When selling a solution in the form of a product or service, you’ll need a focused digital marketing strategy to find customers to make the sales.
When selling a solution in the form of a product or service, you’ll need a focused digital marketing strategy to find customers to make the sales.
Not every marketing method will work for you. Which means you shouldn’t stretch your budget by trying to use them all. What you need to focus on is the channel your customers use and build your campaign there.
Take a look at the marketing types for more information.
1. Email Marketing
Compared to other channels, email is very passive. But it’s direct one-on-one communication in the privacy of your inbox -- and that makes it an important marketing method. Especially in the business-to-business (B2B) sector.
83% of B2B marketers use email newsletters for content marketing [1]. Which isn’t surprising since email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than social media [2].
To get those emails, firms use lead magnets. Lead magnets can be free ebooks, guides, case studies, white papers, or a promise to help the individual do X. For example, a marketing consultant may ask for emails while promising to help people write headlines that get clicked.
Once you have a list of emails, it’s up to you to decide what you want to do. You can send weekly updates, blog posts, tips and tricks, mini-interviews -- the opportunities limitless. But you must provide something your customers will enjoy.
Otherwise, they’ll opt-out. You’ll see a decline in your click through rates. And sales will diminish. Email marketing is about offering something your customers value (problem-solving solution) to gain their trust and loyalty. They’ll know if you’re not being sincere too.
Related: How to Get Started with Email Marketing
2. B2B Marketing
B2B marketing focuses on buyer personas. If B2B firms misunderstand their customers even a little, they can lose a sale.
B2B is more strict in their marketing style because they offer a high level of professionalism. But this comes off as dry or boring. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be. B2B marketers and firms are not as limited in what they can offer despite what it seems.
One channel that offers creativity mixed with professionalism are blogs. Blogs are great vehicles for lead-ins -- they address the problems their target audience faces. By offering solutions, they build trust and happy customers.
Sales and customer retention is the key focus for every B2B strategy. And using content marketing is a great way to see them grow.
3. Social marketing
Changing the behaviors of customers is essentially what social marketing is about. This type of marketing is quite different from the others, which also makes it the most difficult form of marketing to see success with.
Whenever a marketing campaign goes out, the end goal is to make a sale. But social marketing is focused on change. This requires backbreaking research about the problem, the reasons for a lack of natural change, and how you can essentially cause a mental shift or coerce change amongst a selected group.
Government and health firms use this type of marketing. They’re often backed by large budgets, teams and time to slowly implement changes.
4. Internet marketing
Everything we’ve discussed so far is a type of internet marketing. Bringing awareness of a product or service through online tools is the definition of internet marketing. To add to the list there’s also:
- Search engine optimization
- Search engine marketing
- Affiliate marketing
Each of these is a type of marketing in their own right but fall under the umbrella of internet marketing. For example, focusing on SEO in website copy and blog posts while showcasing content on the channel your target market frequents, is better than tying together every internet marketing option.
5. Marketing campaigns
While a marketing campaign isn’t a marketing channel itself, it is the foundation of every digital strategy. Campaigns are designed to capture customer attention and direct them to do a specific action such as: Sign up, read blogs, vote in surveys/contests, etc.
But they need to be clear and descriptive in order to see positive results. A clunky, thrown together marketing campaign will drown out there in the digital sea of noise. We definitely don’t want that.
Related: How to Develop a Clear Marketing Campaign
[1] http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016_B2B_Report_Final.pdf
[2] https://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/email-marketing-new-rules/
[3] http://www.toprankblog.com/2015/09/b2b-content-marketing-statistics-2016/
Image: Georgejmclittle/Shutterstock.com
