With the changing times, so must our marketing strategies. Gone are the days when a billboard and some radio ads were enough to get your message across. Now, with the internet enabling businesses to target consumers with content that’s relevant, contextual, and personal, marketers must adapt their approaches and evolve their methods to achieve success.

Personal Email

The line between digital marketing and traditional marketing has blurred. While some marketers still prefer to reach out to consumers face to face or over the phone for direct marketing campaigns, these tactics are being replaced with digital marketing methods that enable businesses to target and engage with customers regardless of location or time.

One example of this trend is personal email marketing. Rather than mass mailing customers with offers, businesses can now send a personal email to individuals displaying an interest in or relevance to a particular brand. For example, if you’re an owner of a travel agency in London, you might send an email to the members of the Club Quarters to promote your business.

Personal email marketing presents many advantages to businesses. First, it’s personal—the customer is always right in the head—so you’re more likely to get a response. Second, it’s efficient: instead of spending money and energy on broadcast radio ads that few people hear, you’re reaching out to individuals that already have an interest in your product or service.

Content Creation

Instead of just broadcasting advertisements, businesses can engage with consumers by creating content that’s relevant, interesting, and—most importantly—unique to the target audience.

To create content that’s distinctively valuable, businesses must use a combination of inbound and outbound methods. First, you’ll want to identify the key problems that your target audience is having, or will have in the future, and create content to address those issues. Second, you should create content that’s valuable enough that individuals will want to share it with their friends. This type of content is known as “shareable content.”

Branded Blogs

If you’ve ever shopped at Nordstrom, you may have come across their blog, swoon.com. If you’ve never heard of them, Nordstrom is a luxury goods retailer that also has a blog where they share style tips and advice. Because they’re a brand, Nordstrom’s blog content is curated and designed to fit their target audience—mostly female, luxury-seeking consumers between the ages of 18 and 35.

Nordstrom’s blog, which they regularly update with fresh content, is a great example of a branded blog. These type of blogs are usually written by individuals with formal education and training in journalism who have also worked for media houses such as the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. You may have also come across fashion blogs that are designed to resemble newspaper blogs, where the styles and tips are curated to appeal to a broad audience.

Product Reviews

If you’re an owner of a product review website, you can use your platform to promote brands and products that are relevant to your niche. For example, if you’re an enthusiast of luxury goods and have built up a following of people who share your interests, you can use your website to promote brands that provide luxury goods.

Product reviews are a great way to generate interest in a brand or product and establish yourself as an expert in your industry. If your goal is to gain credibility as a marketer in your industry, then product reviews are a great way to do that.

Live Chat

Although you might not think so, online businesses thrive on social media. Specifically, live chat is a tool that allows businesses to have rapid, real-time communications with their customers. Marketers can use live chat to ask questions and engage with customers in a natural conversation.

This type of interaction can help businesses determine the type of questions their customers have, and whether they should write blog posts, or create content of some kind to answer those questions. Live chat also provides customers with the opportunity to ask questions about the product or service, which might not have been covered in the online documentation or the business’s website.

As with all social media, live chat is a place where businesses can build credibility. If you want to do business with them, or are just interested in what they have to say, then live chat is a great place to start.

Video Content

Since video content is such a significant part of our daily lives, it follows that video content will play a significant role in any marketing campaign. Luckily for marketers, video content isn’t as difficult to create as it might seem.

With the abundance of video content available on the internet, it’s quite possible to find footage that’s relevant to your product or service. If your product allows for customers to show how it works in real life, then you have an opportunity to film that action and share it with your audience. Likewise, if you’re doing pro-bono work for a nonprofit organization, you might find that there are already recorded videos of that same event that you can use for educational or promotional purposes.

Online Communities

While videos and product reviews can be valuable sources of information for individuals seeking a product or service, it’s also possible to have online communities where people with shared interests can come together and discuss relevant issues. If a business or brand is active in these types of communities, they can use them as a marketing tool to engage with individuals who have an interest in their product or service. These communities can also provide businesses with a way to stay current with technological advances, as well as gain much-needed credibility as an industry expert.

Mobile Marketing

Since many people use their mobile phones to access the internet, it follows that mobile marketing is becoming a significant part of digital marketing. Businesses can use mobile marketing to deliver advertisements to smartphone users while they’re browsing the web or using apps. This type of targeting can be highly effective, as users spend a lot of time on their phones.

WhatsApp, the most popular mobile messaging app, boasts over a billion active monthly users. With so many people using it, and so many businesses using WhatsApp to target and engage with consumers, it’s clear that mobile marketing works.

Because of the increasing importance of mobile marketing, it’s important to have a presence on as many platforms as possible. Having a strong social media presence on platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, can help businesses gain credibility and reach a much larger audience. If your target audience is already on social media, then using our proven 10 step approach to grow a business on social media can help you reach your audience and gain maximum exposure.

Steps To Take

With all of this information, you might be wondering the best way to take action. The answer is simple: find the tool that works best for you and your business, and then use that tool to its fullest extent.

While some marketers feel comfortable using only mass broadcast radio ads, those who are trying to earn credibility as digital marketers should look into all of the tools available to them.