In today’s world, the lines between marketing and sales have blurred. With companies like HubSpot and LeadSquid, creating, planning, and executing marketing programs is much easier than ever before.
While there are still clear differences between marketing and sales, they are much more integrated than they have ever been. That means a marketing strategy can not only drive new sales (and revenue) but also help you gain valuable insights into what is and isn’t working with current customers.
If you’re curious as to how online marketing can help you grow your business, continue reading.
Marketing Automation Makes Marketing More Measurable And Less Boring
Traditional marketing, relying on humans to manually create and upload content like email blasts, blog posts, and social media posts, can be quite cumbersome. But even more so now that content creation has become so sophisticated thanks to software and platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, and Canva.
While humans can still play an important role in marketing (we are never fully automated), the ability to measure and analyze marketing programs and tactics has also become much more sophisticated.
In a world full of fake news and clickbait, marketing metrics like open rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate help businesses determine the effectiveness of their campaigns. And it’s all because of the increased use of marketing automation.
Think about when you first got started in business. You may have done all of the market research, prepared all the presentations, followed all the instructions, and yet, you didn’t make much money. Maybe you tried doing everything yourself and it just didn’t work out. Or, you could have hired some freelancers to do the marketing for you. But why would you, as a business, hire someone to do marketing when you can do it yourself for less money?
Thanks to software and platforms like HubSpot, you can now automate as much of the marketing process as possible. This includes preparing and sending out massive amounts of emails, running Facebook ads, and managing your Twitter account.
As a business owner, the more you can do to save money and increase efficiency, the better. And what could be more efficient than not having to hire someone to do marketing when you can do it yourself for less money?
That’s the power of automation.
So, instead of having to rely on a team of marketers to perform all the tasks needed to drive organic traffic and leads to your website, you can now use your favorite marketing automation tool to do all the work for you.
Inbound Marketing and Growth Hacking Make Marketing More Creative
You may have heard of the term ‘growth hacking’ and wondered what it meant. Basically, growth hacking is the practice of finding creative ways to get people to engage with your brand or product, including engaging with your marketing content, whether that’s a blog post, social media content, or web page.
Growth hacking has become quite popular as businesses strive for growth, looking for ways to generate more leads and drive more sales. Inbound marketing and growth hacking, in general, focuses on creating engaging content that draws people in and encourages them to take action, whether that’s signing up for your email list, visiting your website, or calling you.
Inbound marketing was first launched in 2011 and its principles – creating value, attracting people, and building trust – really do underlie nearly every aspect of marketing, from the way you write blog posts to the graphics you use and the videos you create. If you want to learn more, here are some great books to get you started:
- The Definitive Guide to Inbound Marketing by Gary Vaynerchuk
- The Inbound Way by Andy Grove
- The Everything Store by Peter Thiel
- Winning Through Intimidation by Jesse Shearer
- The Copywriter’s Handbook by Steven Drummond
So, if you’re looking to grow your business, how can you use digital marketing to reach your goals? First, you need to set up automated email campaigns to continue receiving valuable, relevant, and attractive email notifications whenever someone subscribes to your list. Second, you can use tools like Google Analytics to track the success of your campaigns and strategies, regardless of whether you’re using HubSpot or another tool.
Plus, don’t forget about the power of video content. Vimeo, YouTube, and many other platforms offer businesses and individuals the chance to showcase their talent, tell their story, and inspire others. Video content is growing at such a rapid rate that the lines between marketing and content are blurring, meaning if you haven’t used video content to promote your business, you’re really missing out.
An example of a marketing video from Vimeo:
As you can see, the video content provides information about the Company, its headquarters, team members, products, and services. Not only does the video content educate the viewer, but it also creates a sense of familiarity and trust. After all, the whole point of a video is to establish rapport and establish trust with the viewer. You want the viewer to feel like they’ve known you their whole life and that what you are promoting is what they have always wanted. This is especially important when dealing with a product that you have never actually tried before.
Video Content Is On The Rise, So Keep Learning
If you’re looking for a simple way to increase traffic to your website, create informative, engaging, and entertaining videos to draw in potential customers. This should be a no-brainer – if you’ve got a million dollar idea and you want to fund its development, you need to get the word out there. But, finding the right platform and the required equipment can be tricky. And even if you do find the right platform and equipment, you’ll still need to learn the ins and outs of video editing to be able to create effective videos.
However, the good news is you don’t need to be talented at video editing to be able to create effective videos. All you need is talent, creativity, and the will to learn. And with video content being such a popular and effective form of marketing, the internet is full of resources to help you learn the ropes.
In order to best employ video content in your marketing strategy, it’s important to first consider what type of content you’ll use. In other words, will you use short-form videos or long-form videos?
For example, suppose you’re working with a startup company that is just getting off the ground and you want to engage with your audience on a more personal level. In that case, you might decide to produce a series of short-form videos (less than five minutes) that will give the viewer a good experience, interesting insights, and hopefully, actionable tips. The best part about this format is it allows you to quickly and easily produce and distribute content to your audience, effectively getting the word out there, building your presence, and establishing your authority in your industry.
On the other hand, if your business is geared toward selling a more traditional product and you decide to produce a longer-form video (six to ten minutes), you might want to consider whether or not the content will be interesting to your target audience. In general, people love to learn about history, especially when learning about history allows them to connect the dots between events, people, and places, giving context to what they’re learning. In a longer-form video, you have the opportunity to tell a story, provide tips and tricks, and establish your expertise in a way that a shorter video cannot.
Video Content Is Popular, So You Can Expected To See Lots Of References To It
Since video content is so effective, you can expect to see lots of references to it in other places online. If you’re searching for information on marketing, sales, or entrepreneurship, you’ll most likely come across a video or two that you can and should watch.
In fact, if you type in ‘sales tips’ and ‘Marketing’ into Google, you’ll get over 43 million results. Although there are so many results, if you scroll down, you’ll see that most of the results are video snippets, infographics, or some combination of the two. So, it’s pretty evident that video content is popular and effective for SEO purposes.