Whether you’re selling a product or service, marketing is all about the end goal: getting more loyal customers. But what’s the best way to achieve that? Here are five tips Brace thinks you should consider if you want your marketing strategy and output to be more effective.
1. Create personas
Creating personas is one of the most important exercises a business can do, as it helps you understand your customers and their behaviour.
A brand persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer, generally developed by answering questions such as:
– What does this person look like?
– What do they do for a living?
– What’s their family life like?
– What are their goals? How old are they?
– Where do they live? And so on…
The more specific and detailed you can get in answering these questions, the better. You may even want to create several personas that represent different types of customers who buy your product or service. The more clarity you have around who your customers are, the easier it will be to market directly to them.
It’s important to go beyond demographics such as age, gender, occupation, and identify their needs, goals and pain points so you can address those in your marketing efforts.
We have even written a blog with a downloadable persona guide to help with this, read it now.
2. Use data to inform your decisions
In this day and age, using data to inform your decisions is a no-brainer. You want to make sure your marketing is reaching the right people, so use data to figure out who those people are, and then create content that speaks directly to them and their needs. When we use data to inform our marketing decisions, we’re making sure we aren’t wasting time and money on campaigns that don’t work.
Research what’s working for your competitors and industry peers, and use that information to support your choices around content topics, publishing frequency and distribution.
It is also important to look at your internal data, such as website metrics and existing customers in your CRM. A few examples of metrics you might want to track are:
– Bounce rate – how many people stay on your website beyond the first page?
– Average session duration – how long do people spend on each page?
– Conversion rate – how many people complete actions on your website (such as making a purchase)?
By utilising gathered data to plan your marketing – from how to position your product, to where to advertise, to how often to post on social media – you can truly improve the effectiveness of your campaigns.
3. Develop a brand story and tone of voice
Your brand story is the reason why you exist, what you stand for, and who you serve. It’s important that everyone in your business understands this so that they are aligned with this vision at all levels of your business so it drives everything you do.
When it comes to marketing, everyone knows that consistency is key. You want potential customers to recognise you so they’re more likely to choose you when they’re ready to buy something or hire your services.
Defining your brand and developing a tone of voice will be crucial in creating consistent messaging – and will help people remember you and feel like they know who you are. We even have a guide with 6 easy steps to build a brand on our blog page.
4. Set goals and targets
When working on your marketing strategy, set clear goals so there’s something for all of your efforts to work toward. What do you want to achieve? How much time do you have to achieve it? How many resources can you throw at it? In your plan, set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely), as well as plan targets for what you want to achieve, and which key performance indicators will help you track them.
Consider:
– What marketing channels will you use?
– What kind of content will you publish?
– What are the personas of your target audiences?
5. Get on the trends
There are always new trends happening in marketing — and they’re not just for large companies with big budgets! Be present, and jump on current trends relevant to your business and use them as an opportunity to grow your audience or take advantage of short-term opportunities.
Michele Linn from the Content Marketing Institute lays out some clear steps for discovering industry trends and using them to make your content more effective. She talks about two primary ways to do this: “By aligning content with topical news coverage, and by engaging in ongoing product and customer research that helps you spot trends before they become big industry topics.”
Why not take a look at our 10 marketing trends for 2022 blog to get the inspiration flowing?
If you need further support with your marketing strategy, get in contact with our marketing experts.
01452 729 953
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