5 Ways To Simplify Your Marketing Approach

When first approaching business marketing, most organisations struggle to wrap their heads around what they should and shouldn’t be doing. This is because there are countless voices in the marketing industry, all claiming to know EXACTLY what to do to generate leads and improved revenue. Don’t let the noise confuse you, though! Marketing can be simplified into five core areas that, when you learn to master them, your marketing campaigns will be much easier to formulate, create, and manage. Below we’re looking at these five areas:

– Know Your Customers

What motivates your ideal client to spend their money? Who are your ideal clients in the first place? When you understand your customers, you can relate to them. If you can brainstorm what they’re likely to gravitate towards on social media and other marketing platforms, you’ll be in a better position in order to create engaging, targeted marketing content. It’s as simple as drawing up a short questionnaire and asking customers if they have a few seconds to help you improve the brand. This is called building a “persona” or multiple personas of who your most loyal fans are and what they like/dislike.

– Know Your Niche

Knowing your customers well informs your product and marketing content positioning, but it’s your broader industry that you need to understand through and through. A simple visit to Facebook or any other online information-sharing source (like search engines) can give you access to marketing that is circulating in your industry. What does your competitor’s marketing mix look like? Are their target markets (who are likely your target markets) engaging with their marketing content? Answering these questions helps you to know what or what not to do in your marketing mix.

– Know SEO Fundamentals

When writing content for your website and social media accounts, it pays dividends to understand the broad concept that is SEO (search engine optimisation). Find out how search engines like Google scan your online content for keywords, and how important these keywords are when Google decides which websites to show people searching. A ridiculously vast majority of internet users start their quest for retail therapy in a search bar, and you want to make sure you know how to get your website showing up for searches relating to your products and services.

– Know What Consistency Is

Ask anyone what the term “consistency” would mean in a social media context. They’re likely to tell you that it means posting content all the time. However, consistency is way more nuanced than this. For a long-term marketing campaign to be truly successful, consistency is a must on every level of operations. Consistent posting schedules, consistent content mix, consistent content style, consistent monitoring, consistent customer responses. Being consistent means seeing what works, then doing it well over and over again.

– Know What Products To Sell

How well do you know your products and services? Would you say intimately? Satisfaction is a big part of retaining customers for long-term mutually-beneficial relationships. Unfortunately, a customer-brand relationship often falls completely flat on its face because of unsatisfactory products. What use is there of putting out superb marketing content, only to have people comment on how horrid the products are? The goal should be to provide clients with value in every transaction, including – and most importantly – in the same product or service that they are spending money on.

Your business doesn’t need to hire a team of internal marketing professionals to run successful marketing campaigns. Countless small business owners are now learning how to perform their marketing themselves, which saves them money and develops new skills.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Gain the core understandings and competencies needed to execute impactful marketing, with a Marketing Fundamentals course from DSM!