Victorino Abrugar

In 2013 and in the coming 2014, I believe that marketing is already more integrated. To have a successful marketing campaign, we should not rely only on one strategy, but we need to combine various strategies that will help us form a more powerful marketing campaign online and offline.

Anna

This is a really great post, thanks! I agree with Victorino that today you need to incorporate various different strategies into your marketing campaign - both online and offline - to succeed. While there has been a mass movement towards online and digital marketing, other physical and interactive kinds of marketing are quite clearly making a comeback and do play a key part in delivering a robust and mixed marketing strategy. Companies need to realise that digital is only part of the package!

repaka venkataramanamurty

so nice

sydney mulenga

just starting in business

chan myaenaing

good

Loukesh

Hi. I have started a startup where we are providing free website along with the hosting. Their is no hidden charges at all. But I dont know the problem as no person are visiting us. How should I advertise? As we are providing stuff for free so we cant spend too much of money in marketing. So please help me.

Helen Odiah

Marketing

Akosua Akos

Hello,

I work in Ghanaian private hospital in the marketing department
I have been tasked with putting up a marketing strategy .
Any assistance will be much appreciated as i am coming from a Client Service background .
Specific examples please
Thank you

SERGE ANTHONY CAMENSI

hi good day, my name is serge and currently sales and marketing of a cold storage company. can you help me to make a more effective strategy in making promotions of our company product and services. i appreciate more if you could give me an example paragraph of promoting company product and services.

THANK YOU AND MORE POWER!

latenightbirds

This is a really great post, thanks! Businesses have a wide range of motives for using Internet marketing. Wanting to increase customer engagement, sales revenue, leads for their sales teams and brand awareness were the most important reasons. While email remains king in the types of digital marketing businesses find successful, other tactics are quickly closing the gap, new research finds.

manu

Great list!

We made a tool for marketers to get the right-sized images for social media ads. Check it out: https://adcat.io

Would love your feedback :)

Muhammad Usman

Great blog here! The success of an online marketing will depend on the strategy that the company has. The effectiveness of one’s company campaign of a certain product or services can be measured in many different ways such as the visibility of the product and services online and the patronage of the customers.

rutu patel

Spending a little money is the fastest way to advertise your site. And bulk sms is one of them.

Fizzah Iqbal

I was interested in B2C marketing strategies and I must say this was an awesome read. Will definitely apply these tactics to my business.

varsha singh

Amazing tips.

Leroux Cox

This is a great guide. I am just starting my marketing career, you have given me a few good actionable steps. Thank you!

Nick Raineri

Great post, love the option to select B2B or B2C at the beginning!

xolani mqomboti

I would like to get advice on recruiting job seekers with Related: The 4 Digital Advertising Trends That Are Reshaping Advertising

That's why you absolutely must budget for advertising, not just play with the money you have left over. By assigning the right amount of money to the right channels, you can get the results you want, or at the least, improve the results you have, based on the data you gather along the way. Since your monthly spend will be consistent, you'll be better able to measure overall efficacy, too.

Given your need to optimize your advertising efforts, then, here are the best advertising strategies for small businesses.

1. Target your audience.
Sorry, but that particular product or service you're touting does not match the needs of anyone who currently walks the Earth. Many small businesses don't run adequately targeted campaigns, despite the fact that targeting is one of online advertising's primary advantages.

Indeed, you should be able to create an accurate target customer profile based on the data you've collected. With this information in hand, and what you know about your current clientele, you can begin to target similar demographics and psychographics with your campaigns to attract more customers.

Whether you're advertising online or off, make sure your copy and imagery reflects the kind of customers you want to work with. This is key to targeting well.

2. Measure and track your advertising.
Many small businesses simply have no idea whether their advertising is actually working. This simply won't do.

Online advertising platforms like Google AdWords and Facebook provide you with extensive stats related to your ads, and will help you determine what is working and what isn't. This doesn't mean that you won't need to test and experiment, as it can take time for you to create an ad that resonates with your target customers, but it does mean that you can make faster decisions about what to try next.

If you're advertising offline, and you have to set up a specific email address or phone number to gain a clearer understanding of how your leads are finding you and what's working, then that effort is worth the hassle. Stop making guesses.

Related: 5 Digital-Marketing Tactics to Ditch in 2016

3. Know when to advertise.
At first glance, advertising year-round and spreading out your budget equally month-to-month may appear to be a wise and commonsense approach.

But if you think back to your business launch, odds are you did a lot of things that can't be scaled. There's no way for you to sustain a similar marketing and advertising initiative throughout the entire year.

If you sell seasonal products, you should be advertising in your highest-performing seasons. You may even want to start a little bit early and hold some of your advertising until a little after.

Black Friday and Christmas tend to be high-performing seasons, depending on the type of business you're running. It may be advantageous to set aside some extra ad money for these days and/or other holidays.

Finally, it can also be worthwhile to keep an eye on when your competitors launch their own big promotions. If you have an advertising budget set aside, you may be able to keep pace or even outmaneuver them.

4. Brand well.
Can your customers immediately identify your ads based on your copy, color choice, imagery, logo or typeface? If that question seems absurd, just look at what the major brands and companies are doing. Oftentimes, you can recognize their ads just from the colors they're using.

Over time, your customers will come to identify with and respond to your ad layouts. The temptation may be to change your branding every time you create a new ad, but that could be confusing and ineffective over the long haul. Your goal should be to show up in expected places, with familiar-looking ads that consistently resonate with your target customers.

Bottom line: Brand well, and stick to your image. Build loyalty through resonance.

5. Use your resources well.
You know the importance of ranking well in search, but you may simply not have the resources and time to consistently create new, informative content for your website.

In an instance like that, your best bet is to take advantage of services like Google AdWords and Bing Ads, so you appear higher in SERP results without having to optimize posts for your chosen keywords. If you have the budget to advertise, but not the time to create content, this is a good use of resources.

If you only have a small budget to allocate to advertising, it may not make sense to take out an expensive magazine ad. A Facebook ad campaign would be much more practical, since you can control your daily spend.

Make an honest assessment of the resources available to you, and leverage them in a way that helps you grow your business.

6. Show up in the right places.
It's dangerous to make too many assumptions about your target customer. For example, if there's a certain radio show that you like, and you assume that your customers like it too, you may be misinformed about the wisdom of spending money on a radio ad there that could prove expensive and ineffective.

If your advertising dollars are going to the wrong place, you're wasting your money. Instead, you need to get to know your customers. So, survey them. Get a sense of where they like to hang out online, what books and magazines they read, what podcast and radio shows they listen to and so on.

When your advertising is matched with the right understanding of your customers, you'll begin to attract more worthwhile leads to your business.

Final thoughts
There are plenty of opportunities to monetize through adverting. The key is in knowing who your target customers are, where they like to hang out -- and thus where to find more people like them -- and allocating your resources to those specific channels.

Related: Building a Can't-Miss Video Advertising Campaign for 2016

Advertising is not set-and-forget. You need to be strategic in the way you approach it, and amplify your marketing at the right times. effect

dexino guri

Greg, great article — thank you for sharing these important keys to every business’ marketing strategy. You’re right…having a strategy and defined tactics create the roadmap for our business this year. If we don’t have a roadmap we are NOT going to get to our destination….a successful business!

felipe andrade

Great article, it helped a lot, thank you.

Nice article Keep up the good work RAj

Your ideas encourage me to develop the marking techniques

Cybergenic Associates International

Hi Great post! Thanks for sharing :) We've been trying to create an account on hubpage but for some reason end up unsuccessful. Anyways, we will try again.


http://www.cybergenic.net/

oss moh

Hi
Is very useful post. I am an intern student B2B technology company and I have been tasked with putting up a digital marketing strategy to the company to promote ifactory products. I will be much appreciated if you help me with an example or any plan.
Thanks

Owen Dennis

Dit is het meest grondige artikel dat ik de afgelopen tijd over productieve marketing heb gehad, eenvoudig en zeer gemakkelijk te begrijpen. Ik wou dat ik meer van je nieuwsbrieven kan hebben. Dank je.

Bob Mamak

Effectieve strategieën om bedrijven te stimuleren.

Case-oplossing

Geweldig artikel bedankt of gedeeld ..

George Kuhn

Geweldige post hier op enkele populaire marketingactiviteiten. Bedankt voor het delen!