Nibletz Staff
Marketing. It’s a mind-boggling word. It covers so much, yet we still know relatively little about it unless we have taken a specific route of education to learn all we need to know. Even those who have marketing degrees are constantly finding out new strategies that they can implement in this ever-changing world, and what you may know one day could completely change overnight in its effectiveness. So how can we be sure that we are taking on board the right things; what are the tried and tested methods that will get us to where we need to be?
Traditional Marketing Methods – Do They Still Work?
Traditional methods of marketing are failing, but this doesn’t mean that they can’t be used. You just need to know how, when and why to use them. Newspapers, magazines, flyers and banners are all still in circulation but not as much as they were before the internet boom. This means that the cost of an advert in a glossy may have risen but for little return on what you have invested; it’s just not profitable anymore if you are running a small business. There needs to be more hype surrounding your brand, which these platforms just can’t support or provide. However, that’s not to say that they don’t work entirely. Magazines and newspapers alike are now teaming up with certain brands and doing drives, meaning that their product is getting more and more circulation. Customers have to spend a certain amount in order to qualify for free literature, which means that your advert will be seen by a lot more people, which wasn’t the case during the past couple of years. So, in conclusion, yes, traditional marketing methods do still work, but perhaps not as well as they did do in the past, regardless of the efforts of publications to make it so.
What Can Social Media Offer My Business?
The leader of the marketing world is currently in the hands of the social media empire. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are taking the world by storm, with nearly 2 billion individuals reported to be using Facebook’s services and having their own profile; that’s a lot of people that you have the potential to reach with your advertising. The more important thing that you need to focus on with this method of advertising is that it is completely free to a certain point, so you are able to make a stable base for yourself initially. The more interaction that you get, the more you will be showing up in other people’s feeds who are surrounding your customer. There are options to pay to get your message out to more people; the great thing about Facebook is that you can pick and choose the interests, age, location and so much more of the people that you want to target. Using this as the base to your demographic is one of the best things that has ever come out of social media in relation to marketing – Facebook have definitely hit an extremely clever niche by doing so, and you won’t find a successful company that doesn’t have a Facebook page linked to it in order to promote to more and more customers. There are five main social media platforms for you to make use of, and there are certain methods of making them work which don’t apply to any others; you need to take into consideration how much you are posting, how long your posts are, which hashtags you are using and how you are interacting with potential customers. You only need to focus on the words – Social and Media – to realize the connection that you yourself need to get connected with. If you don’t know much about what to do on these sites, there are simple tutorials online; but if your budget allows, you can employ a social media manager to take it on for you. It’s important to remember that these are revenue-generating jobs but ones that take up quite a lot of time over the day, even if you are pre-planning your posts. The content needs to be exact and specific to your brand’s message, and customer engagement is of top priority. We are living in a fast-paced world with notification flicking up all the time – you don’t want to be missed or become yesterday’s priority. People are too busy nowadays for that, and are fickle to boot. They won’t wait around for you.
Is Search Engine Optimization Still A Thing?
SEO is still very much on the rise in the marketing world, especially as there are more rules and regulations to adhere to that have been set by Google. Companies who are utilizing SEO strategies in order to market themselves should be taking note of what they have to do and how they have to do it in order to rise of the ranks on said search engines. If you aren’t quite sure how this works, there is a strategy article on davidcarralon.com which will be able to give you a clear example of everything that you need to do in order to make your SEO game thrive. Whether this is hiring a professional or learning a bit more about it yourself, it is always a good idea to get on top of it as it is one of the top marketing methods that you can use presently. Companies all over the world are investing hundreds of thousands into their SEO strategy, realizing the importance of what it offers. The great thing about SEO is that now that there is protocol to follow, the content that is offered to users who are seeing your page has to be of a certain standard. If it’s not, then you risk being fined by Google or a higher source – in fact, Google itself were receptors of their own fine for favoring their own content rather than ones that had invested in SEO in order to appear where they had placed their own ads. It just goes to show that, when dealing with market power, you need to follow the rules down to a tee – even if you’re the one setting them.
Alternative Marketing Methods – What Should I Use?
There are a lot of alternative marketing methods that don’t really fit in the rackets of being traditional or internet-based. One that is currently taking the world by storm is user experience – companies such as Hot Pickle have fully immersed themselves into this creative strategy, making brands such as Walls Ice Cream and Marmite really leap out to customers and bring them into the world that the company wants them to be in, if only for a moment. Huge props are made to fit perfectly with what the brand are trying to promote, and it helps to create a lasting relationship with your target demographic – what more could you ask for from your advertising? Now that we have moved through all of the methods of advertising that we have experienced throughout our life, people are looking for excitement in what they see. They want something that shocks them, that invests their feelings into what they are doing at that time, and that captures their imagination if only for a little while. That’s where immersive marketing truly takes the limelight and brings itself into center stage in order to get its point across. Unless you have seen it, you won’t know just how powerful it is.
How Much Should I Invest To Expect A Return?
Different strategies cost different amounts. It all depends on your budget and how much you are willing to part with in order to get your business to where it needs to be. The more user-immersive experiences could set you back a pretty penny, especially if you have products which are to be given away in order to create a relationship between business and consumer. With social media, as aforementioned, you are getting a free service, but one that definitely needs to be invested in in order to generate more of a return from potential customers who may be living just outside of the radius that is granted to you. Generally speaking, you should set apart 20% of your profit towards marketing, if not a bit more, in order to gain the interest that you need. If you are not putting the funds into really pushing your brand, you can’t expect to get much interest. It’s sort of like locking your business in a dark box in the middle of nowhere, buried beneath the ground, and asking people to find it without a map. They’re going to give up after a while, and that’s if they even start the search for you. If your company isn’t popping up in search results, doing all it can to interact with your target demographic and those just outside of it, or engaging on all the mediums that are presented to you (often for free, remember!) then there is no use following a strategy at all.
