Marketing has changed dramatically over time but the core concept of marketing a product or service remains the same. You want to attract attention to the item that you want to sell. To accomplish that, you want to make the item visible to as wide a section of the public as possible.
Your marketing strategies are dependent on the culture in which you are marketing, your advertising budget, the type of people that you wish to draw to your product or service and the access that those people have to the various marketing tools. Regardless of which tools and techniques you select for your promotional strategies, your ultimate goal remains the same – get the largest possible number of people to see what you offer and hear how your offer can meet their needs.
How can you accomplish these goals? Some ideas include:
Customer Experience
Focus on the customer experience. Every industry has, at its heart, the objective of meeting its customers’ – and potential customers’ – need for a positive experience Today’s businesses need to focus on customer experience more than ever, thanks to online communication (social media, reviews sites) that allows users and potential users to communicate among themselves. Customer-centric philosophies create positive digital transformations and the most effective marketing strategies.
Video Content
Social content, papers, eBooks, reviews, and blogs continue to comprise crucial aspects of marketing. Video content, however, is the king. It’s always a good idea to make a simple video that presents your product but you should also consider the new video content — virtual and augmented reality.
Analytics
Optimize the information that you can glean from analytics Today’s most successful advertisers have learned to analyze digital data so that they can target specific ads to specific populations. Measuring marketing allows marketers to track who sees their ads and who follows up – by clicking for further information or by completing a purchase. Once that information has been researched the marketer can create and target future ads more effectively.
Data Scientists and Marketing Technologists
In order to effectively optimize analytics and customer experience, marketers must learn how to connect the different forms of digital communication. These include email and social media campaigns as well as TV, radio, print and other types of media campaigns. Each campaign must incorporate techniques that allow the different types of ads to support each other.
Personalization
In the not-so-distant past, successful product promotions were based on mass customization. Today, customization has evolved into personalization. Successful industries have learned to individualize everything. Each business must find its own way to personalize its product or service. For some companies, personalizing a product or service is easy – it’s intuitive to personalize clothing, books, and different types of services.
The entertainment industry is one notable success story. In addition to customized movies, TV shows and series such as “The game of Thrones” or “Black mirror”, gaming sites such as the Grande Vegas online games have customized online gaming to such an extent that players have a choice of playing gaming machines or interacting with a Live Dealer via live-streaming software.
Social Media
2017 saw a five percent growth in Americans with social media profiles compared to the previous year. 81 percent of U.S. Americans now have some sort of social media profile and, according to estimates, that number is expected to grow. The number of worldwide social media users is expected to grow from its present 1.96 billion users to approximately 2.5 billion users in 2018.
What does this tell us? Obviously, social media can be a goldmine for marketers. However, .we need to keep track of the trends and changes in the world of social media because it’s an ever-changing field. Social media strategies say that the best idea is to limit marketing on social media sites so that users don’t feel that they’re being bombarded as they engage and communicate. Research shows that too much exposure to a product can cause viewers to ignore the post. Consultants suggest that marketers engage with consumers as opposed to blasting a message.
Social media should also be personalized. Social media sites make that easy to do. Advertisers can target their ads so that they reach people who have shown interest in other similar products or services, who live in targeted areas or who engage in targeted behaviors.
Real Life Examples
Some real-life examples of innovative marketing campaigns include:
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola does a good job of connecting with their audience by bringing a feeling of nostalgia to the fore and guiding viewers to see the fulfillment of those feelings through connecting to the Coca-Cola product. Coca-Cola works to make their messages global and bring together people from around the world.
The “sharing can” ad encourages viewers to engage with the Coca-Cola brand and also with each other. In India and Pakistan, there’s a Coca-Cola sponsored vending machine that allows Coke users to communicate with each other while European Coca-Cola drinkers can customize their Coke bottles. There are also cans of Coke that twist apart into smaller cans so that Coke enthusiasts can share! All of these features are presented in Coca-Cola ads, allowing individuals to personalize the Cola experience.
Miller Lite
Miller Beer created a whole new market with its lite (low calorie) beer. The beer company recognized that light beer might be seen as “sissy” by a big percentage of regular beer drinkers so they simply created a new market by bringing in big, husky men who declared that Miller Lite was delicious and filling. Not only did many people who had previously been drinking full-calorie beer move to Miller Lite but new beer drinkers were drawn to the beer culture through the lite beer.
Marketing has become a science but today, you can take more of a hand in marketing your company with some well-thought-out strategies.
