It doesn’t matter if you have the best product or service in the world if you don’t know how to market it. Without properly presenting it to the right target audience at their time of need, you cannot sell it and all the hard work your engineers and product managers have invested are useless. By the same token, your brand name will never become something people will recognize instantly because of what you are selling. There is only one McDonald’s, but for their one Happy Meal you inevitably associate with the brand, there are thousands of other ideas no one ever heard of simply because they weren’t advertised well enough. To further your marketing efforts, we give you 5 ways to market successfully explained in video in collaboration with our partners from YouTubeToMP3Shark.
1) Implement inbound marketing
You’ve heard of inbound marketing, but you may not be exactly sure what it refers to and how to use it? A video by Stukent takes you in-depth into the topic, walks you through the stages of attracting, converting, closing, delighting customers and more. Everything you need to know to get an idea of what you may need in terms of marketing and business strategy packed in one hour-long video. But don’t get discouraged. You can listen to it on a faster speed to cut down on the length, but the value you get from it is really worth the time you invested. And remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
2) Educate your customers
Something interesting has occurred over the past few years. Consumers are no longer going to websites to see what the brand has to say about their product. Instead, customers are looking elsewhere for their information – they’re going to review sites, they’re scouring the Internet, they’re doing research. While this might not seem like a big deal (after all, customers are still buying products at the end of the day), this is actually a major shift that marketers need to address.
These days, consumers don’t want to be sold to, they want to be informed, so they can make their own choices based on what they learn on their own about your brand and products or services. Therefore, the smart thing to do is to give consumers the information they’re looking for in order for them to be able to make a good decision on their own. That is where education marketing enters the picture.
By giving over the information consumers are looking for, you achieve several things:
– Establish you as an authority
– Show customers that you’re there to help
– Deliver your message sincerely
– Create buyer trust
– Create a deeper relationship with your customers (you’re not a seller, you’re an educator).
With educational marketing, you answer questions and give genuinely useful and good content. Use all the tools in your toolbox (blog posts, ebooks, videos, etc.) and give over as much valuable information as you can. Here’s a short video that explains the concept perfectly.
3) Give value to your customers
Marketing is about providing value to customers. Everyone wants to solve their problems and it’s down to your marketing efforts to prove to the consumers that your product or service does just that. The way the big dogs make this happen (and the way even little dogs can become successful in their own niches) is by showing that they care and that they’re there to make your lives better in some way.
In the video below, Steve Jobs goes through the big brands and products and shows us their secrets, show us how they promote betterment, not statistics, numbers or specs. Nike doesn’t tell us their sneakers are made of premium grade rubber. They SHOW us how great athletes are, their prowess, their power. And those athletes wear Nike. Show people that your brand can make their lives better and you’re golden.
4) Link to other credible sources
In the next video, a great and simple tip for building audience comes from another marketing giant of today, Neil Patel. In it, Mr. Patel talks about this idea: linking to credible sources. He even says that you should link out to competitors when it is relevant. Yes, it seems really counterintuitive to drive traffic away from your site and to a competitors’, but here’s the logic:
Your brand is new, and nobody knows who you are or what you’re about. You post an article on your blog, and you offer good information, so your readers get the sense that you know what you are talking about. You add in a link to a useful tool that your competitor has, so people now get a tool to use. With each step, consumers are getting to know you, and what they’re seeing is that you’re someone who they can turn to for useful information, helpful tools and genuine value.
So yeah, that’s worth all the linking out you do big time. What’s more, many people will appreciate the attention and link back to you in one of their articles, giving your site more attention and credibility. Bottom line, linking out to credible resources (even competitors) builds trust, reliability and value.
5) Use emotions
Most people go through life sort of on autopilot. We get up, go to work, do our thing, come home, take a shower. Rinse, repeat. There isn’t much that shocks us out of our status quo, but one thing does. Emotions. Complex emotions are what separate us from other species, they’re what make our days good or bad, humdrum or meaningful. Emotions make things, experiences and people stand out in our minds.
That’s what brands need to take advantage of. The power of emotions is so compelling that major companies use them to propel their brands forward. Coke is a perfect example of this. The brand sells a fizzy drink that’s terrible for our health and rots our teeth, but that’s not what people think of when they hear Coke. You’ll see a lot of these messages in their commercials:
– Friendship
– Happiness
– Relaxation
– Holiday festivities
– Success
– Spreading joy
– Sharing
– Family.
Coke isn’t selling a drink, they’re selling positive values. And that’s something everyone wants to buy.
So, there you have it, people. With these (and a few more) digital marketing strategy insights, sky is the limit for your company. Think about them, implement them and see the results. We hope these videos will help you see the light at the tunnel called “marketing efforts”, but if they don’t we are ready to lend a hand. Contact us today!
NOTE: You can read the original article here.
