 

Marketing fills the sales funnel

Businesses that continue to promote through planned targeted campaigns are more likely to thrive. As a business owner wanting to grow, your marketing plan should include 6 key steps. Click the link to find out more or get in touch…

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