Digital marketing is getting competitive.
Just look at general industry trends:
- Acquisition price points on Facebook and AdWords, on the whole, are rising—meaning that there’s more competition.
- Every year, brands commit to ramping up their marketing budgets.
- More companies are launching blogs, campaigns, and content portals to reach audiences who are already spread thin.
The days of quick wins are over. Companies need to focus on long-term, sustainable sources of growth. The following three marketing best practices will position your company to establish just that.
Optimize Your Workflows
Marketing successes come from connecting dots, scaling successful ideas, and finding new ways to collaborate cross-functionally. As you begin to strike the right balance, you’ll find yourself repeating key actions—and you may be relying on spreadsheets and email to stay organized.
Content marketing is more than just writing and publishing
You’ll very quickly notice that the little things add up: content marketing is more than just writing and publishing. In addition to planning and drafting topics, your team also needs to take care of scheduling, optimizing SEO, and syncing up with social.
Every once in a while, take a step back to map out these steps and ensure that your workflows keep busywork to a minimum. It’s like running a restaurant: define key processes up front so employees can focus on acting and thinking creatively.
Ensure Collaborative Planning
Your marketing shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. Just like your customers, your team members have different insights into your business. That’s why marketing teams need to involve multiple teams in campaign planning.
Interview different stakeholders to understand their vantage points into the market. What are customers’ key pain points? What are the biggest educational needs in your industry? What trends are your behind-the-scenes teams observing?
It’s up to you to blend these perspectives together into a cohesive marketing strategy. More minds in the planning process will benefit your messaging, positioning, communicated value proposition, and content.
Be Data-Driven
Digital marketing is only going to get more competitive. When launching campaigns, especially around content, your team needs to be data-driven. What performed well? What are some areas in which your messaging, targeting, and overall strategy can improve?
Digital marketing is only going to get more competitive
It’s likely going to be a long time until you can definitively connect your marketing campaigns to the full ROI that they’re driving. That’s because customer journeys are complex and often span a series of interactions. But still, it’s important to use data to guide your decisions. Look for patterns between your highest-performing campaigns and quantify as much as possible. Piece together a data story that builds on itself over time.
Need extra pointers? In marketing especially, the best way to learn is from each other. While some companies claim to be advanced in their strategies, the fact is that everyone is still learning.
As a marketing technology company, Kapost has a lens into many different organizations. Based on the patterns that the team has observed, they’ve put together The B2B Marketer’s Guide to Managing Customer Experience.
Check it out, and let them know what you think!