In recent years, marketing has evolved to become more than just selling goods. Innovative online marketing techniques allow businesses to interact and connect with consumers, creating shared value and creating lasting impressions that benefit the both parties.
Why do marketers need to innovate?
For centuries, marketers have been innovating to stay ahead of the competition. Back in the day, merchants would travel from village to village, hawking their goods and offering their services with the goal of creating long-term, beneficial relationships with their customers. While this may have been effective when applied manually, it takes modern technology to connect with consumers, identify interested parties, and create lasting impressions that will bring in more business.
As a result of this evolution, today’s marketers need to innovate to find ways to connect with consumers, encourage them to become brand ambassadors, and then convert them into paying customers. Some of the latest marketing innovations can be applied to any industry, while others are industry-specific.
Traditional Marketing
While many industries have adopted some form of online marketing, some brands prefer to rely on more traditional techniques. In some cases, this may be a choice based on budget or other constraints, but it can also be a deliberate decision to minimize the digital footprint and avoid attracting too much attention. However, this can be challenging if you’re not aware of the latest trends in marketing or if you want to develop innovative strategies to stand out.
Here are some tried and tested techniques that you can incorporate into your marketing plan to take your business to the next level.
1. Build a brand for international markets.
In the same way that you might need to expand your language skills to promote your business overseas, you’ll also need to expand your mindset when it comes to marketing. If you want to build a brand for international markets, you’ll need to make sure that your marketing strategies and tactics are accessible to non-English speaking readers. This could mean using a translation service to translate your material into another language, or it could mean creating a helpful guide that provides information in a different format or language. In both cases, you’re ensuring that you’re meeting the needs of your target audience and that you’re not leaving anyone out.
2. Adapt your strategy to fit the platform.
As we mentioned above, not all industries or audiences are online and where they are, the nature of the platforms and the tactics that work on them can vary. This should not come as a great surprise, as each and every one of us is a living, breathing example of this very concept. Your marketing plan should not be restricted to a single channel or method of outreach, as each industry, audience, and platform is different and requires its own approach. Your plan should be able to change and adapt to fit the times that we live in, the platforms that we use, and the way that people communicate today. This is why it’s important to educate yourself on digital marketing and know which platforms work best for your niche. Educating yourself on SEO and PPC can be an excellent way to increase your reach to the right audience with the right content at the right time.
3. Create content that is data driven.
The more we rely on digital marketing to promote our businesses, the more we’ll see cases of ineffective content. When an organization creates content without any scientific basis or with only a loose connection to reality, the results can be disastrous. For example, 92% of businesses claim to use content marketing to attract customers and retain them, yet only 11% of businesses have a well-defined content strategy. This means that 11% of businesses create content without a clear connection to marketing goals and objectives and then wonder why they fail to attract, engage, and retain customers. The main reason behind this is that the content that they create is not data-driven.
When you’re creating content for marketing purposes, it’s important to keep this formula in mind: “If I wanted to write about X, I would have researched and written about X”. To ensure that your content is informative and useful, you should pull from reliable and trusted sources of data that are recognized in your industry. When you do this, you’ll be able to educate your audience about essential marketing topics and deliver valuable information that will help them make better business decisions. Doing this also means that you’re not simply regurgitating what other people have said about the topic, which can come off as sounding like a robot spouting pre-programmed answers.
4. Use a data-driven content calendar.
A data-driven content calendar can be really useful in ensuring that your content is delivered at the right time and that it contains the right focus and the right messaging. Having a schedule can also help you identify new content opportunities that arise and allow you to plan out a schedule for when you should be producing content. When you use a data-driven content calendar, it’ll be easy to see which content is performing the best and, based on this, you can determine what direction you should be taking your content marketing in.
5. Test.
Marketing is all about finding the audience that is most likely to convert into paying customers. In the same way that you would test a new product or service, you should test different types of content, campaigns, and platforms to find what works best for your niche. Once you find this, you can roll out a content strategy that is tailored to increase your conversions and bring in more business.
As we mentioned above, not all industries or audiences are online, which means that traditional marketing techniques may still hold relevance for certain businesses.
As an example, let’s say that you are a makeup brand that wants to expand its reach to reach a younger audience. One of the main ways of attracting this audience is through social media. However, you want to target the Gen-Z population, which makes Facebook and other social platforms completely irrelevant. In this case, you might need to try using a Snapchat camera to attract this audience.
To make sure that your content strategy is implemented effectively, you need to take into consideration all of the stages of the buying process: awareness, consideration, and action. You can do this by using an awareness tool to pinpoint the demographics that are most likely to be interested in your product or service, using a tracking tool to follow the behavior and the on-boarding process of your target audience, and creating content that will encourage them to take action.
As an example, if you want to target the Gen Z population, you’ll need to pay close attention to the way that you engage with your audience on social media. One of the largest and most reputable international market research companies, Frost & Frost, highlights that the way that marketers engage with audience members on social media can have a significant impact on the growth of a business. According to the company, when it comes to Gen Z, marketers should “look to create content that inspires curiosity. When your content sparks engagement, you can be sure that your target audiences will stay engaged and interested in your brand.”
Building a marketing plan that is innovative and that stands out is extremely important if you’re looking for increased business. However, staying relevant and keeping up with the latest marketing trends can be challenging. To make sure that your plan is up-to-date and effective, you’ll need to test different platforms, content, and approaches to find what works best for your niche. While many marketing plans can be effective, they can also be very basic and ineffective if they’re not tied to the latest trends in marketing and if they don’t take into consideration the way that people behave today.