Tactics change marketing doesn’t. That’s why a good marketing strategy is still one of the most important parts of business success. No one knows and no one can guarantee that the tactics working today will work the same in future, or that the tactics that worked in 2013 will work the same in 2014. People grow smarter each day and their expectations or habits evolve too. People now don’t fully trust or get satisfied through advertising and they would rather get to know more about their query/solution. For this reason, inbound marketing is increasingly taking on a major role and becoming more popular than outbound marketing activities.
Today I am going to describe the 7 most important marketing tactics that have worked very well in 2014.
1# Be an Educator
When someone searches for something on the Internet, either he is trying to get some answer, product, or services. That means he is need of something. This is the gap a marketer or a business needs to cover. We need to educate the people, why they need our products, what kind of benefits he can get and how they can get it. For instance, if you sell solar panels then you need to educate people on why they should buy solar panels, how solar panels can help them, and why they should purchase them from you.
Additionally, you need to create a few free materials to educate them even though you expect no direct return from it. So if you have no plans to educate your target audience then you are missing out on a lot of opportunities. Educating people is one of the main tactics for Inbound Marketing.
2# Content Creation Should Not Be a Task, It Should Be a Passion
After working for 4 years (since 2010) in this field I realized that Creating content is a difficult task, but creative quality content with passion is just awesome. Quality content gives both satisfaction and more business leads. If someone takes content creation as a task then s/he can just improve his writing speed and produce more content in a shorter amount of time. But when it becomes a passion then the content marketer can provide some real value using a different and more effective touch. As a result he gets more leads and more business.
3# Create Different Set of Content for Different Social Media
All the social media platforms have their own lists of active users. Some have lots while others have relatively less. But as a business owner or internet marketer most of them are important to me. If one channel can provide me X amount of leads, then I can expect some more leads by focusing on the other channels. This is true for everyone even those who are running different types of business than mine. Some channels can directly provide you sales while some can indirectly help you to get sales. But the fact is that, all the channels have their own algorithm, which makes them different from each other. So when I create content for a social media post I always try to create different set of content for different social media, plus I try to use appropriate hashtags and quality images where possible.
4# Be a Human, Not a Post Machine
Running a successful business is not about just promoting the brand name and product. There are lots of additional activities you need to actively engage in. Self-promotion is one of them. But during working on self-promotion or brand promotion most people just act like a post machine. They simply post everything and anything related to their brand or related to their industry. This is good, but not great or productive enough. People connected with you and your brand to know your own thoughts, your own story. They not only want to hear your professional story, but they would also love to get some personal touch. You should try to educate them and keep them up to date, but do it in a way that lets them know they are important. So don’t just be a post machine, be a Human.
5# Be a Visualizer
A picture is worth more than a thousand words. This is a common statement. Sometimes we don’t give much priority on common statements like it. But the fact is, the more common the statement is, the more people have faced it.
Now think, Text form is not the only way to educate people and send messages. In most cases, Visual representation works better than plain text. A blog post with supporting images has better conversion rates than one without. The same is true with social media, image posts provide maximum engagement compared to plain text posts. For this nature social media platforms such as Pinterest and Instragam have huge numbers of users.
6# Simplicity Is the Best
All the big companies throughout the world have very simple-looking websites. Why? Do they not have enough money to make it gorgeous? Despite what you may initially think, the reality is these companies invest lots of money to keep their site simple. They realize that with a simple looking website, it is easy to deliver the desired message to visitors and is easy to create engagement with them. So try to keep everything simple, from your website design to your content structure.
7# Create SEO and SMM Plan Together To Attain Maximum Returns
Social media signals have very significant effect on SEO results. Yes, you heard me right. If you are confused then read this article. In the past, SMM played a totally separate role, but now the scenario has changed. Now a positive social media strategy can help you get advantages from Social media as well as help your SEO campaign. So it will be a wise decision to create SEO and SMM plan together to get maximum return.
These 7 tactics are not a comprehensive list, but they can play a key role in your marketing strategy for this year and in future. These are the key areas I am working on for my own business and for the clients I am working with. And so far the 7 tactics have worked very well for me. Hope it will work just as great for you too.
