Aligning the efforts of your marketing and sales departments can be a long, difficult journey to get everyone on the same page. While each department is working towards the same goal (generating revenue, growing the business), they are often using very different strategies and tactics to achieve the results. When you can combine the efforts of marketing and sales, you create an environment where two departments are using the strengths of the other to finalize sales and generate revenue for your business. But how can businesses align marketing and sales effectively and efficiently? Digital transformation.
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Customer loyalty is an incredibly invaluable resource, especially when budgets and spending are tighter than ever. While it might be difficult to land new customers right now, it's essential to invest in the customers you have now. Gaining that trust will not only strengthen your relationship with that customer, but it will also help you to develop content to reach new customers in the future. But it all starts with loyalty. Personalized content is an excellent tool to support that loyalty, but you need to know what your customers expect from you.
These days, it’s harder than ever for businesses to attract the attention of their audience. No matter how good the products or services are, there will always be hefty competition gunning for your customers. While it might be easy to start some sort of bidding war between you and your competition, it’s more effective to begin building a relationship with your audience to establish a sense of trust and thought leadership. You can do this with an effective content marketing strategy. A content strategy utilizes the content that your organization develops to achieve any particular business goals that you have in place, whether it’s driving brand awareness and engagement or pushing a new product. Below, we discuss how to develop an effective content marketing strategy to achieve your business goals.
Marketers have been using email marketing campaigns for years, pushing products, events, and anything else they want their audience to engage with. If the majority of people are checking their email every day (most are checking multiple times a day), why aren’t your campaigns working? While it might seem that email marketing as a whole doesn’t work, but it might just be that your processes are out of date. Engaging with your audience is like a game of chess: it requires strategy and planning, as well as the flexibility to adapt your approach when things don’t work. Below, we have five email marketing practices that don’t work anymore.
Social media has transformed from a simple way to keep in touch with friends and family to become one of the primary tools at a marketer’s disposal. While it’s an important step to have social media channels set up for your business, it’s another thing to track the performance of those channels altogether. Simply posting on these channels isn’t enough to drive engagement anymore. Marketers need to be actively checking the performance of each channel to gain insight on how to optimize the content best and drive engagement. Social media analytics is the key to optimizing your social media strategy.
Sales and marketing have undergone numerous changes throughout the past decade, especially as these efforts have moved into the digital space. While sales and marketing use a different approach, each department is working towards the same goal: generating revenue. In order to improve your digital sales tactics, your company should be prepared to adapt some digital marketing tactics to streamline this process. Selling in a digital space is all about converting your audience into new buyers, whereas digital marketing focuses on establishing relationships with that audience. If your company is hoping to drive revenue in a digital space, you need to combine your digital selling and digital marketing efforts to leverage more sales.
Market research is the process where you gather information about your business’ buyer’s personas, target audience, and customers to understand how successful your product would be among these people. When you conduct market research for your organization, it allows you to meet your buyers where they are. This process gives you a better picture of what your buyers need, and how you can better address their unique challenges. Below, we discuss how to effectively conduct market research for your organization.
The biggest blind spot that companies have to deal with is understanding what their customer’s journey is. What is it like to purchase from your business? Understanding your customer’s journey is a crucial part of improving the overall customer experience. Without this insight, you will never know the obstacles or challenges that your customers might be facing in their decision to make a purchase. You need to deeply understand what it is about your brand that attracts customers, and what could potentially turn them away. Essentially, you need to walk in their shoes. Below, we have 5 steps to consider when creating a customer journey map.
Building your brand is an instrumental part of developing your business. Without this foundation, your organization will lack the voice, value, and customer awareness that will set you apart from your competition. While it might seem that branding efforts are an expensive venture, it doesn’t have to be! You don’t have to spend a ridiculous amount of money to build a memorable, recognizable brand. Below, we discuss some budget-friendly ways that your business can develop a better brand identity.
One of the best ways to reach your audience is by using every available resource. Content diversification is all about stretching the boundaries of your creativity. The most significant opportunity that content diversification gives you is the chance to reach more people and generate more revenue. Refuse the temptation to stick to one platform and connect with your audience on all the platforms they use. Give your customers the choice of how they can engage with your brand, and they’ll be more likely to engage regularly. Below, we’ve got a few points to consider when diversifying your content.
Take a moment to think back to a time when you purchased a product that you were really satisfied with. Did you tell your friends and family? Did you post something on social media? Advocacy marketing is an inexpensive yet effective marketing tactic, wherein the brand is equipping customers to generate interest in your brand through social media, reviews, and word-of-mouth. Brands can empower and equip their customers to be powerful marketing tools for their products. But how do is advocacy marketing set up? Below, we have a few things to consider when you’re developing your advocacy marketing strategies.
Word-of-mouth marketing is a tried-and-true tactic, used for years before the entire world went digital. While there isn’t much space for word-of-mouth campaigns in a digital world, some tactics are still effective for generating leads and building brand awareness. A customer referral program is a powerful tool built to attract new leads to your business that are a good fit for your brand and your products. With a program like this, you can ensure that you are getting the right people's attention. Below, we discuss how to build an effective customer referral program.
There are plenty of marketing acronyms that markers have to keep track of like SEO, SEM, SMO, CRO. It can be difficult to keep everything straight, especially the difference between SEO and SEM. So, what exactly does SEM mean? Search engine marketing (SEM) is a sort of umbrella term that covers search engine optimization and paid advertisements. SEM is an effective way for businesses to reach new customers, increase revenues and trim acquisition costs.
Effective marketing always puts the customer first. While your previous marketing efforts might have focused on the “what” and the “why” of your product, this approach isn’t nearly as effective as it used to be. If your company is hoping to improve its marketing efforts, you need to build relationships with your customers. Below, we have some tactics for establishing the kinds of relationships with your customers that will improve your marketing tactics and grow your business.
Outsourcing your marketing department might be the best decision that you can make for your business. Not only does it dramatically reduce your expenses, but it frees up your time to focus on the day-to-day details of your business. But how do you find a marketing agency that’s the right fit for your company? Before you decide on your marketing agency, take the time to do some work on the front-end of things. When you’re looking for the perfect fit, it’s important to know exactly what you want to accomplish, what services the agency offers, and their track record with other companies.