The world of digital marketing strategy is a broad one. In fact, if you ask five digital marketers for advice, most likely you will hear five totally different strategies from each other. This is arguably the cause that although most small businesses knew the importance of digital marketing strategy, they are often dumbfounded by the sheer options available.
So, as we are nearing the end of 2017, what digital marketing strategies should we focus on? This guide will attempt to answer that question in the simplest manner possible. Let us discuss the popular and working strategies that you should focus on.
Digital Marketing Strategies You Should Focus On
Marketing Automation
The term ‘marketing automation’ has been the media-honey of digital marketing strategy in recent years. After all, in this modern era where we all seem to have less time, the efficiency and time-saving promises of marketing automation are definitely much appreciated. For example, systems like an email finder can reduce time spent on sourcing and connecting with leads, and can efficiently locate targeted and viable prospects.
However, the benefits of marketing automation do not end there as it also enables many essential business processes that won’t be available otherwise. For example, in B2B marketing strategy, marketing automation enables lead scoring, nurturing, and lifecycle management. For B2C companies, there is the customer loyalty benefit, enabling processes like upselling and cross-selling. Below are the two biggest benefits of marketing automation.
Maintain and Grow Customer Relationships
In modern marketing, we all know that when we do get a customer, the job is far from finished. For most, if not all industries, the real marketing success comes from maintaining and growing the customer relationship in long-term. This includes selling more products to the same customer (up selling and cross-selling), as well as maintaining retention and customer loyalty.
Maintaining customers doesn’t end with sending monthly newsletters, but also focusing on email engagement, measuring their behaviors, and adjusting your strategies over time. Marketing automation can help with these complex processes without adding significant manpower.
Nurturing Leads and Relationships
Only 20% of leads are ready to buy your products or services when they first show up. So, this is where lead nurturing comes in as an essential process. When done well, nurturing leads and relationships can give you 33% less cost per lead, and growing your sales leads by 50%, according to Marketo.
Content Marketing
We’ve all heard how content is the king of digital marketing strategy and SEO strategy. After all, humans love and are addicted to stories, and our attention always goes to those who tell great stories. We can talk all day about tactics and strategies for content marketing, which is certainly useful. However, the principle remains the same: great and in-depth stories will get the attention.
So, identify your customers and niches that can work for them. Focus on that niche and generate great related stories. Also, remember that great stories are even better when told in the right time, so always find the right momentum for your content.
Account-Based Marketing
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a fairly new concept in digital marketing strategy. However, it has been really popular in the past couple of years, with more and more companies adopting the strategy, making it one of the leading B2B marketing strategy options nowadays.
So, what actually is Account-Based Marketing (ABM)? As the name suggests, it is marketing that is based on an existing or prospective account. With the abundance of available information nowadays, buyers expectations have increased, and thus marketers will need to focus on each individual account more than before.
So, instead of just creating great content and putting your products out there to bring prospects to you (inbound marketing), ABM works by being active in building relationships with target accounts. A HubSpot post broke down ABM to 6, easy-to-follow steps, and you will understand that it is not as overwhelming as it sounds.
2017 and Ahead: Better Targeting Options
As Social Media, SAAS, and digital marketing, in general, is getting more mature, we are blessed with a wide range of great targeting options we can choose from. Below are some examples you can apply:
Linkedin Inmails
Linkedin Inmails is especially useful for Account-Based Marketing (ABM) which we have discussed above. You can also use Linkedin’s Sponsored Inmail feature for lead generation. As one the top digital marketers Mike noticed, Linkedin Inmail is especially effective for B2B marketing strategy, as you can connect to the right people who matter the most to your industry.
Remarketing With AdWords
As the term ‘remarketing’ might suggest, Adwords Remarketing enables you to show targeted ads to users who have visited your site. This is especially useful for lead nurturing and maintaining customer loyalty.
Nurture Your Drip Campaigns
Drip campaign is one of the oldest, and still the most effective form of marketing automation. The concept: a drip campaign is a set of marketing emails that will be sent out automatically on a schedule. You can customize the drip campaign based on a time schedule, triggers, or actions the lead/customer have performed, and these features are often neglected by marketers.
Indeed, structuring your drip campaigns might seem overwhelming at first with all the options and works that should be done. Here is a very nice guide from Zapier that can help you with the process.
Mobile Marketing
We all know how the emphasis of SEO strategy has evolved to mobile-focused, thanks to Google’s plan for mobile-first indexing approach. So, as a digital marketer, you should also adapt your strategies to be more mobile friendly. Here are some that you can do:
Responsive design
A mobile-friendly site is a must nowadays. Aside from SEO strategy, as mentioned above, we all know how more and more people are browsing with their smartphones and tablets nowadays.
Get AMPed
Google’s Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) has taken the world by storm in recent times. After all, ask yourself this: when you search for something and get an AMP result, did you click it first most of the time?
Thus, getting your content AMPed is very effective for lead generation and getting more audiences. How can you AMP your site or content, then? Here is a very nice guide from SearchEngineLand.
Bottom Line
There are definitely endless options for digital marketing strategies in 2018, and the key is to focus on only those that matter for your industry. With the tips we have shared above, we hope we can help you formulate a plan for your digital marketing strategy, and apply it to grow your business in the future.
The sheer number of options and technicalities can be overwhelming. However, when you break them apart, they are not as complicated as they first sound. Last but not least, stay tuned for more tips and guides from us in the very near future.
