It’s understandable that marketing can feel like you’re having to navigate through a sea of buzzwords, acronyms and jargon. Knowing what the most important marketing elements are, and where to start can be really confusing. However this is an essential step, whether you’re managing it in house or with third parties, so I’ve broken it down for you – here are my thoughts on the fundamentals of marketing.
Marketing Strategy:
Before you even think about creating content for social media or launching a Google ad campaign, you need to have a solid marketing strategy and plan in place. This is good as a single point of reference for marketing decisions and prioritisation as you go through the year. Do not confuse this with a business strategy, as your marketing goals should always point upwards to the overarching strategy for the company.
Like your business strategy, it’s important to know what success looks like from the marketing efforts i.e. how you will know if your marketing and investment is working? These goals are commonly called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Once you’ve set 2-3 of those, you should then identify the audience(s) most likely to bring those results through i.e. who are you selling to? Then you embark on the unique selling proposition (what makes your product different from others and worth considering for the audience(s)) and your messaging. I’d often throw in a search market analysis, competitor review and keyword research too, so you know where to start i.e knowing your market (again your business strategy should also have some good insights on this).
Website:
Your website is your online storefront and often the first impression. It also needs to really clearly communicate your value: What problem do you solve for your customers/clients? How are they benefitting? Have you made this clear on your website?
Your website also needs to be visually appealing, easy to navigate, load quickly, and optimised for search engines, which will help your customers find it. This means using relevant keywords in your content, including meta descriptions (summary of each page) and alt tags for images, and making sure your site is mobile-friendly because people spend a lot of time surfing the web on the bus, in their cars and walking along the street.
Start simple when you’re creating a website. There are lots of templates that are tried and tested and could be perfect for your business – rather than building from scratch. These include WordPress, SquareSpace and Shopify. Or you can go custom and create something truly unique. The choice is yours. Working with an expert partner for this marketing fundamental is definitely recommended, it’s a very important piece of the puzzle! We do that, find out more here.
Content Marketing:
Content marketing includes blogs, articles, podcasts, lead magnets like e-books, social media posts, videos, infographics … the list is endless. Once you’ve got your marketing strategy in place, and your website ready to go, it’s time to start building out your content.
Content marketing involves creating valuable, relevant, and regular content to attract and retain your target audience. The key is to provide information or entertainment that your audience will find helpful or interesting and be most likely to engage with. This is also a really great place to incorporate some of the keywords you identified in your marketing strategy. Including them will help your organic content to pop up when people are using search terms related to your business, product or service.
Strong Brand and Brand Guidelines:
Your brand is more than just your logo or colour scheme – it's the way people perceive your business and ‘what they say about you when you’re not in the room’. A strong brand is consistent across all touchpoints, from your website to your social media channels to your packaging, and even the way your front of house representative answers the phone. All of this combines to create a brand that is memorable and that people feel they can connect with.
To ensure consistency, create brand guidelines that outline your brand voice, visual style, and tone. This will help you, and others in the business, master how your brand shows up. This is your single source of truth for your brand and should be easily accessible to anyone using your brand.
Social Media:
Social Media is a great way to engage with your audience and promote your brand to increase awareness. But don’t make the mistake of feeling you need to be on every platform – focus on the ones that your target audiences use most. For example, if you're targeting professionals, LinkedIn might be the best choice. If you’re targeting Gen Z perhaps take a look at Tik Tok. Come up with some key pillars (themes) for the kind of content you want to put on these platforms – it’ll help you stay focused. And remember to tailor your content to each platform – what goes viral on TikTok might fail epically on LinkedIn!
Some other ideas…
Once you’ve ticked all the boxes for the fundamentals listed above, you can start looking at the next phase to get your business out there and attract leads. Here are a few places you can start:
Lead Magnets:
A lead magnet is a free resource or incentive that you offer to potential customers in exchange for their contact information. This might be a free e-book, a discount code, or a webinar. The goal is to encourage people to sign up for your email list so you can nurture the relationship and eventually convert them into paying customers. For example, if you're a marketing agency, you might offer a free website design and build to potential or existing customers (yes, that’s a shameless plug there!).
Case Studies:
Case studies are a powerful way to demonstrate the value of your product or service. They typically highlight a specific customer's success story and show how your business and service helped them achieve their goals. Use real numbers and metrics whenever possible to make the case study more compelling and fact based. Check out some of our case studies as an example (another shameless plug!).
Paid Media:
Paid media includes advertising like Google Ads and paid social media ads. These can be a great way to drive traffic to your website or promote a specific product or service. But make sure you have a clear goal in mind and track your results carefully i.e. you can run out of your budget easily by not refining your audiences up front. You don't want to waste money on ads that aren't converting. Take a look at the Google Ads success stories for inspiration.
So there you have it – the fundamentals of marketing. Remember, it's all about understanding your audience, creating valuable content, and promoting your brand in a consistent and authentic way. And don't be afraid to have a little fun along the way!
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