Marketing strategies are the framework and process that a company follows to achieve its marketing goals. This can be anything from defining a target audience to creating key advertising campaigns.
Marketing tactics are the specific actions that a business uses to implement its strategy. Examples of this include local partnerships, publishing a white paper, and video ads.
1. Content Marketing
Content marketing involves the strategic creation, production, and distribution of content for a clearly defined targeted audience. It is used to achieve various marketing objectives, including increasing website traffic, generating more leads, and boosting sales or conversions.
Unlike traditional advertising, which is interruptive and often perceived as low-quality, content marketing is informative and valuable to the consumer. It is designed to draw in customers, build trust and brand loyalty, and ultimately deliver a higher ROI than paid advertising.
Content can be found in many forms, including blog posts, social media updates, and email marketing campaigns. It can also be repurposed to create videos, infographics, podcasts, or white papers. Some companies even hire a content creator to produce content that is unique and compelling to their audience.
When creating a content marketing strategy, it is important to establish clear goals and to have measurable metrics in place to evaluate success. This will help guide what types of content are created, when it is produced, and where it is distributed. It is also important to keep in mind that content marketing isn’t free; it requires a budget for things like hiring freelance writers, paying for content tools, and running paid advertising.
For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, your strategy may include creating an eBook that includes helpful tips and tricks. Then, you would promote the eBook via social media, email, and search engine marketing to drive traffic to your website.
Another way to use content marketing is to create a lead magnet, which is an irresistible piece of content your audience can’t wait to trade their email address for. For example, a free eBook that educates your target audience on a topic they’re interested in is an excellent way to generate leads.
2. Social Media
SMM is a type of digital marketing that uses social media platforms to promote and sell products or services. It can be used to drive traffic to a business website, generate leads, and increase brand awareness.
One of the biggest benefits of SMM is the ability to target specific audiences with highly personalized ads. This can be done by analyzing data such as demographic information, location, and interests. The data can be used to create a profile of an ideal customer, or buyer persona, who is the most likely to purchase your product or service. This profile can then be used to develop targeted content and targeted ads, which are more likely to result in conversions.
The data from your SMM efforts can also be used to analyze and improve the effectiveness of your campaigns over time. By monitoring metrics like social share of voice (SSoV), reach, and click-through rates, you can learn what’s working and what’s not. You can then take these learnings and incorporate them into your overall marketing strategy for the year.
It’s important to keep in mind that social media platforms constantly change their algorithms and features. As such, your SMM tactics will need to change along with them. For example, if your audience is heavily using Instagram, you’ll need to shift from photos to video to appeal to them. The same is true if you’re using YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook—all of these platforms favor different types of content.
It’s also important to consider your brand image and voice when developing your SMM strategy. Many users look to brands for inspiration, and your SMM content is a great way to convey this.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of boosting a website or webpage’s appearance in organic search results without paying for it. In other words, it’s the opposite of paid advertising or PPC (pay-per-click).
SEO is a broad term that includes both organic and paid search marketing tactics. But if you want to focus on the organic aspect of the strategy, there are certain techniques that you should always keep in mind.
For example, if you’re focusing on on-page SEO, you should make sure that you include keywords in your page titles and meta descriptions. You should also optimize your site architecture, like creating an XML sitemap to help search engines find and crawl all of your pages. You should also take a look at your competitor’s SEO strategies, including their keyword gaps and ranking factors.
It’s important to remember that SEO is a long-term strategy. It can take weeks, months, or even years before you see the results of your efforts.
SEM, on the other hand, is a more immediate strategy. With SEM, businesses can see a boost in their traffic and leads immediately after they launch their campaigns. In addition, SEM is a more controllable approach because businesses only pay when someone clicks on their ads. This gives businesses more insight into the effectiveness of their campaign decisions. Lastly, SEM campaigns can be optimized through the use of remarketing and other data-driven tools that allow marketers to reach their target audience at the exact moment they’re ready to buy. This is a crucial advantage for any business that wants to grow quickly. It’s important to continually stay up-to-date on the latest developments in the world of SEO and SEM.
4. Email Marketing
Email marketing is a type of direct marketing that uses emails to promote products or services. It is a very effective way to reach potential customers and build loyalty.
To succeed in email marketing, businesses need to create a strategy that will achieve their goals. This involves identifying the target audience and understanding what types of content will be most appealing to them. It also means creating a budget for the campaign and setting realistic expectations.
Once the strategy is in place, it’s time to start creating the actual emails. It’s important to use best practices, such as making sure the emails are responsive and optimized for all devices, using eye-catching images, and having a clear call-to-action (CTA). Emails should always include a link where subscribers can manage their subscription and opt out of future communications. Providing this option shows that you respect your subscribers’ privacy and show that you understand their preferences.
There are several different ways to send email marketing campaigns, such as automating an autoresponder series or sending a one-off blast. It’s also important to use segmentation to divide your audience into groups based on specific criteria. For example, if you’re an online retailer that sells baby clothes, you might want to segment your list so that new moms receive product updates and sales team leads receive messages about new sales features.
Finally, it’s important to track and analyze the results of your email marketing campaigns. This will help you make adjustments based on the performance of individual messages and overall performance. Some metrics to consider tracking include open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. You may also want to look at your deliverability, spam complaints, and unsubscribe rate.
5. Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is any type of media space you purchase in order to promote your business, products, services or brand. Paid ads can include search marketing campaigns (SEM), display marketing and retargeting, social media ads, and even sponsored content or influencer marketing.
One of the most effective paid advertising tactics is retargeting, which is a process whereby you serve ads to users who have already visited your website or social channels with the aim of keeping them engaged and converting them into customers. Retargeting is generally regarded as having the highest ROI of all paid digital marketing tactics.
The key to any successful paid marketing strategy is in understanding and setting clear goals for your campaigns. This ensures that you are using your budget wisely and can provide evidence to your leadership team of the value of your investment.
For example, if you’re running a paid campaign with the aim of generating leads, it’s important to set up lead and sales attribution in your reporting function to see which of your marketing channels is driving the most revenue.
Other great paid advertising tactics include leveraging the power of your existing audience, which is possible with the new wave of native advertising tools. This can be done by combining data such as audience demographics, location and job titles to create hyper-targeted campaigns that speak directly to your target audience. This can be extremely powerful and cost-effective for B2C businesses with limited ad budgets.