The goal of marketing (including digital marketing) is to persuade people to buy a product or service. Often, businesses must convince prospective customers to purchase their product or service rather than a similar product or service from a competitor.
It goes without saying that marketing is becoming more and more difficult. Not only is competition fierce, but technology and the digital world are constantly evolving. Developing a marketing strategy is like trying to hit a moving target.
I’m here to talk about the step before presenting the marketing team’s plan and asking for the green light: selling the marketing idea.
For agencies and marketers, the hardest part of selling is talking about money. Most mom-and-pop businesses and small businesses don’t have a marketing budget, so there is only a little money to hand out.
However, every business needs marketing. Whether you have a product, service or idea, you need to support and encourage it to make its way into the world.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how to help businesses that don’t want to, or don’t think they can afford, embrace the idea of marketing. As with many things in life, you need to change your perception.
Ultimately, everyone, including marketers, needs to view marketing as an investment, not an expense. I offer you a few points which will change the minds of at least a few companies.
The same goes for digital marketing. If you sign on with the right type of agency, marketing won’t cost you money in the long run – it will make you money. Like the example above, you have to shell out some money upfront, but you’re likely to see a significant return on your investment.
Also Read: Digital Marketing Trends To Invest In
If it’s so obvious, why isn’t marketing so easy to sell? Here again, we come back to positioning and perception. Some marketing agencies promise too much “return on investment”. When they fail to keep their promises on time, the relationship sours.
But some agencies don’t promise anything for fear of not being up to par. This makes selling marketing solutions more difficult, as the buyer receives no visible benefit.
This difference may seem irreconcilable, but there is actually a simple solution to this problem…
Digital Marketing Doesn’t Have To Be Expensive
When you come across businesses that are skeptical about marketing, let them start small.
Let’s say a business only has a few dollars to spend on marketing; ok, great, it’s better than nothing!
The concept is similar to a trial period for software or an application; In this case, I’m not suggesting that marketers work for free, but something small is better than nothing, right?
It’s unconventional, but if a little “give and take” on both sides fosters a successful long-term relationship between a business and agency, it’s worth a try
Account Based Marketing
A seismic shift has occurred in marketing, which has become interested in new customer-centric approaches, teaming up with marketing and sales to build long-term, high-engagement business relationships with accounts keys. ABM focuses first on customers who fit your brand’s ideal persona and emphasizes greater involvement in the customer’s experience after the sale, with the overall goal of creating advocates who will market your brand with you. Marketers see very positive implications in this new customer-centric approach. The most persuasive aspect of a business’s website is content that directly addresses their needs. Marketing should target a specific person and address their problems. Technologies like Salesforce and Salesloft (among others) make it possible to compile a list of companies that match your best-fit customer criteria so that you can include them in your digital marketing budget.
Email And Marketing Automation
According to The Radicati Group , there are more than 3.9 billion people in 2019 using emails worldwide. Not to mention that the return on investment is higher than that of any other digital asset. Personalization is key to email marketing, as it has been shown to increase open rates and click-through rates. Volume is also an essential condition. The best way to succeed with email is to build an extensive email list (email-related content is perfect for this), segment it by interest, configure it so that it is sent automatically with merge tags, then takes over with a personal touch at the optimal time. A good marketing automation platform will allow you to send an email to a sales associate when someone responds to an automated email.
SEO
Search engine optimization is growing at lightning speed. Google algorithm updates continue to keep marketing departments on their toes as new optimization trends take shape. Keywords evolve to optimize user intent. Today, people know precisely what they are looking for, and as more and more users type complete queries into search engines, data and heuristics are collected, helping to deliver more targeted results. in an effective way. You need to figure out what questions your ideal buyers are asking and target what they’re looking for that brings them to your page.
Also Read: The Six Benefits Of Content Marketing For Your Company!