Are your tactics accomplishing the goals of your marketing and advertising strategies?
You spend a lot of time, money, and effort promoting your brand, so you deserve the best ROI possible.
Not all marketing tactics are created equal, and what works for one brand does not always guarantee success for you. As more channels open up in digital spaces, finding the best marketing investment can seem complicated.
This article will help mitigate the uncertainty with tried-and-true marketing tactics that can work for virtually any business. Through these cost-effective marketing and advertising techniques, you can start boosting your conversion, sales, and lead generation with ease.
What Are Marketing Tactics?
Marketing tactics are the “how” to a marketing and advertising strategy’s “what”. A strategy entails the specific goals you plan to accomplish with a campaign. For example, you may detail a social media strategy aimed at increasing sales by 10 percent.
The tactics are the individual steps to accomplish the strategy’s goals. For our social media example, marketing tactics may include retargeting on Facebook or posting more lead magnets to Twitter.
Of course, you want your tactics to be more specific and measurable to track their success. A key component of establishing unified tactics within a strategy is to set benchmarks and identify KPIs. You need to find what works and what does not.
Marketing Tactics You Need to Succeed
As you can imagine, businesses may have similar strategies but use wildly different tactics to get there. An online retailer and a local pest control company may both strategize to increase their market share. However, the online store may use a PPC campaign while the pest control company invests in billboards.
For every strategy, there are a million different directions to go. The majority of tactics are unique, research-backed methods that generate favorable results under specific circumstances.
Some tactics, however, are increasingly effective for businesses in any industry. Let’s explore marketing tactics you can start using today to reach your marketing goals.
Social Marketing Tactics
Social marketing empowers even the smallest businesses to boost their brand awareness. The social platforms are inexpensive marketing channels, and many are equipped with tools designed to make marketing easier.
The one downside to social marketing is that it requires consistent and exhaustive effort for often unclear results. To ensure you get the highest ROI, try employing these social marketing tactics used by top marketing companies.
Blogs
Blogging is the go-to anchor for most content marketing strategies. When it comes to blogs in a social marketing strategy, you need to consider how you use them.
To start, any new blog post should be promoted on your social channels. Going a step further, if you are low on topic ideas, you can update past articles with fresh data and insights. You can then add that to your social posts.
Repurposing blogs into shareable social bites is a great way to generate posts with relevant content. You can even turn video content into blog posts or blog posts into infographics. There are countless ways for you to regularly repurpose content for new formats, media, and audiences.
Podcasts
Podcasts are growing in popularity, giving marketers a whole new way to effectively reach consumers. Listening habits let marketers reach consumers in new places— like in the car or at the gym. The audio format also gives voices to brands, promoting their image and the foundation for positive, trusting customer relationships.
As part of your content strategy, podcasts can be repurposed like blogs. You can share sound bites or videos on your social channels as a teaser. If you are low on blog ideas, look into your podcast archive and turn one into a post.
Interviews
InterviewsWhen you run out of time or ideas for writing a blog, performing interviews can save the day. An interview with industry insiders, consumer experts or business owners can fit a variety of formats. If you need a new podcast, blog article or video, interviews are a perfect fit for all.
Interviews save time and money because the answers are the majority of the content. All you need to worry about is writing the questions and scheduling a time with the interviewee.
Sharing interviews in a social marketing strategy is great for improving your brand’s perceived authority. The authenticity and trustworthiness of interviewees are transferred to you, so customers are more likely to value your content.
Interviewing can also be great for SEO. If you interview a business associate, they may want to host the interview as part of their content strategy. This is an excellent opportunity to add a backlink and increase your authority in the eyes of search engines.
Videos
Whether live or recorded, videos are one of the best ways to improve your brand image. Having a face, a voice and a name to attach to a brand make it human. For customers, it makes it much easier to grow comfortable and feel valued.
Doing live videos for social marketing is efficient on time and resources. Just taking video of daily operations at work on your phone invites audiences into your life. This can be a simple method to connect in meaningful ways with your customers.
Social memes
Social memesMemes can be built in just a few seconds with an online generator for your content. If you have a knack for humor, this can be a defining component of your brand. You can help your reputation and build your social following with shareable content like this.
Look-alike audience
A look-alike audience is a social marketing tool for targeting specific social media users. User characteristics sourced from pixel data, app usage, or social followers are identified. Social users who match those characteristics are then presented with your ads.
A social advertising strategy deserves this tactic because it is inexpensive and extremely effective. Facebook and other social platforms make sourcing and targeting customers simple with their automated systems.
Influencer Marketing Tactics
Marketing strategies are often only as productive as the partners you involve. In digital marketing, influencers play an essential role in raising brand awareness and driving sales.
Here are some ways you can leverage influencer marketing in your digital campaigns.
Beta Programs
Beta testing accomplishes a lot of product marketing goals, ensuring your solution is valuable before hitting the market. With a change in perspective, you can also use the testing itself as a brand marketing device.
By inviting key influencers to exclusive pre-launch trials, you can generate buzz around the launch. Look for influencers who have a following that matches your target audience, incentivizing them to be brand ambassadors.
Share Exchange
Influencers engage in strategic marketing efforts just like any other business. With this in mind, you can often foster partnerships by promoting their brand rather than spending money on them.
When you find an influencer who would make an ideal customer, offer to share content. You will build a mutually beneficial relationship that increases your content, social network, and customer base.
Influencer Networks
Influencer NetworksInfluencers are part of a community. They have their own networks consisting of influencers with their own followings. Rather than start fresh in your search for new influencers, reach out to your current partners for referrals. Making it common practice to reward valuable connections can make your network actively work to find new collaboration opportunities.
Content Marketing Tactics
Evergreen content is search-optimized content that stays relevant or “fresh” for readers long-term. It increases authority, improves SEO, and most importantly, solves customer problems. In today’s practice, having a content marketing strategy is intrinsic to earning market share and creating content that lasts. Here are three effective marketing tactics to include in your content creation process.
Transparent content
Customers are borderline cynical about marketing messages nowadays, expecting to be sold to at every turn. Even valuable informational content is perceived as sneaky advertising. This is why brands, now more than ever, need to exercise transparency to earn trust.
Transparent content refers to your integrity and genuine concern for the audience. If there are questions about your company, you need to answer them. Own your failures and show your system, leaving no room for skepticism. When you speak honestly, openly and without provocation, customers will be much less critical and much more trusting.
Dynamic CTAs
Dynamic CTAs on web pages and in content change according to the user viewing them. Marketers are finding that changing CTAs based on factors, like time of day or user location, exponentially increases conversion.
Several of the best marketing companies online offer services to add dynamic CTAs to your web pages. This will make CTAs relevant and personalized to your audience, capitalizing on their immediate needs to push your offers.
Automated webinars
Webinars can be part of evergreen content marketing models if they have timelessly valuable information. We think of webinars as labor-intensive and time-consuming but they do not have to be. Like blogs, a webinar is great for social posts, but they are even better as gated content. Letting your automated webinars rest as lead magnets can save you a lot of effort in finding prospects.
Conversion Rate Optimisation Tactics
Improving reach, awareness, and traffic is only meaningful if your conversion improves. Here are three tactics marketers are using for efficiently enhancing their conversion rates.
Web forms
Optimizing web forms starts with understanding your goals and what information you need to reach them. Users get burnt out with too many questions, so you want to reduce them down to the essential questions.
Sometimes you may need more information, especially when building qualified leads. In these cases, qualitative short-answer fields in a conditional format can help. Questions change based on how users answered prior questions. This makes the process both more streamlined for the user and more informative for you.
Live chat
Live chatbots are a simple website integration that greatly improves the user experience. Consumers find answers more quickly and in fewer steps, improving your website’s value.
For the business, chatbots relieve customer service personnel and allow them to focus on major issues. At the same time, chatbots collect user data, giving insight into common concerns and pain points you can address. By staying responsive to customer feedback via chat, you will save more business and increase conversion.
Landing pages
Optimizing your landing pages for assorted search intents does more for conversion than simple A/B testing. With more diverse, personalized landing pages to match what users are searching for, you address needs with more relevance. Aligning messages and CTAs with the “what” and “why” of searches will encourage more click-throughs and better lead segmentation.
Email Marketing Tactics
Email marketing continues to be the centerpiece of many small businesses and corporate marketing strategies alike. Use these three tactics to enhance the customer experience and increase your productivity.
Automate referral campaigns
Your CRM is a cache of lead potential that can be tapped into with email campaigns soliciting referrals. Services like ActiveCampaign or Zoho can help you automate the whole process. By connecting emails to user actions, you can utilize automatic messaging when a client shows interest in referring business.
Behavioral marketing
Automated referral campaigns are a specific avenue of behavioral marketing, a crucial tactic for driving conversion. With behavioral marketing, you can send personalized emails based on certain user actions. A common example is a follow-up email when a user abandons a shopping cart. There are numerous ways to customize elaborate workflows to make your messaging more relevant.
Special offers
Exclusive offers are a shot in the arm when you need sales. Customers love deals that only they can access. Offer coupons to reward loyalty and include special events like birthdays or anniversaries in your automated email campaigns. Your customers will appreciate the extra care to make them feel special.
Fine-Tune Your Marketing Tactics for Better Results
Before you pursue a marketing agency, audit how your marketing tactics stack up to those outlined in this article. Hopefully, you have gotten the inspiration and motivation to give your marketing tactics a winning edge.
Still need more help defining effective marketing tactics to reach your business goals? Our consultants at the Selling Revolution work closely with clients to determine their needs, goals, and capabilities. We formulate practical strategies and purposeful tactics to yield the highest marketing and sales ROI possible. Contact our team today to learn more about our growth-oriented small business solutions.