This article was written by:
Ashley Lipman, a content marketing specialist.
Marketing efforts and effective strategies are ever-evolving in a fast-paced, digital world. What may have worked five years ago could be archaic now, and today’s best methods of reaching customers could be gone in five years’ time.
Every year brings forth new and exciting opportunities for marketing. The focus this year should be taking some tried and true methods from the past few years and refining them for effectiveness. Here are three tips to gear up your digital marketing.
Incorporate Automation Whenever Possible
Automation is becoming a staple in modern business efforts. It’s this technology that makes it possible for top talent to focus on strategic actions that will help a business thrive, rather than repetitive tasks. Due to the advancements in technology over the past few years, automation is becoming more accessible and commonplace, giving small businesses a chance to compete in the big leagues.
Look at the various marketing efforts that can be automated. Using a social media scheduling platform is an effective way to maintain a cross-channel web presence without allocating a ton of resources to the task. Applications like Parserr can streamline email marketing and CRM efforts, by extracting data from contact forms and streamlining conversion information in an organized fashion.
Automation is perhaps one of the most important things entrepreneurs can add to their marketing efforts in 2019. As resources in startups tend to be limited, automation can fill the gaps left by a lack of employees and give key players in the organization the flexibility to make the business a success.
Shift Your Budget to Digital
While many traditional marketing efforts, such as newspaper advertisements, have a time and place, they should no longer dominate a business’s marketing strategy. Furthermore, those efforts shouldn’t dominate the budget.
More businesses are shifting their budget allocation toward digital marketing efforts, and your business should follow suit. Ideally, your marketing budget should be majorly made up of SEO marketing efforts, social media, and direct response (or email marketing) campaigns. Print advertisements and trade show materials should be relatively minimal.
In addition to shifting the budget toward digital marketing itself, it’s essential to allocate some of the business budget to learning the basics of digital marketing. While outsourcing to the experts is recommended when running large campaigns, having a basic foundation of knowledge about SEO and digital marketing is essential for modern business owners.
Refine Your Brand
Your band is how you connect with customers and start to build trust and loyalty. It’s the face of your business, comprising not only of visual representation through design, but also your voice and your values. As marketing strategies evolve, it’s important to readdress and refine your brand.
As the end of a decade nears and the beginning of another dawns now is the ideal time to conduct a brand audit and make changes that will take your vision into the future. Evaluate the visual components– typography, graphic design, color schemes– to ensure they fit with your goals. Take another look at your target market and competition, and from there, refine your unique selling proposition (USP).
By setting aside time to refine your brand as you make other changes to your marketing strategy, it gives you a competitive edge in the market. Invest in developing your brand, emulating the approach of businesses you admire and aspire to compete with. After a decade of life with the internet in the palm of the consumers’ hands, refining your brand brings with it an opportunity to give the people what they want: authenticity and trust.
Small Business Marketing in the Future
By following the three tips listed above, you’ll prepare your business for the remainder of the future. Get ahead of the curve and think of how you can incorporate the future into the present. As a result, your business will thrive.
Ashley is an award-winning writer who discovered her passion in providing creative solutions for building brands online. Since her first high school award in Creative Writing, she continues to deliver awesome content through various niches.
