One of the most important factors in the success of any business is its strategy. Without a strong foundation in place, there is no guarantee that the tactics you decide to employ will result in the outcomes you are looking for.

No matter if you are a large corporation with multiple retail outlets or a small business owner who is looking for ways to expand your reach, a solid strategy is essential.

Marketing and advertising are extremely complex sectors, and what works best for one business may not be the best fit for another. This makes it incredibly difficult to generalize and suggest one marketing strategy that will be effective for every brand.

That being said, there are some tried and tested approaches to online marketing that can be applied across the board. By having a clear understanding of these general approaches, you can ensure that your efforts are more effective and efficient.

The 3 Pillars Of Effective Online Marketing

To create a solid foundation for your business’ growth, you should focus on leveraging technology and adopting a data-driven approach. It is clear that these are the future of marketing and advertising. However, simply having the latest device or technology does not mean much if you do not know how to effectively utilize it.

To achieve this, you need to focus on educating yourself on the subject and identifying which tools and platforms can be the best fit for your business.

1. Technology And The Data-Driven Approach

The first step to creating a data-driven marketing strategy is to understand what data is available to you and how you can use it to make better and more informed decisions. For example, you may want to determine which products are performing best by examining key indicators such as conversion rate, bounce rate and time on site.

You can also look at traffic sources such as social media platforms, forums, email marketing and web analytics to get a better idea of how people are finding your website and what they are doing once they get there.

In addition to this, you should consider examining the performance of previous marketing campaigns, determining what worked and what did not. This will help you build a solid understanding of how to make the most of digital marketing and what technologies can be the best fit for your business.

2. Performance-based marketing (PBM)

Performance-based marketing, or PBM, is all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. The main goal is to get someone to perform a certain action or behave in a certain way – whether it is purchasing a product or service or signing up for a newsletter – as a result of your marketing campaigns.

Instead of just looking at the results of your marketing activities and claiming they were successful, you should understand how and why these results were obtained. This is where the data you collected earlier comes in handy.

To put it simply, if you can determine the right benchmarks to judge your success by, you can ensure that you are constantly improving and moving in the right direction. Building a clear picture of how well your marketing efforts are performing is made easier with the use of tools that can track key performance indicators. These tools can be used to get feedback on the effectiveness of your campaigns as well as determine how to adapt and improve.

3. Personalisation and Customisation

Personalisation and customisation is all about engaging with customers and creating a personal connection. The more you know about your customers, the better you can tailor your interactions with them. To put it simply, if you know what stage your customers are at in their journey, you can tailor your interactions with them to suit their needs. This can result in a much more fruitful and lasting relationship.

For example, if you notice that a substantial number of your customers are not converting to leads or becoming regular customers but are simply browsing your website as a form of research, you can determine that this is a population you no longer want to target. Instead, you should look at segments of the population who are already aware of your product and are interested in purchasing it – these are your leads.

Having a clear idea of how your marketing strategy is performing and where you are falling short can help you determine how to properly tailor your efforts to achieve the results you are looking for. This way, you can increase your conversions and develop a lasting relationship with your customers.

It is important to note that the strategy you decide on should be relevant for the long term.

Building A Foundation For Success

To build a successful business, you need to create a solid foundation. This involves having a sound business model, effective marketing and a data-driven approach. As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you may be used to focusing on a particular project for the majority of your time. However, being able to spread your efforts across different projects can help you become more efficient and effective.

Having a clear idea of how each project relates to the overall success of your business can help you determine how you should distribute your efforts. This may mean that you need to step back from some projects in order to focus on others – however, this should never be seen as a negative thing. Forcing yourself to take a step back will help you establish healthy boundaries and ensure that your objectives are being met in the most effective and efficient manner possible. For example, if you are having trouble attracting new customers, you may want to determine that marketing through social media is not the right fit for your business – this could be due to the fact that your social media platforms are not very engaging or have too many people in your target audience. In this case, revising your website or finding a different channel for marketing through may prove to be more beneficial than continuing to use social media.

As you may have ascertained, establishing a marketing strategy can be difficult. The fact that there are so many different tactics, approaches and platforms available can make it even more complicated. In addition to this, having a clear picture of how each tactic, approach or platform is performing can help you determine which ones are and are not the right fit for your business. What is most important is that you develop a strategy that you feel confident will deliver results and then implement this strategy effectively.