Marketing is vital for any company that wants to be successful, but a lot of companies are missing important aspects that are causing them harm. People who work in marketing spend a lot of time trying to get things just right, which is understandable, but that attention to detail could actually lead them to overlook the big picture. Here are four items that your marketing department must include in its strategy to see the highest level of success for your company.
If you're not being consistent about your company's branding throughout your marketing campaign, you're hurting your cause. Companies often have a lot of different marketing channels, including various social media profiles, and each outlet should have consistent design elements, voice, content, etc.
You also want to make the URLs or usernames match, if possible. The easier it is for customers to find you, the more likely they will be to purchase from you. If your branding isn't consistent, though, it can be easy for a potential customer to overlook your site or marketing outlets because they don't seem to match what's already known about your company.
Related to the branding issue is cross-promotion. Since you have a number of different marketing outlets (social media, a website, a blog, a presence on other sites, etc.), make sure what you post on one site is being promoted and advertised on other sites. If you write a blog about your latest offerings, for example, make mention of it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and any other social media sites you use.
Ensure your blog is easy to find from your main website, and if you have a presence on any other sites, mention the blog there, as well. As long as you're providing good information and not always just asking people to buy from you, there's nothing wrong with promotion.
You can also track the actions of your customers to see if your marketing efforts are successful. How did they find out about you? How did they navigate to your site? What, specifically, were they looking for or searching for when they located your online presence? If you can't answer those questions, you need better software that will help you formulate those answers, and then you need to decide how to use that information to further your marketing efforts. When you're able to track your customers' actions, you can find out what they need and look for, and provide it for them so they have a higher chance of finding you and buying what you have to offer.
Having goals may seem logical - and it generally is for a business - but the idea of setting and realizing goals doesn't always carry over into marketing campaigns. That's unfortunate, because marketers need to have goals that are attainable (and sustainable) if their campaigns are going to succeed.
People who focus on marketing spend a great deal of time working on getting prospects interested in a company, product, or service, but successfully creating that interest isn't really a goal. Goals should be more specific, and marketers should consider what they can do in order to make sure their goals are grounded and easy to state, as well as something that can be actually worked toward with measurable results. Think about setting easily achievable short-term goals that will help you attain broader long-term goals.
So, how do you stack up to the marketing program plans and ideas on the list? If you're looking over those four items and seeing that you're not paying attention to any of them in your actual marketing strategy, then it may be time to make some changes. Those who are serious about marketing spend a lot of time analyzing, planning and then evaluating their department’s performance to see if they need to adjust their strategy to drive better performance. You should be doing the same and, if you're not, it's time you made some changes so you can see your marketing efforts move your business to the next level.