New generation marketing strategies are the best way to supercharge your business. Whether you’re diversifying into a new market or strengthening your current client base, there isn’t currently a better way of getting the results you need. However, it’s important to take a considered approach to marketing, rather than trying to rush to the finish line. Trying to go from 0 to 100 in six seconds is as likely to leave you with a burnt-out engine or careening off the road as it is to get you to your destination.
So Much To Do, So Little Time
It can feel as though, to grow your business through digital marketing, you have to have a lot of irons in the fire at once. Activities involve social media marketing, blog content creation, email marketing, SEO, PPC, and so on. These are all good tactics, but there’s no denying they take time. This can lead to one of two serious mistakes:
1) The Piecemeal Approach
Due to a lack of time and resources, a business ‘dips its toe in the water’ by trying one tactic at a time in isolation, or by dedicating limited resources to one or two tactics. A couple of blog posts here, a few pounds spent on Google AdWords there. This is a mistake because, at best, results will be sporadic and hard to measure. It is also a mistake to throw everything you’ve got into one tactic – for instance, your LinkedIn profile – leaving nothing for other marketing tactics. Most companies that take this approach end up losing faith and giving up on marketing altogether.
2) The All Guns Blazing Approach
Some people approach marketing by instigating every known tactic almost immediately. The problem with this approach is, without a clear goal or strategy you are basically just throwing a lot of mud at a wall and hoping for some of it to stick. Drawbacks to this approach include alienating people with the wrong messaging for their needs, time-consuming activities with little or no return, and spending money hand over fist with no real metrics to measure your success against. Any marketing tactics such as PPC, social media and SEO should only begin after a clear plan has been formulated. A good marketing strategy always begins with understanding your Buyer Persona, good keyword research, as well as competitor and platform research. Your approach should always be determined by what you are trying to achieve, and every tactic deployed should be measured and analysed as you go along.
Marketing Takes Time
Marketing campaigns take time to mature and deliver results. Each of the tactics used in digital marketing is an ongoing process. They are all capable of generating sales, but taking on too much at once, or not approaching them as part of a coherent strategy, will mean no single tactic gets the right amount of attention and time.
It makes better sense long-term to do what is realistic for your business while taking the time to ensure that what is done is as effective as possible. This may be difficult news to hear for businesses keen to make new sales as quickly as possible.
If this is you, the good news is there are some marketing tactics capable of delivering results fairly quickly - pay per click (PPC) advertising being one of them. It is perfectly acceptable to have short-, medium- and long-term goals for your marketing strategy, with quick wins to tide you over while longer-term work takes effect.
However, you still need to set realistic goals for each stage of the process, so at any given point you are only doing what is necessary to achieve your goals. This prevents you spending unnecessary time and money on activities that won’t deliver an ROI, and avoids your marketing strategy losing focus.
Strategy & Tactics
This brings us back to the difference between a marketing strategy and individual tactics. Having a marketing strategy doesn’t mean deferring rewards until years into the future. It simply involves taking the time to develop a formulated strategy and marketing plan, with thought given to different factors that may affect your results. These include buyer behaviour, technological trends and the actions of competitors. Individual tactics are the means by which your strategy is implemented, not activities in their own right.
A strategy gives you a framework in which to gather data and analyse things that aren’t working, and actions that deliver the best results. This prevents you from wasting effort on unsuccessful activity and allows you to prune your strategy to contain only the most streamlined and efficient tactics. Organic SEO, content marketing and social media marketing, for instance, can take 9 to 12 months before they start showing visible results. However, as a marketing strategy reaches maturity, it gains momentum. The mid- to long-term results from a well thought-out marketing strategy easily outweigh the ROI from most ‘quick win’ approaches.
Find Out More
For marketing tactics to deliver their full value, they need to be adopted as part of a considered digital marketing strategy. To find out more about how a long-term, strategic approach can deliver for your business, please call 01332 982022 today.
Image source: Pixabay
