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The challenge is to stay on top, take advantage of new opportunities, leverage new media while staying relevant and true to the brand. (Phew!) So, as marketers, how do you decide the right thing to do at the right time on the right platform?
You can’t. Not always. What you can do is understand the fundamental ways in which modern marketing is different today than it has been in the past and evolve yourselves accordingly. These fundamental are:
- 1. Content
2. Funnels
3. Automation
1. Content and building communities
Almost every business today is creating content. Some are writing blogs. Some are doing videos. Some are only focused on podcasts. Some are doing live chats.However, no business is entertaining or educating their users only for fun. They’re doing it as marketing. You are asking the audience for their time and attention to consume the content they want to consume.
The more valuable your content, the more attention you will get.
Once you have their attention, your overall marketing strategy will determine what you do with it. But the only way to get undivided attention is by providing value and interacting with users.
You start this process with individuals and smaller communities first, but as you begin to get traction, your communities start growing.
How is this different today than a decade ago?
Back then, marketing meant convincing people that you and your product are the best. It meant persuading them to buy your product over your competitors’. Today, however, your users are aware. They have the Internet to voice their opinion about a product and make it available for everyone else to see.This is where good content bails you out. Sharing valuable content is a way of convincing your potential customers that you have the required expertise in the area and that they should trust you. Content helps you pave a way for them to discover that you are useful instead of you just telling them.
What about content has changed in these past few years?
When content first came into the spotlight, the focus was on quantity instead of quality. It was all about pushing out content. Today, the situation is exactly the opposite. Because we’ve been flooded with content in these past few years, now the focus is on producing few high-quality content pieces. When you put your heart and soul into the content, two things happen:- 1. People share your thoughts and start interacting with you
2. Google's algorithm rewards you
Two tips to do content right:
1) Be Creative when sharing your content:When sharing your content online, instead of sharing a generic link, share a branded link to stand out. So, rather than going for https://bit.ly/2U6IxX1 go for a branded option such as startupmarketing.online/branded-links.
Short branded links make your brand stand out and help in increasing recall and overall credibility of the brand. Most marketers choose 2–3 categories on which they write regularly. If that is the case, then, consider buying domain names that have keywords centered around your work. If you are a tech blogger, use a .TECH domain or you could go with slightly generic ones such as .ONLINE, .SPACE, .SITE, etc.
2) Interacting is just as important as creating:
Don’t get so caught up in creating content that you miss out on interacting with other marketers. Become a part of online communities such as Quora and Reddit and answer questions of users. It’ll help you network, share your knowledge, and establish yourself as an expert in the field.
2. Creating funnels and getting conversions
With things like building communities and creating content falling under marketing, marketers need to broaden their vision on sales funnels and conversion optimization. Modern marketing lays emphasis on funnels and conversions more than before, but in a slightly different way.Image source: Shutterstock
How is it different today than a decade ago?
With digital being on the forefront, we can track and measure our funnels in a lot more detail than we could a few years back. We can monitor every single step and tweak our ways as we go along to get the most out of our marketing moolah.What about funnels and conversions has changed in these past few years?
Funnels today can be highly customized—they include conversions and metrics that are specific to the business and the objective of the marketing campaign. With the digital revolution, we can also influence people in real-time at various stages of the funnel. For example, engaging with a customer on live chat when they are browsing through your products. Today’s marketing funnel comprises of selling, listening, participating, interacting and more.Two tips to create the right funnels
- 1. Be clear about what you want and use various metrics to measure various kinds of objectives.
2. Start simple and keep your process flexible. Evolve your funnel and strategies as you go along.
3. Automation
Almost all businesses today are using some or the other form of marketing automation, intentionally or unintentionally. Today, we have the freedom to either automate all our marketing from end-to-end or pick a specific, time-consuming part to automate.Modern marketing encourages the involvement of integrated systems that are built for automation. As marketers, we need to be clear about what we are after, what we want to automate, and to what extent. The last thing we want is to come across as robots instead of humans.
How is it different today than a decade ago?
Ever since businesses have been online, software that can be used as marketing tools have evolved at an exceptional speed. For example, we can now create high-quality graphics for our marketing collateral without having any knowledge of Photoshop. You can now easily automate your email marketing. Software such as Canva and Mail Chimp have made it possible to do almost anything without hiring an expert.What about automation has changed in these past few years?
Today, as compared to the past, almost every single process can be automated. The primary focus now is on automating what should be automated while not losing the personal input.Two tips to do automation right:
- 1. Add the human touch where needed. Or you will lose the edge that your customers love so much about you.
2. Users still mostly reward human work and are not too impressed with tasks that can be done easily by a machine.
Keeping up with the changing (marketing) times
Before you start altering your strategies, explore the content you’re offering and the communities you are contributing to at the moment. Evaluate your current process and segregate parts you would want to automate and parts where you’d prefer the human touch. And as you are evaluating everything, design marketing funnels that are unique to you and involve feedback.One of the easiest things to do is to look around and observe people who are already doing it. Watch what they are doing and what are they not doing. Understand what goals they are chasing and then apply those ideas to your business with your personal touch.
About the author: Alisha Shibli
Alisha is a Content Marketing Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .STORE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.
