Ok, let’s talk Marketing.
We love working with a huge range of clients – this gives us the scope and opportunity to work in different sectors and markets, learning all the time. However, what do see is a real shift between how “best” to market a service, and what different sectors understand and expect Marketing to be.
Our hard and fast rule is that there is no hard and fast rule! Knowing your business and your audience is crucial, but after that, the opportunities really are endless. What works for one, won’t work for another; and so on.
Given the shift in climate in recent years what we are discovering is just how many organisations have “made do” when it comes to their communications, and that is absolutely fine, HOWEVER that couldn’t and shouldn’t be a long-term solution. Taking the time to reconfigure the basics will give new life to your marketing strategies to take forward.
Here are some areas to get you thinking…
Understand Your Target Audience: Take the time to deeply understand your target audience’s needs, preferences, and importantly, pain points. Conduct market research, analyse customer data, and gather insights to create client profiles that represent your ideal customers. Tailor your marketing messages and strategies to resonate with your audience, resolve those pain points.
Create Valuable Content: Develop high-quality and relevant content that provides value to your target audience. Utilise different content formats such as blog posts, videos, infographics etc to educate, entertain, and engage your audience. Share your expertise and insights to establish yourself as a ‘thought leader’ in your industry. Make use of all channels available to you, as well – but be cautious of which audience matches the content you’re creating.
Build Relationships: Focus on building and nurturing relationships with your customers and prospects. Engage with them through social media, respond to their enquiries promptly, and provide personalised experiences. We follow the ‘Brilliant Basics, Magic Touches’ principle, and this is applied across all of our activities.
Stay Agile and Adaptive: The marketing landscape is constantly evolving, so it’s crucial to stay agile and adaptive. Keep up with industry trends, new technologies, and consumer behaviors. Continuously test and experiment with different marketing strategies and tactics to identify what works best for your audience.
WORK TOGETHER: Honestly, we see company’s marketing fall down so often because of teams working in silos. Today, Marketing simply cannot be effective without interaction with other parts of the business too. Align with the Sales Team, get to know the Customer Service reps – these are all links in the chain that you are trying to promote.
Don’t forget to use your data too! You don’t need to be an absolute Google Analytics wizard to work out when something isn’t working. Be flexible enough in your planning stages to allow you to ebb and flow with your audience’s interests, and stop active campaigns that aren’t serving you.
The best part? You can do all of these without having to spend a penny more than what you already are! By stepping back, looking at these areas and making small, yet impactful changes, you can really update your marketing activities to help move your organisation forward.
And, if you don’t have the internal function, you need additional support, or perhaps some ongoing guidance – talk to our team today, we have a significant amount of experience and the opportunity to support. Check out our Solutions here, or call me directly on 07939 551512.
Regardless, remember to enjoy telling people about your business, however you do it.
Emma Mc
Head of Delivery