The internet and social media have completely changed the way we look at marketing. Thanks to platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, marketers can engage with customers and prospects in ways that were never before possible. The challenge is utilizing these new connections in a way that will generate true value and lead to real growth for your business.
The Basics
Before you begin any type of marketing campaign, it’s essential to establish a baseline understanding of what works online and what doesn’t. Starting with basic email marketing and working your way up, this article will walk you through the steps to take before you begin your marketing journey.
Set Up Your Email Marketing Platform
One of the first steps to any successful marketing campaign is to have a reliable platform to send out your messages from. Luckily for you, we’ve gone ahead and done the legwork for you and created a shortlist of the best email marketing platforms available today. All you need to do is choose one and get to work.
Every year, our email marketing tool reviews come in varying degrees of usefulness. While some vendors provide robust email marketing features, others focus more on creating engaging content and building a community. Each tool is incredibly powerful and is guaranteed to boost your email marketing performance by 15% at least.
Design A Powerful Branding Strategy
Once you’ve picked your email marketing platform, the next step is to develop a solid branding strategy. Like with any type of marketing effort, it’s important to establish a unique identity that will guide all of your communications throughout the lifecycle of your campaign. In order to do this, take some time to research industries that your product or service falls into. This will help you determine what colors, fonts and imagery work best for your identity. Once you’ve got this locked in, you can begin developing your brand’s marketing messages and themes – including text, videos, social media posts and email marketing content – to match.
Create Brand Awareness
Once you’ve got your brand identity worked out, the next step is to create brand awareness. With brand awareness, you’re simply trying to get people to recognize your brand name, even if they’ve never heard of it before. The easiest way to do this is through paid advertisement on platforms like Google AdWords and Bing Ads. Depending on your target audience and budget, you can run ads that will appear in front of potential customers as they search for related products and services. If you can afford it, running pay-per-click ads is one of the most efficient ways to gain brand awareness and drive traffic to your website.
Another way to gain brand awareness is by creating branded swags and stickers for your social media platforms. As someone who spent the first five years of my marketing career in corporate America, promoting brands through branded swags and stickers is something I still do in my personal life. By creating these marketing materials, you can expose your customers to your brand identity without having to spend a single penny on adverts.
Measure The Results
It’s important to measure the results of your marketing efforts. Without a clear idea of how effective your campaign was, it’s difficult to determine what to do next. For those just getting started with online marketing, it’s recommended to take an approach of gathering as much data as possible through A/B testing, split testing and email marketing platform logging.
Through these tools, you can track the results of every marketing action you take. This will help you understand what works best and allows you to better refine your strategy for future campaigns. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a technological genius to use these tools – they’re incredibly user-friendly and are designed to be accessible for marketers of all backgrounds.
If you’re looking for a one-stop shop for all of your marketing needs (including design, content and email marketing), then look no further. With these basic guidelines in mind, you’ll be able to launch a successful email marketing campaign and begin building a meaningful relationship with your audience. Thanks for reading! We hope this article has helped you in your quest to become a more digitally adept marketer.