The internet rolled in and with it came strange terms, complex paradigms, and a language all its own. And as soon as you tried to learn the language, it changed and morphed into something else. No, this was definitely not fun anymore. Marketing became uber complex. Technobabble, competing platforms, and an unending stream of the “latest” marketing models, simply confused the hell out of most small (and even large!) businesses.

Remember the good old days when marketing consisted of putting ads in trade magazines or newspapers? Well, they aren’t coming back again. But here’s the good news: If you just follow a few simple steps, you can create a dynamic and effective content strategy that will propel your brand forward. No kidding. Because when you strip away all the hype, the jargon, and the competing claims it still comes down to one thing: You want to sell as much stuff as you can. No more, no less. And here’s how you do it …

Reacquaint yourself with your audience

Over the years, you’ve changed, and so have they. What was a hot sales point two years ago, may be passé today. Or it’s possible that a product that was designed for one group may now be of benefit to another, thus expanding your sales base. This is not rocket science, nor is it complex. Get with your marketing/sales team and hold a round table discussion. Then, hire a good firm to do an in-depth market survey for you. It will be worth its weight in gold (and sales!). Knowing, really knowing your potential customer base, will give you an insight on how to market to them.

Put that information to work for you

Once you’ve pinned down your target audience, it’s time to devise your content strategy to reach them effectively. Your marketing survey should have given you a wealth of information about what propels them to act, what turns them off, and what turns them into buyers. This, then, becomes a “bingo” moment. You can see the forest, you can see the trees, and your marketing roadmap should point you in a clear direction to reach them. You know them. You know what makes them tick. Now it’s time to say hello.

And here’s where it gets fun again

This is where the creative comes in. The really fun part of any marketing campaign. Now it’s time to have some insightful discussions about what your approach will be. Maybe light hearted or serious, glitzy or sedate. Perhaps “how to” videos will make an impact, or celebrity endorsements will move the needle. The point is, once you’ve gotten this far, making the decision on how to proceed should be a snap. Just follow what the data indicates, throw in a little of your own insight, and you’re off and running.

And don’t forget to fine tune

In the world of internet marketing, things can change in a nanosecond. So, what works today may not work next week. When clicks, browsers and sales start to fall off, don’t regard it as an abnormality. Somebody else may have come up with a better product, or are running a special sale, but the sooner you investigate, the quicker you can correct your course.

Is any of this complicated?

No! If you break content marketing down into its integral components, it’s really no different from what you’ve always been doing. Including what you did in the dark ages pre-internet! Size up your audience, find out what they want, and give it to them in a form they’ll find attractive and interesting. Forget the “devil in the details,” thing. The details will automatically fall into place based on your research. Don’t let anyone muddy the waters with extraneous information, esoteric technobabble, or the “new, latest, strategy thing!” Come on, isn’t it time marketing got fun again? You bet!

The post How To Create An Effective, Simple, Content Strategy For Your Small Business appeared first on Relevance.

That was then, this is now 

We’ve all learned a lot since those early days, in fact, we’ve had to learn a whole new marketing language. New terms, new techniques, new outlets (think social media), and just when you think you’ve got the whole thing figured out, wham, someone comes up with a yet another way to reach your prospects with more impact, more efficiency, and better return on your ROI.

When will it all end? Never.How can you keep on top of it? Well, that’s where you can get some help. You can go to relevance.com, the digital marketing authority, and download an ebook called the Five Most Influential Topics For B2B Marketing. And, of course, it’s free.

What you’ll learn 

A lot! The topics discussed are both fascinating and totally pertinent to B2B marketing today, as well as into the future. They include:

• Influencer marketing is dead. All hail marketing to influencers!
• Data overload: How do you harness it?
• Digital Customer experience is the new battleground.
• The state of social engagement 2017.
• A love story: When sales and marketing get aligned.

The articles are written by Dayle Hall, SVP of Marketing for Lithium Technologies. In his role, Dayle is the head of marketing, responsible for all strategic marketing activities for the company including branding, positioning, communications, customer acquisition programs, and go-to-market strategies. You’ll find his articles concise, well thought out, and totally pertinent! This is must reading for any serious B2B marketing professional. It will bring you abreast of all the latest proven techniques for reaching your B2B customers, and will give you a roadmap to follow for future success.

Along with this ebook, you’ll find hundreds of articles dealing with digital marketing in all its myriad forms. You may also want to subscribe to this site (it’s free!) so that you can be kept up-to-date with articles, ebooks, and information on how you can improve your digital marketing strategy to gain more sales, and a greater marketing share. All the information on relevance is provided by proven, successful marketers who have been there, done that, and know what they’re talking about! Stop in and sign up!

The post B2B Marketing – How to Improve Your Digital Strategy appeared first on Relevance.

Your corporate website

It’s the starting point of everything you do and hope to achieve on the internet. It’s the most important part of your marketing strategy, and it’s something you have to get right! Many small businesses try to set up their own website using readily available software that’s cheap, and efficient. You may want to use these tools and do it yourself. But remember, your website is your business’s face to the world, and you really need to put a great face out there. If you’re not sure about your graphic or copywriting skills, you might want to check out a professional agency that specializes in website setup.

Facebook advertising

Millions of companies(and we’re talking both B2B AND B2C here) use Facebook to promote their small business. The reach is great, and the cost is relatively inexpensive. Creating a Facebook ad is a snap. All you need is a headline that gets attention, easy to follow copy, probably some type of imagery, and a link. That’s it – or is it? Well, no, because you’ll want to analyze how your Facebook ad is doing in the real world with real customers. Who’s buying, who’s not buying, and why? And what can you do to get non-buyers on the wagon! Well, you don’t have the resources or the time to do in-depth market analysis, so what’s the solution? That would be any number of 3^rd party Facebook tools that will do this for you (and we’re not talking big bucks here). You might want to check out firms like LikeAlyzer, Simply Measured, Sociographic.io, Agorapulse and a host of other to determine which one is best for you. With so many good ones out there, the only difficult part will be selecting the one you feel comfortable with!

Google Adwords

Looking for numbers? Here’s one to gawk at: More than 40,000 word searches are made on Google every second of every day. Don’t try to figure out how many that is for a full 24-hours. Your calculator will blow up. But to say this is one of the primo marketing tools of all time would have to be an understatement. Google Adwords should be strongly considered as an integral part of any online marketing strategy.

Email marketing

There are a lot of benefits to using email marketing as part of your overall online marketing plan. For one thing, it’s cheap! For another, its reach is global. Communication with your targeted prospects is immediate (computer, tablet, smart phone), it’s easy to setup, run, track, and analyze. And people like to receive it. In fact, a recent survey found that 91% of US adults like to receive promotional emails from companies they do business with. Email is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping a small business promote themselves and acquire new customers, according to another survey. It’s really indispensable!

Webinars

You’ve heard the term but may not know what a webinar is. Essentially, it’s a seminar that takes place online. It can be a presentation, demonstration or discussion of your company’s products or services. Webinars can be used for a variety of reasons including generating leads for email marketing, and to get more subscribers for your email marketing program. They can be used to increase a company’s reputation in its field, to position the company as the leader in, and to draw more potential customers to your website. It can also be used for direct and almost immediate customer research, by getting webinar viewers to respond to new products, offerings and to give opinions on what the company is doing right, or wrong. In short, if give viewers an opportunity to feel that they’re part of your company’s decision-making process. That can pay big dividends immediately, or down the road.

Social media

We’ve already discussed Facebook, but Facebook is just one part of the overall equation. There are dozens of other social media outlets just waiting to help promote your small business – including Instagram, YouTube, Instagram, Google, Pinterest, and others. What can social media do? Plenty! You can use it to:

• Increase brand loyalty.
• Run ads to get immediate, real time response and results.
• Give customers/potential customers a better a better, closer relationship with your company.
• Check to see what the competition is doing.
• Build more solid relationships.

With close to 3 billion people using Social Media (and growing at a rate of 20% a year), Social Media has to be included as an integral part of your internet strategy!

And don’t forget traditional media! Add it into the mix

Whether your target audience is B2B or B2C, there are still traditional media outlets that can reach them very effectively. In B2B, the most effective way was usually trade media. Every industry had it flagship publications. The textile industry used to have 6, for example. Today it has none. B2B firms, along with internet marketing, have switched to direct mail, and in-plant seminars as a replacement for trade publication ads. On the B2C side, depending on the product and the size of your company, there are still many viable outlets to be found: radio, TV, magazines, newspapers, flyers. Their overall influence may be waning, but not so much that they can be totally ignored.

Public Relations

Public relations is (compared to other forms of reaching target audiences) a very effective, cost efficient tool for selling products/services, and enhancing a company’s reputation. It is most effective for companies and organizations focused on building brand awareness, and long-term recognition of its expertise. Compared to all traditional forms of promotion, public relations generally has the greatest return on investment because it is less costly than advertising and can have greater impact. The key advantage of PR is that it carries the greatest possible credibility because publicity — regardless of whether it is broadcast, print or on the Internet — represents independent third-party endorsement.

Making it all work

Marketers have never had so many different ways of reaching their customers/potential customers as the have today. And for many, the number of choices available looks like pure marketing chaos. Do you use Facebook, or perhaps would old-fashioned direct mail make more sense? Can a low cost PR campaign get better results than a do-over of your home page? Or should Google Adwords be utilized to drive more traffic to your website? This is just crazy isn’t it? Yes it is. And even marketing gurus and rainmakers have some problems separating the customers from the demographics. There’s just so much information, you could drown in it! So what do you do? Glad you asked.

Start simple!

Pick just a few tools that you think might be best to promote your small business, then try them out. For example, you may want to try Facebook, an email campaign, and Google Adwords. Get your feet wet, and see how it works. If one is doing far better than the others find out why? Then use that information to either improve the other two sites, or to start using other media outlets, and mix them up. The nice part is you’ll find yourself getting very savvy, very quickly, about the internet, its potential and what it can do for your company!

The post Take Advantage Of The Internet And Traditional Marketing Tools To Promote Your Small Business appeared first on Relevance.