July 2021

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Saturday, July 17, 2021

Marketing research

What Is Market Research?

Market research is the process of determining the viability of a new service or product through research conducted directly with potential customers. Market research allows a company to discover the target market and get opinions and other feedback from consumers about their interest in the product or service.

This type of research can be conducted in-house, by the company itself, or by a third-party company that specializes in market research. It can be done through surveys, product testing, and focus groups. Test subjects are usually compensated with product samples and/or paid a small stipend for their time. Market research is a critical component in the research and development (R&D) of a new product or service.

Understanding Market Research

The purpose of market research is to look at the market associated with a particular good or service to ascertain how the audience will receive it. This can include information gathering for the purpose of market segmentation and product differentiation, which can be used to tailor advertising efforts or determine which features are seen as a priority to the consumer.

A business must engage in a variety of tasks to complete the market research process. It needs to gather information based on the market sector being examined. The business needs to analyze and interpret the resulting data to determine the presence of any patterns or relevant data points that it can use in the decision-making process.

Market research is a critical tool in helping companies understand what consumers want, develop products that those consumers will use, and maintain a competitive advantage over other companies in their industry.

How Market Research Gathers Information

Market research consists of a combination of primary information, or what has been gathered by the company or by a person hired by the company, and secondary information, or what has been gathered by an outside source.

Primary Information

Primary information is the data that the company has collected directly or that has been collected by a person or business hired to conduct the research. This type of information generally falls into two categories: exploratory and specific research.

Exploratory research is a less structured option and functions via more open-ended questions, and it results in questions or issues being presented that the company may need to address. Specific research finds answers to previously identified issues that are often brought to attention through exploratory research.

Secondary Information

Secondary information is data that an outside entity has already gathered. This can include population information from government census data, trade association research reports, or presented research from another business operating within the same market sector.

Example of Market Research

Many companies use market research to test out new products or to get information from consumers about what kinds of products or services they need and don't currently have.

For example, a company that was considering going into business might conduct market research to test the viability of its product or service. If the market research confirms consumer interest, the business can proceed confidently with the business plan. If not, the company should use the results of the market research to make adjustments to the product to bring it in line with customer desires.

The Development of Market Research

Formal market research began in Germany during the 1920s.1 Around the same time, market research in the United States took off during the advertising boom of the Golden Age of Radio. Companies that advertised on the radio began to understand the demographics that were revealed by how different radio shows were sponsored.

Face-to-Face Interviews

From there, companies were developed that would interview people on the street about publications that they read and whether they recognized any of the ads or brands within the ads that were published in the magazines or newspapers the interviewer showed them. Data collected from these interviews were compared to the circulation of the publication in order to see how effective those ads were. Market research and surveys were adapted from these early techniques.

Phone Research

Data collection then shifted to the telephone, making face-to-face contact unnecessary. A telephone operator could collect information or organize focus groups—and do so quickly and in a more organized and orderly fashion. This method improved the market research model greatly.

Online Market Research

With people spending more time online, many market research activities have shifted online as well. While the platform may have changed, data collection is still mainly done in a survey-style form. But instead of companies actively seeking participants by finding them on the street or by cold calling them on the phone, people can choose to sign up and take surveys and offer opinions when they have time. This makes the process far less intrusive and less rushed since people can do so on their own time and by their own volition.

ARTICLE SOURCES

Related Terms

Target Markets: What Everyone Should Know

A target market refers to a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products and services. more

Demographics Definition

Demographic analysis is the study of a population based on factors such as age, race, sex, education, income, and employment. more

Advertising Appropriation

The advertising appropriation or advertising budget is the portion of the total marketing budget a company spends on advertising over a specific time. more

Marketing Strategy

A marketing strategy is a business's general scheme for developing a customer base for the product or service the business provides. more

Understanding Market Orientation

Market orientation is a business approach that prioritizes identifying the needs and desires of consumers and creating products that satisfy them. more

How to Perform Due Diligence on a Company

Performing due diligence means thoroughly checking the financials of a potential financial decision. Here's how to do due diligence for individual stocks. more

Partner Links

MR Laboratory digital marketing

Video marketing

video marketing

Brands need a video marketing strategy — this idea isn't new. What has changed is how important video has become on every platform and channel.

Video is no longer just one piece of your overall marketing plan. It's central to your outreach and campaign efforts … especially your social strategy.

Video has absolutely dominated social. HubSpot Research shows that four of the top six channels on which global consumers watch video are social channels.

Why is this important?

If you aren't creating video, you're likely falling behind. But don't fret. For most videos, the more simple and raw it is, the more authentic the content seems … and that's what really matters to your audience.

Better yet, video production is more cost-effective than ever — you can shoot in high-quality, 4K video with your smartphone.

Regardless, between camera equipment to lighting to editing software, the topic of video marketing can still seem pretty complicated. That's why we compiled this guide.

Continue reading learn everything you need to know about video marketing strategy, or use the links below to jump to a specific section.

Video Marketing

Video marketing is using videos to promote and market your product or service, increase engagement on your digital and social channels, educate your consumers and customers, and reach your audience with a new medium.

Why should you focus on video marketing today?

The last handful of years saw a surge in the popularity of video as a content marketing format.

Specifically, in 2017, video rise to the top of your marketing tactic list. Video as a tactic was likely streamlined by your creative team as a one-to-many awareness play, with lots of focus on expensive production and little analysis to show for it.

2018 and 2019 transformed video from a singular marketing tactic to an entire business strategy.

Today, video is a holistic business approach, meaning video content should be produced by all teams in a conversational, actionable, and measurable way.

Learn how personalized video is shaping the future of marketing, sales, and customer service.

According to a report from HubSpot Research, more than 50% of consumers want to see videos from brands … more than any other type of content.

video marketing video content is preferred

Video is useful for more than entertainment, too. Video on landing pages is capable of increasing conversion rates by over 80%, and the mere mention of the word “video” in your email subject line increases open rates by 19%. 90% of customers also say videos help them make buying decisions.

But video hasn't only transformed how businesses market and consumers shop; it's also revolutionized how salespeople connect with and convert prospects and how service teams support and delight customers. In short, video is incredibly useful throughout the entire flywheel — not just to heighten brand awareness.

Video can be a versatile tool for salespeople throughout the entire customer buying journey, and it can do much more than increase engagement. Backend analytics also help salespeople qualify and prioritize cold or unresponsive leads.

According to Gary Stevens, head of research at HostingCanada.org, "retargeting our website visitors on social media has led to a 47% increase in visitor value site-wide." The granularity of video analytics on platforms like Facebook is one reason why, in 2018, 93% of businesses reported getting a new customer on social media thanks to video.

The options are also endless for service teams — onboarding videos, knowledge-based videos, meet the team videos, support video calls, and customer stories are just a few ways that video can create a more thorough, personalized customer support experience.

Lastly, according to HubSpot Research, consumers and customers actually prefer lower quality, “authentic” video over high-quality video that seems artificial and inauthentic.

Video is within reach for businesses of virtually any size — team and budget alike. 45% of marketers plan to add YouTube to their content strategy in the next year. Will you join them?

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The Ultimate Video Marketing Starter Kit

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The 12 Types of Marketing Videos

Before you begin filming, you first need to determine the type of video(s) you want to create. Check out this list to better understand your options.

1. Demo Videos

Demo videos showcase how your product works — whether that's taking viewers on a tour of your software and how it can be used or unboxing and putting a physical product to the test.

Learn how to use video in each stage of the buyer's journey.

2. Brand Videos

Brand videos are typically created as a part of a larger advertising campaign, showcasing the company's high-level vision, mission, or products and services.

The goal of brand videos is to build awareness around your company and to intrigue and attract your target audience.

3. Event Videos

Is your business hosting a conference, round table discussion, fundraiser, or another type of event?

Produce a highlight reel or release interesting interviews and presentations from the gathering.

4. Expert Interviews

Capturing interviews with internal experts or thought leaders in your industry is a great way to build trust and authority with your target audience. Find the influencers in your industry — whether they share your point-of-view or not — get these discussions in front of your audience.

The video above is more than just a surface-level interview, it's a deep-dive with an industry expert offering concrete takeaways for viewers interested in creating viral content. Don't be afraid to get tactical with your interviews — your audience will grow from your hard work.

5. Educational or How-To Videos

Instructional videos can be used to teach your audience something new or build the foundational knowledge they'll need to better understand your business and solutions. These videos can also be used by your sales and service teams as they work with customers.

6. Explainer Videos

This type of video is used to help your audience better understand why they need your product or service. Many explainer videos focus on a fictional journey of the company's core buyer persona who is struggling with a problem. This person overcomes the issue by adopting or buying the business's solution.

7. Animated Videos

HubSpot created the following video to promote a key (intangible) theme from the 2017 State of Inbound report.

MR Laboratory digital marketing

Marketing strategy

marketing strategy

What Is a Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy refers to a business's overall game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products or services. A marketing strategy contains the company’s value proposition, key brand messaging, data on target customer demographics, and other high-level elements.

A thorough marketing strategy covers "the four Ps" of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.

Understanding Marketing Strategies

A clear marketing strategy should revolve around the company's value proposition, which communicates to consumers what the company stands for, how it operates, and why it deserves their business. This provides marketing teams with a template that should inform their initiatives across all of the company's products and services. For example, Walmart (WMT: NYSE) is widely known as a discount retailer with “everyday low prices,” whose business operations and marketing efforts are rooted in that idea.

Marketing Strategies vs. Marketing Plans

The marketing strategy informs the marketing plan, which is a document that details the specific types of marketing activities a company conducts and contains timetables for rolling out various marketing initiatives.

Marketing strategies should ideally have longer lifespans than individual marketing plans because they contain value propositions and other key elements of a company’s brand, which generally hold constant over the long haul. In other words, marketing strategies cover big-picture messaging, while marketing plans delineate the logistical details of specific campaigns.

Academics continue to debate the precise meaning of marketing strategy, and so multiple definitions exist. The following quotes from industry experts help crystallize the nuances of (modern) marketing strategy:

"The sole purpose of marketing is to sell more to more people, more often and at higher prices." (Sergio Zyman, marketing executive and former Coca-Cola and JC Penney marketer)

"Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell." (Seth Godin, former business executive, and entrepreneur)

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself." (Peter Drucker, credited as the founder of modern management)

“Marketing’s job is never done. It’s about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day.” (Beth Comstock, former vice chair and chief marketing officer, GE)

"Take two ideas and put them together to make one new idea. After all, what is a Snuggie but the mutation of a blanket and a robe?" (Jim Kukral, speaker and author of Attention!)

The Creation of Marketing Strategy

The ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to achieve and communicate a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies by understanding the needs and wants of its consumers. Whether it's a print ad design, mass customization, or a social media campaign, a marketing asset can be judged based on how effectively it communicates a company's core value proposition.

Market research can help chart the efficacy of a given campaign and can help identify untapped audiences to achieve bottom-line goals and increase sales.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my company need a marketing strategy?

A marketing plan helps a company direct its advertising dollars to where it will have the most impact. A 2019 study conducted by CoSchedule, a provider of marketing software solutions, found that firms with a documented marketing strategy were 313% more likely to report success in their marketing campaigns. The company surveyed 3,599 marketers from more than 100 countries.

What does a marketing strategy look like?

A marketing strategy will detail the advertising, outreach, and PR campaigns to be carried out by a firm, including how the company will measure the effect of these initiatives. They will typically follow the "four P's". The functions and components of a marketing plan include the following:

Market research to support pricing decisions and new market entries

Tailored messaging that targets certain demographics and geographic areas

Platform selection for product and service promotion—digital, radio, Internet, trade magazines, and the mix of those platforms for each campaign

Metrics that measure the results of marketing efforts and their reporting timelines

What do the 4 Ps mean in a marketing strategy?

The 4 P's" are product, price, promotion, and place. These are the key factors that are involved in the marketing of a good or service. The 4 P's can be used when planning a new business venture, evaluating an existing offer, or trying to optimize sales with a target audience. It can also be used to test a current marketing strategy on a new audience.

Is a marketing strategy the same as a marketing plan?

The terms marketing plan and marketing strategy are often used interchangeably because a marketing plan is developed based on an overarching strategic framework. In some cases, the strategy and the plan may be incorporated into one document, particularly for smaller companies that may only run one or two major campaigns in a year. The plan outlines marketing activities on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis while the marketing strategy outlines the overall value proposition.

Related Terms

Macromarketing

Macromarketing is the study of the effect that marketing policies and strategies have on the economy and society as a whole. more

How Marketing Plans Work

A marketing plan is an operational document that demonstrates how an organization is planning to use advertising and outreach to target a specific market. more

The 4 Ps of Marketing

The 4 Ps of marketing are the key categories involved in the marketing of a good or service. The 4 Ps refers to product, price, place, and promotion. more

Target Markets: What Everyone Should Know

A target market refers to a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products and services. more

Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing utilizes multiple distribution channels to promote products and services via mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones. more

Understanding Product Differentiation

Product differentiation is the process of identifying and communicating the unique qualities of a brand compared to its competitors. more

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MR Laboratory digital marketing

Online marketing

online marketing

What Is Online Marketing?

Online marketing is the practice of leveraging web-based channels to spread a message about a company’s brand, products, or services to its potential customers. The methods and techniques used for online marketing include email, social media, display advertising, search engine optimization, Google AdWords and more. The objective of marketing is to reach potential customers through the channels where they spend their time reading, searching, shopping, and socializing online.

Widespread adoption of the internet for business and personal use has generated new channels for advertising and marketing engagement, including those mentioned above. There are also many benefits and challenges inherent to online marketing, which uses primarily digital mediums to attract, engage, and convert virtual visitors to customers.

Online marketing differs from traditional marketing, which has historically included mediums like print, billboard, television and radio advertisements.

Before online marketing channels emerged, the cost to market products or services was often prohibitively expensive, and traditionally difficult to measure. Think of national TV ad campaigns, which are measured through consumer focus groups to determine levels of brand awareness. These methods are traditionally lso not well-suited to controlled experimentation. Today, anyone with an online business (as well as most offline businesses) can participate in online marketing by creating a website and building customer acquisition campaigns at little to no cost. Those marketing products and services also have the ability to experiment with optimization to fine-tune their campaigns’ efficiency and ROI.

Benefits Of Online Marketing

A key benefit of using online channels for marketing a business or product is the ability to measure the impact of any given channel, as well as how visitors acquired through different channels interact with a website or landing page experience. Of the visitors that convert into paying customers, further analysis can be done to determine which channels are most effective at acquiring valuable customers.

Analytics for web or mobile app experiences can help determine the following:

Which online marketing channels are the most cost-effective at acquiring customers, based on the conversion rate of visitors to customers, and the cost of those visitors.

Which channels are effective at acquiring and driving higher lifetime value for customers — such as email marketing, which drives repeat purchases to prior customers.

Which cohorts of customers exhibit strong engagement behavior and high potential for upsells — such as software or mobile apps, which expect to sell more products to customers with high engagement.

Online Marketing Tools

There are a number of tools that can be used to build and maintain a robust online marketing program:

Email Marketing

Social Media Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Display Advertising

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Virtual Events & Webinars

A/B Testing & Website Optimization

Content Marketing

Video Marketing

Marketing Analytics

Marketing Automation

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Content Management System (CMS)

Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising

LinkedIn Ads

Affiliate Marketing

Examples Of Online Marketing

Some examples of online marketing campaigns include:

Canon advertises for search keywords related to "photography" on Google, Yahoo, and Bing search engines to market their cameras to a relevant audience to drive traffic to a specific webpage.

Whole Foods collects email addresses on their website to create email lists that can be used to advertise new products, sales, and events in their stores.

Dove creates video advertisements and shares them with their audience on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms to promote favorable conversation about their brand and products.

Bite Beauty partners with influencers to promote a new lipstick to their target audience of high-quality, beauty enthusiasts.

Although online marketing creates many opportunities for businesses to grow their presence via the internet and build their audiences, there are also inherent challenges with these methods of marketing. First, the marketing can become impersonal, due to the virtual nature of message and content delivery to a desired audience. Marketers must inform their strategy for online marketing with a strong understanding of their customer’s needs and preferences. Techniques like surveys, user testing, and in-person conversations can be used to understand the overall user experience.

Online marketing can also be crowded and competitive. Although the opportunities to provide goods and services in both local and far-reaching markets is empowering, the competition can be significant. Companies investing in online marketing may find visitors’ attention is difficult to capture due to the number of business also marketing their products and services online. Marketers must develop a balance of building a unique value proposition (UVP) and brand voice as they test and build marketing campaigns on various channels.

MR Laboratory digital marketing

Internet marketing

internet marketing

What is Internet Marketing?

Your Guide to Today’s Online Marketing

Here's everything you need to know about internet marketing, also known as online marketing, to help your business or brand drive traffic, leads, and sales.

Internet marketing is the most inexpensive way to reach your target market, regardless of the size of your business.

But what is internet marketing, really?

Defining Internet Marketing

Also called online marketing, internet marketing is the process of promoting a business or brand and its products or services over the internet using tools that help drive traffic, leads, and sales.

Internet marketing a pretty broad term that encompasses a range of marketing tactics and strategies – including content, email, search, paid media, and more.

These days, though, internet marketing is often used interchangeably with “content marketing.”

Why?

Because content marketing is the internet marketing of the present and future.

Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as:

Think of it like this: content marketing (or inbound marketing) is in direct opposition to traditional advertising (outbound marketing), and in direct integration with the patterns and habits of today’s generation.

We don’t like to be sold to, we have our ad-blockers on, and we barely watch cable anymore.

Content marketing serves up content that addresses our pain points, and is there when we want it.

Here’s a great illustration of that from Voltier Digital:

What is Internet Marketing? Your Guide to Today’s Online Marketing

Content Marketing vs. Traditional Advertising

Here’s the evolutional pathway behind the modernized form of marketing that is most successful today.

Selling no longer works (a.k.a., traditional advertising).

Why?

Traditional advertising focuses on pushing messages at the consumer to get them to buy.

It’s interruptive, obstructive, and intrusive.

It shouts, “Hey, look at me!” while waving its arms.

You may try to avoid eye contact, but traditional ads are persistent.

You know what traditional ads look like because you’re bombarded with them every single day.

Think TV commercials, billboards, magazine ads, radio ads, and web banner ads.

What is Internet Marketing? Your Guide to Today’s Online Marketing

Ads have been around for a long time, as evidenced by this traditional ad for “honest-to-goodness” coffee from the 1950s.

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Ads may still work in some strategic places.

But Internet users can just click away from ads if they don’t want to see them.

Which is exactly what happens.

According to a PageFair report, 615 million devices in use today employ ad blockers. Additionally, ad blocker use increased by 30 percent in 2016 alone.

You know it, I know it, everybody knows it.

Ads are annoying.

And, they aren’t the way consumers prefer to learn about new products anymore.

Instead of businesses shoving themselves in consumers’ faces, they need to take a different, gentler approach.

Content marketing is exactly that.

Brands and marketers who use it publish content that teaches, inspires, guides, or solves a problem for their target audience.

With some handy tricks, the targets can find that content on the web without it being pushed at them.

If the prospects gain something useful from the content, they’ll keep coming back for more.

Finally, consumers can interact with the brand organically and share their content on social media.

Trust is forged.

Authority is established.

Connections happen.

These loyal followers can then be converted into leads and sales – naturally.

All of the above happens with a focus on giving value to the user.

Help users – offer them value and they’ll reward you in return.

That is what internet marketing/content marketing is all about at its core.

Why Internet Marketing?

Now that you know what internet marketing is, you still may be wondering why there’s so much hype around it.

Well, the hype is totally founded.

Internet marketing has shown proven success over and over again.

Here are some stats gathered from around the web to help give you an idea of why internet/content marketing stands tall:

By 2019, content marketing is set to be an industry worth $313 billion.

91 percent of businesses already are convinced of its power and have already adopted it as an essential marketing tactic.

Content marketing costs 62 percent less than traditional, outbound marketing, but pulls in 3x as many leads.

If you’re a small business with a blog, you’ll rake in 126 percent more lead growth than your competitors without a blog

If you have a blog and publish content, you’re likely to get 434 percent more indexed pages on Google, on average

And there’s more.

From my own content marketing endeavors, I have seen my small business take off.

With 99 percent of our focus on content marketing, we managed to grow our worth to millions of dollars.

Bottom line: This stuff works.

MR Laboratory digital marketing

Social media marketing

Social Media Marketing for Businesses

Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. Your customers are already interacting with brands through social media, and if you're not speaking directly to your audience through social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, you're missing out! Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and even driving leads and sales.

social media marketing

Social Media Marketing 101: What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing, or SMM, is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media advertising.

We’ve created this guide to provide you with an introduction to social media marketing and some starter social media marketing tips and training to improve your business's social presence.

With these tips, you can begin developing your own social media marketing expert plan.

Social Media and Marketing: Start With a Plan

Before you begin creating social media marketing campaigns, consider your business’s goals. Starting a social media marketing campaign without a social strategy in mind is like wandering around a forest without a map—you might have fun, but you'll probably get lost.

Here are some questions to ask when defining your social media marketing goals:

What are you hoping to achieve through social media marketing?

Who is your target audience?

Where would your target audience hang out and how would they use social media?

What message do you want to send to your audience with social media marketing?

Your business type should inform and drive your social media marketing strategy.

social media marketing instagram post

Example of a drone company doing social media marketing on Instagram

For example, an e-commerce or travel business, being highly visual, can get a lot of value from a strong presence on Instagram or Pinterest. A business-to-business or marketing company might find more leverage in Twitter or Linkedin.

How Social Media Marketing Can Help You Meet Your Marketing Goals

Social media marketing can help with a number of goals, such as:

Increasing website traffic

Building conversions

Raising brand awareness

Creating a brand identity and positive brand association

Improving communication and interaction with key audiences

The bigger and more engaged your audience is on social media networks, the easier it will be for you to achieve every other marketing goal on your list!

Check out our BEST Social Media Marketing Tips EVER! Download for Free Here.

Best Social Media Marketing Tips

Ready to get started with marketing on social media? Here are a few social media marketing tips to kick off your social media campaigns.

Social Media Content Planning — As discussed previously, building a social media marketing plan is essential. Consider keyword research and competitive research to help brainstorm content ideas that will interest your target audience. What are other businesses in your industry doing to drive engagement on social media?

Great Social Content — Consistent with other areas of online marketing, content reigns supreme when it comes to social media marketing. Make sure you post regularly and offer truly valuable information that your ideal customers will find helpful and interesting. The content that you share on your social networks can include social media images, videos, infographics, how-to guides and more.

facebook advertising examples

A great Facebook ad should be consistent with your whole brand image

A Consistent Brand Image — Using social media for marketing enables your business to project your brand image across a variety of different social media platforms. While each platform has its own unique environment and voice, your business’s core identity, whether it's friendly, fun, or trustworthy, should stay consistent.

Social Media for Content Promotion — Social media marketing is a perfect channel for sharing your best site and blog content with readers. Once you build a loyal following on social media, you'll be able to post all your new content and make sure your readers can find new stuff right away. Plus, great blog content will help you build more followers. It's a surprising way that content marketing and social media marketing benefit each other.

Sharing Curated Links — While using social media for marketing is a great way to leverage your own unique, original content to gain followers, fans, and devotees, it’s also an opportunity to link to outside articles as well. If other sources provide great, valuable information you think your target audience will enjoy, don’t be shy about linking to them. Curating and linking to outside sources improves trust and reliability, and you may even get some links in return.

Tracking Competitors — It’s always important to keep an eye on competitors—they can provide valuable data for keyword research and other social media marketing insight. If your competitors are using a certain social media marketing channel or technique that seems to be working for them, considering doing the same thing, but do it better!

social media marketing promoted tweets

Measuring social media performance through Twitter Analytics

Measuring Success with Analytics — You can’t determine the success of your social media marketing strategies without tracking data. Google Analytics can be used as a great social media marketing tool that will help you measure your most triumphant social media marketing techniques, as well as determine which strategies are better off abandoned. Attach tracking tags to your social media marketing campaigns so that you can properly monitor them. And be sure to use the analytics within each social platform for even more insight into which of your social content is performing best with your audience.

Social Media Crisis Management — Things don't always go swimmingly for brands on social media. It's best to have a playbook in place so your employees know how to handle a snafu. Check out our guide to social media crisis management to see examples of the worst social media disasters, plus tips on how they should have been handled.

How to Choose the Best Social Media Platforms for Marketing

Here's a brief overview about how to use social media for marketing according to each platform’s unique user base and environment. Different social media marketing sites require different approaches, so develop a unique strategy tailored for each platform.

Using Facebook for Social Media Marketing

marketing social media

Facebook’s casual, friendly environment requires an active social media marketing strategy. Start by creating a Facebook Business Fan Page. You will want to pay careful attention to layout, as the visual component is a key aspect of the Facebook experience.

Facebook is a place people go to relax and chat with friends, so keep your tone light and friendly. And remember, organic reach on Facebook can be extremely limited, so consider a cost-effective Facebook ad strategy, which can have a big impact on your organic Facebook presence as well!

Using Google+ for Social Media Marketing

Google+ entered the scene as a Facebook competitor, but it now serves a more niche audience. It won't work for everybody, but some communities are very active on Google+.

On Google+ you can upload and share photos, videos, links, and view all your +1s. Also take advantage of Google+ circles, which allow you to segment your followers into smaller groups, enabling you to share information with some followers while barring others. For example, you might try creating a “super-fan” circle, and share special discounts and exclusive offers only with that group.

Note that Google has announced plans to retire Google+, so plan accordingly!

Using Pinterest for Social Media Marketing

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media marketing trends. Pinterest’s image-centered platform is ideal for retail, but anyone can benefit from using Pinterest for social media purposes or sales-driving ads.

Pinterest allows businesses to showcase their product offerings while also developing brand personality with eye-catching, unique pinboards. When developing your Pinterest strategy, remember that the social network's primary audience is female. If that's your demographic, you need a presence on Pinterest!

Using Twitter for Social Media Marketing

social media marketing for dummies

Twitter is the social media marketing tool that lets you broadcast your updates across the web. Follow tweeters in your industry or related fields, and you should gain a steady stream of followers in return.

Mix up your official tweets about specials, discounts, and news with fun, brand-building tweets. Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say about you, and don’t forget to answer people’s questions when possible. Using Twitter as a social media marketing tool revolves around dialog and communication, so be sure to interact as much as possible to nurture and build your following.

Using LinkedIn for Social Media Marketing

LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites. LinkedIn Groups is a great venue for entering into a professional dialog with people in similar industries and provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. It's also great for posting jobs and general employee networking.

Encourage customers or clients to give your business a recommendation on your LinkedIn profile. Recommendations makes your business appear more credible and reliable for new customers. Also browse the Questions section of LinkedIn; providing answers helps you get established as a thought leader and earns trust.

Using YouTube for Social Media Marketing

MR Laboratory digital marketing

Digital marketing

digital marketing

Digital Marketing

Any marketing that uses electronic devices to convey promotional messaging and measure its impact. In practice, digital marketing typically refers to marketing campaigns that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. It can take many forms, including online video, display ads, and social media posts. Digital marketing is often compared to “traditional marketing” such as magazine ads, billboards, and direct mail. Oddly, television is usually lumped in with traditional marketing.

Did you know that more than 3 quarters of Americans go online on a daily basis? Not only that, but 43% go on more than once a day and 26% are online “almost constantly.”

These figures are even higher among mobile internet users. 89% of Americans go online at least daily, and 31% are online almost constantly. As a marketer, it’s important to take advantage of the digital world with an online advertising presence, by building a brand, providing a great customer experience that also brings more potential customers and more, with a digital strategy.

What is digital marketing?

Digital marketing, also called online marketing, is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication. This includes not only email, social media, and web-based advertising, but also text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel.

Essentially, if a marketing campaign involves digital communication, it's digital marketing.

Inbound marketing versus digital marketing

Digital marketing and inbound marketing are easily confused, and for good reason. Digital marketing uses many of the same tools as inbound marketing—email and online content, to name a few. Both exist to capture the attention of prospects through the buyer’s journey and turn them into customers. But the 2 approaches take different views of the relationship between the tool and the goal.

Digital marketing considers how each individual tool can convert prospects. A brand's digital marketing strategy may use multiple platforms or focus all of its efforts on 1 platform.

Inbound marketing is a holistic concept. It considers the goal first, then looks at the available tools to determine which will effectively reach target customers, and then at which stage of the sales funnel that should happen.

The most important thing to remember about digital marketing and inbound marketing is that as a marketing professional, you don’t have to choose between the 2. In fact, they work best together. Inbound marketing provides structure and purpose for effective digital marketing to digital marketing efforts, making sure that each digital marketing channel works toward a goal.

B2B versus B2C digital marketing

Digital marketing works for B2B as well as B2C companies, but best practices differ significantly between the 2.

B2B clients tend to have longer decision-making processes, and thus longer sales funnels. Relationship-building strategies work better for these clients, whereas B2C customers tend to respond better to short-term offers and messages.

B2B transactions are usually based on logic and evidence, which is what skilled B2B digital marketers present. B2C content is more likely to be emotionally-based, focusing on making the customer feel good about a purchase.

B2B decisions tend to need more than 1 person's input. The marketing materials that best drive these decisions tend to be shareable and downloadable. B2C customers, on the other hand, favor one-on-one connections with a brand.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. A B2C company with a high-ticket product, such as a car or computer, might offer more informative and serious content. Your strategy always needs to be geared toward your own customer base, whether you're B2B or B2C.

Types of digital marketing

There are as many specializations within digital marketing as there are ways of interacting using digital media. Here are a few key examples.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is technically a marketing tool rather than a form of marketing in itself. The Balance defines it as “the art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines.”

The "art and science" part of SEO is what’s most important. SEO is a science because it requires you to research and weigh different contributing factors to achieve the highest possible ranking. Today, the most important elements to consider when optimizing a web page include:

Quality of content

Level of user engagement

Mobile-friendliness

Number and quality of inbound links

The strategic use of these factors makes SEO a science, but the unpredictability involved makes it an art.

In SEO, there's no quantifiable rubric or consistent rule for ranking highly. Google changes its algorithm almost constantly, so it's impossible to make exact predictions. What you can do is closely monitor your page's performance and make adjustments accordingly.

Content marketing

SEO is a major factor in content marketing, a strategy based on the distribution of relevant and valuable content to a target audience.

As in any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is to attract leads that ultimately convert into customers. But it does so differently than traditional advertising. Instead of enticing prospects with potential value from a product or service, it offers value for free in the form of written material.

Content marketing matters, and there are plenty of stats to prove it:

84% of consumers expect companies to produce entertaining and helpful content experiences

62% of companies that have at least 5,000 employees produce content daily

92% of marketers believe that their company values content as an important asset

As effective as content marketing is, it can be tricky. Content marketing writers need to be able to rank highly in search engine results while also engaging people who will read the material, share it, and interact further with the brand. When the content is relevant, it can establish strong relationships throughout the pipeline.

Social media marketing

Social media marketing means driving traffic and brand awareness by engaging people in discussion online. The most popular platforms for social media marketing are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind.

Because social media marketing involves active audience participation, it has become a popular way of getting attention. It's the most popular content medium for B2C marketers at 96%, and it's gaining ground in the B2B sphere as well. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of B2B content marketers increased their use of social media this year.

Social media marketing offers built-in engagement metrics, which are extremely useful in helping you to understand how well you're reaching your audience. You get to decide which types of interactions mean the most to you, whether that means the number of shares, comments, or total clicks to your website.

Direct purchase may not even be a goal of your social media marketing strategy. Many brands use social media marketing to start dialogues with audiences rather than encourage them to spend money right away. This is especially common in brands that target older audiences or offer products and services not appropriate for impulse buys. It all depends on your company's goals.

To learn more about how Mailchimp can help with your social media strategy, check out the comparison of our free social media management tools versus others.

Pay-per-click marketing

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is posting an ad on a platform and paying every time someone clicks on it.

How and when people see your ad is a bit more complicated. When a spot is available on a search engine results page, also known as a SERP, the engine fills the spot with what is essentially an instant auction. An algorithm prioritizes each available ad based on a number of factors, including:

Ad quality

Keyword relevance

Landing page quality

Bid amount

Each PPC campaign has 1 or more target actions that viewers are meant to complete after clicking an ad. These actions are known as conversions, and they can be transactional or non-transactional. Making a purchase is a conversion, but so is a newsletter signup or a call made to your home office.

Whatever you choose as your target conversions, you can track them via your chosen platform to see how your campaign is doing.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing lets someone make money by promoting another person's business. You could be either the promoter or the business who works with the promoter, but the process is the same in either case.

It works using a revenue sharing model. If you're the affiliate, you get a commission every time someone purchases the item that you promote. If you're the merchant, you pay the affiliate for every sale they help you make.

Some affiliate marketers choose to review the products of just 1 company, perhaps on a blog or other third-party site. Others have relationships with multiple merchants.

Whether you want to be an affiliate or find one, the first step is to make a connection with the other party. You can use a platform designed to connect affiliates with retailers, or you can start or join a single-retailer program.

If you're a retailer and you choose to work directly with affiliates, there are many things you can do to make your program appealing to potential promoters. You'll need to provide those affiliates with the tools that they need to succeed. That includes incentives for great results as well as marketing support and pre-made materials.

Native advertising

Native advertising is marketing in disguise. Its goal is to blend in with its surrounding content so that it’s less blatantly obvious as advertising.

Native advertising was created in reaction to the cynicism of today's consumers toward ads. Knowing that the creator of an ad pays to run it, many consumers will conclude that the ad is biased and consequently ignore it.

A native ad gets around this bias by offering information or entertainment before it gets to anything promotional, downplaying the "ad" aspect.

It’s important to always label your native ads clearly. Use words like “promoted” or “sponsored.” If those indicators are concealed, readers might end up spending significant time engaging with the content before they realize that it's advertising.

When your consumers know exactly what they're getting, they'll feel better about your content and your brand. Native ads are meant to be less obtrusive than traditional ads, but they’re not meant to be deceptive.

MR Laboratory digital marketing

Content marketing

content marketing

Your customers, leads, and audience members want valuable content from your business. And that content needs to reach audience members in a way that feels natural and organic versus being disruptive. Content marketing helps businesses do this, and it describes the process of attracting, engaging with, and delighting your target markets.

By honing in on effective content marketing, you can do just that — and as a result, increase conversions, improve brand awareness, boost revenue, establish yourself as an industry leader, and more.

Whether you’re just starting to devise a strategy or you’re refreshing your existing one, it never hurts to re-assess your process and come up with new ways to create and share the content your audiences want. In this guide, we’ll give you a birds-eye-view of content marketing, types of content marketing, content marketing examples, and how to get a strategy strategy going.

Content Marketing

Today, outbound marketing strategies (or anything that interrupts your audience members) aren’t as effective at resonating with and converting audience members as they once were.

Today, your content needs to reach your audience in a way that feels natural (a.k.a. inbound). A common way of doing this is by creating a narrative for your content — or telling a story. In doing so, your content will feel more authentic, engaging, and tailored to your audience.

Why is content marketing important?

Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, distributing, sharing, and publishing content to reach your target audience. It can boost factors like brand awareness, sales, reach, interactions, and loyalty.

Educate your leads and prospects about the products and services you offer

Boost conversions

Build relationships between your customers and business that result in increased loyalty

Show your audience how your products and services solve their challenges

Create a sense of community around your brand

Now let's look at the various types of content marketing.

Types of Content Marketing

There are many types of content marketing that you may choose to incorporate in your strategy — here are some of the most common:

1. Social Media Content Marketing

With over 3.6 billion global social media users, it’s easy to understand why so many businesses invest in social media marketing. There are a number of platforms (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat) to work with and several ways you can create and share content on each of them (e.g. photos, live videos, pre-recorded videos, stories).

Featured Resource: Social Media Content Calendar

2. Infographic Content Marketing

Infographics display content, information, and data in an easy-to-understand, graphic format. With a mix of simple wording, short statements, and clear images, infographics are a great way to effectively communicate your content. They work well if you’re trying to distill an educational and/ or complex topic down so all audience members can understand it.

Featured Resource: 15 Free Infographic Templates

3. Blog Content Marketing

Blogs are a powerful type of inbound content and allow for a lot of creativity in terms of their purpose and topic. With a blog, you can do things like promote other internal and external content and blog articles via links, add social share buttons, and incorporate product information.

Featured Resource: Start a Successful Blog

4. Podcast Content Marketing

A 2020 survey found that 49% of 12-to-32-year-olds in the U.S. had listened to a podcast within the last month, with an average of six listening hours a week. For this reason, many businesses and media outlets have began creating and sharing their own podcasts.

Podcasts allow for a lot of creativity as they can be about any topic of choice. Additionally, you determine other factors related to the podcast such as cadence of episodes, who's on the podcast, where you advertise the podcast, and how long episodes are.

Featured Resource: How to Start a Podcast

5. Video Content Marketing

According to Wyzowl research, 69% of consumers say they prefer to learn about a brand's product or service through video. Additionally, video marketing can boost conversions, improve ROI, and help you build relationships with audience members. You may choose to share your video content on social media platforms, landing pages, or on a co-marketer's website.

Featured Resource: The Ultimate Video Marketing Starter Pack

6. Paid Ad Content Marketing

Paid ads can help you reach a broad audience and allow you to position yourself in all of the places you want to be seen — paid ads are especially beneficial when paired with inbound marketing. There are many places you can share paid ads including on social media, landing pages, banners, and sponsored content.

Featured Resource: The Ultimate Google Ads PPC Kit

Next, let's look at some content marketing examples that are associated with those types of content marketing we just reviewed.

Content Marketing Examples

The following examples will give you a better understanding of how you can incorporate content in your greater marketing strategy.

1. Example of Social Media Content Marketing

Lush Cosmetics’ Instagram account is on-brand and complements the rest of their marketing content — if the page didn’t say “Lush Cosmetics” anywhere on the profile, customers would likely still know the profile belongs to Lush.

The Instagram page shares the Lush product line, displays different color and scent options for the products, and shows the various ways each product can be used. The profile feels and looks colorful and uniquely Lush, and depicts members of their wide customer base.

2. Example of Infographic Content Marketing

IBM created an infographic when they launched their Cloud marketplace. Their infographic is on-brand, well-organized, and easy to read. It clearly explains what they’re doing with their Cloud marketplace and how customers can benefit from it. It also tells audience members how they can access the marketplace and get started using it.

3. Example of Blog Content Marketing

Expedia has a blog called “[Out There Starts Here]” that shares travel-related information including hotel recommendations, great places to visit, and travel-related activities you can take part in around the globe.

Expedia regularly publishes their blog content to keep readers interested and engaged. It includes a wide range of topics related to any type of trip you could imagine. The blog is on-brand and all articles relate to the travel technology company’s goal and mission of gaining customers and boosting brand awareness. They do this by linking to their services and writing about customers who have already had positive experiences with the company.

4. Example of Podcast Content Marketing

hardvard business review podcast content marketing example

Source

Harvard Business Review (HBR) has a weekly podcast called HBR IdeaCast which features industry leaders in both business and management. You can either subscribe to consistently receive their hundreds of podcasts or pick and choose which ones you want to listen to.

The podcast is on-brand and complements the rest of HBRs published content. It also serves as a great way for HBR to connect with their target audience, enhance brand awareness, and gain a following of audience members through a medium that differs from their typical work (e.g. podcast versus HBR article).

5. Example of Video Content Marketing

Source

Much of Dollar Shave Club’s video content has gone viral. Their marketing efforts are on-brand, humorous, and entertaining. In fact, one of their videos has over 27 million views on YouTube. By establishing a name for themselves via online video content, Dollar Shave Club has experienced impressive growth and brand recognition.

6. Example of Paid Ad Content Marketing

paid-ad-content-marketing-example

Source

Revolve — a clothing and accessories company — uses paid and sponsored ads on social media (like this one on Facebook) to reach their target audience while they browse their news feeds.

The content ads feature some of their products as well as details about their free shipping and return policy to drive target audience members to their site (and, hopefully, convert them into paying customers).

Lastly, let’s cover your content marketing strategy. By implementing a strategy, your content marketing efforts will be impactful and effective in converting leads and reaching your target audience.

Content Marketing Strategy

Set SMART goals.

Determine your KPIs.

Choose your content channels.

Decide on the type of content.

Set a budget.

Create and distribute the content.

Analyze and measure results.

1. Set SMART goals.

The first part of your content marketing strategy is to set SMART goals. These should be specific to your business — they’ll likely complement your broader marketing and company goals.

Here are some SMART goal examples:

Improve brand awareness

Boost revenue

Increase conversions

Improve brand loyalty

Increase customer engagement

Build rapport and trust among prospects and customers

Attract strategic partners

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MR Laboratory digital marketing

Affiliate Marketing

Wake up at an ungodly hour. Drive to the office through total gridlock, streets jammed with other half-asleep commuters. Slog through email after mind-numbing email until the sweet release at five o’clock.

Sound terrible?

What if, instead of dealing with the monotony and stupor of the rat race to earn a few bucks, you could make money at any time, from anywhere — even while you sleep?

That’s the concept behind affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is a popular tactic to drive sales and generate significant online revenue. Extremely beneficial to both brands and affiliate marketers, the new push towards less traditional marketing tactics has paid off. In fact:

81% of brands and 84% of publishers leverage the power of affiliate marketing, a statistic that will continue to increase as affiliate marketing spending increases every year in the United States.

There is a 10.1% increase in affiliate marketing spending in the United States each year, meaning that by 2020, that number will reach $6.8 billion.

In 2018, content marketing costs were gauged to be 62% of traditional marketing schemes while simultaneously generating three times the leads of traditional methods. In fact, 16% of all orders made online can be attributed to the impact of affiliate marketing.

In March of 2017, Amazon’s affiliate structure changed, offering rates of 1-10% of product revenue for creators, providing the opportunity for affiliates to dramatically increase their passive income based on the vertical they’re selling on.

The affiliate marketing of Jason Stone, otherwise known as Millionaire Mentor, was responsible for as much as $7 million in retailer sales just in the months of June and July in 2017.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make. The sales are tracked via affiliate links from one website to another.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Because affiliate marketing works by spreading the responsibilities of product marketing and creation across parties, it manages to leverage the abilities of a variety of individuals for a more effective marketing strategy while providing contributors with a share of the profit. To make this work, three different parties must be involved:

Seller and product creators.

The affiliate or advertiser.

The consumer.

Let’s delve into the complex relationship these three parties share to ensure affiliate marketing is a success.

1. Seller and product creators.

The seller, whether a solo entrepreneur or large enterprise, is a vendor, merchant, product creator, or retailer with a product to market. The product can be a physical object, like household goods, or a service, like makeup tutorials.

Also known as the brand, the seller does not need to be actively involved in the marketing, but they may also be the advertiser and profit from the revenue sharing associated with affiliate marketing.

For example, the seller could be an ecommerce merchant that started a dropshipping business and wants to reach a new audience by paying affiliate websites to promote their products. Or the seller could be a SaaS company that leverages affiliates to help sell their marketing software.

2. The affiliate or publisher.

Also known as a publisher, the affiliate can be either an individual or a company that markets the seller’s product in an appealing way to potential consumers. In other words, the affiliate promotes the product to persuade consumers that it is valuable or beneficial to them and convince them to purchase the product. If the consumer does end up buying the product, the affiliate receives a portion of the revenue made.

Affiliates often have a very specific audience to whom they market, generally adhering to that audience’s interests. This creates a defined niche or personal brand that helps the affiliate attract consumers who will be most likely to act on the promotion.

3. The consumer.

Whether the consumer knows it or not, they (and their purchases) are the drivers of affiliate marketing. Affiliates share these products with them on social media, blogs, and websites.

When consumers buy the product, the seller and the affiliate share the profits. Sometimes the affiliate will choose to be upfront with the consumer by disclosing that they are receiving commission for the sales they make. Other times the consumer may be completely oblivious to the affiliate marketing infrastructure behind their purchase.

Either way, they will rarely pay more for the product purchased through affiliate marketing; the affiliate’s share of the profit is included in the retail price. The consumer will complete the purchase process and receive the product as normal, unaffected by the affiliate marketing system in which they are a significant part.

MR Laboratory digital marketing

Email marketing

Email marketing template

Digital marketing, online marketing, internet advertising…whatever you call it, marketing your company online is a big deal these days. After all, internet usage has more than doubled over the past decade and this shift has massively affected how people purchase products and interact with businesses.

So, what is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is like any other type of marketing—it’s a way to connect with and influence your potential customers. The real difference is, you connect with and influence those customers online.

What is Digital Marketing?

Basically, digital marketing refers to any online marketing efforts or assets. Email marketing, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing and even blogging are all great examples of digital marketing—they help introduce people to your company and convince them to buy.

Here are some of the most common digital marketing assets and strategies businesses use to reach people online:

DIGITAL MARKETING ASSETS

Almost anything can be a digital marketing asset. It simply needs to be a marketing tool you use online. That being said, many people don’t realize how many digital marketing assets they have at their disposal. Here are just a few examples:

Your website

Branded assets (logos, icons, acronyms, etc)

Video content (video ads, product demos, etc)

Images (infographics, product shots, company photos, etc)

Written content (blog posts, eBooks, product descriptions, testimonials, etc)

Online products or tools (SaaS, calculators, interactive content, etc)

Reviews

Social media pages

As you can probably imagine, this list just scratches the surface. Most digital marketing assets will fall into one of these categories, but clever marketers are constantly coming up with new ways to reach customers online, so the list keeps growing!

DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES

The list of digital marketing strategies is also constantly evolving, but here are some of the strategies most businesses are using:

PAY-PER-CLICK ADVERTISING

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is actually a broad term that covers any type of digital marketing where you pay for every user who clicks on an ad. For example, Google AdWords is a form of PPC advertising called “paid search advertising” (which we’ll go over in a second). Facebook Ads are another form of PPC advertising called “paid social media advertising” (again, we’ll get into that shortly).

PAID SEARCH ADVERTISING

Google, Bing and Yahoo all allow you to run text ads on their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Paid search advertising is one of the best ways to target potential customers who are actively searching for a product or service like yours.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

If you don’t want to pay to show up in the SERPs, you can also use search engine optimization (SEO) to try and rank pages or blog posts on your site organically. You don’t have to pay directly for every click, but getting a page to rank usually takes quite a bit of time and effort (for a more in-depth comparison of paid search and SEO, check out this article).

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

Most social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Snapchat will allow you to run ads on their site. Paid social media advertising is great for building awareness with audiences that might not be aware that your business, product or service exists.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Like SEO, social media marketing is the free, organic way to use social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter to market your business. And, just like SEO, organically marketing your business on social media takes a lot more time and effort, but in the long run, it can deliver much cheaper results.

CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION (CRO)

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the art and science of improving your online user experience. Most of the time, businesses use CRO to get more conversions (leads, chats, calls, sales, etc) out of their existing website traffic.

CONTENT MARKETING

Content marketing is another fairly broad digital marketing term. Content marketing covers any digital marketing effort that uses content assets (blog posts, infographics, eBooks, videos, etc) to build brand awareness or drive clicks, leads or sales.

NATIVE ADVERTISING

Ever get to the bottom of an article and see a list of suggested articles? That’s native advertising. Most native advertising falls under content marketing because it uses content to attract clicks (“you’ll never believe what happens next!”). Often, native advertising can be a bit hard to spot, since it is usually mixed in with non-paid content recommendations…but that’s kind of the point.

EMAIL MARKETING

Email marketing is the oldest form of online marketing and it’s still going strong. Most digital marketers use email marketing to advertise special deals, highlight content (often as part of content marketing) or promote an event.

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate marketing is essentially paying someone else (a person or a business) to promote your products and services on their website.

As you can see from the list above, there are a lot of different ways to market your business online, which is why many businesses either hire an agency to manage their digital marketing efforts or pay for an in-house marketing team and marketing automation software to cover their marketing needs (for an in-depth comparison of these options, check out this article).

Does Digital Marketing Work?

Digital marketing is a great option for any business. At Disruptive, we’ve used digital marketing to help all kinds of businesses grow—from mom-and-pop shops to internationally recognized universities and beyond. That’s the beauty of advertising online. If you know who you want to target, you can use digital marketing to target anyone, anywhere.

However, that being said, certain types of businesses will benefit more from certain types of digital advertising. As a quick overview, let’s take a look at which strategies tend to work best for business-to-consumer (B2C) companies and business-to-business (B2B) companies:

B2C COMPANIES

Generally speaking, B2C companies have much lower price points than their B2B counterparts. After all, it can be a little hard to sell a $150,000 drill bit (believe me, they exist) to a harried mom. But a $10 pair of kids pants? That’s a fairly straightforward sell.

The good news is, because B2C companies aren’t trying to sell incredibly expensive products or services, they don’t need big sales teams or complicated marketing funnels. All they have to do is get their products or services in front of the right audience with the right messaging and the rest should take care of itself.

As a result, the primary goal of most B2C companies is to get people into and through their marketing funnel. For example, if you can get that harried mom onto your kids clothing website and offer her an exciting deal, there’s a good chance that she’ll buy today. You don’t need to build a ton of brand awareness or trust before you can close a sale.

With that in mind, B2C companies often see great results from higher-funnel marketing channels like social media marketing or paid social advertising. These channels do a great job of getting your business in front of potential customers who might not otherwise know that you exist.

Now, supplementing with other digital marketing strategies like paid search or SEO is always a good idea, but if you have to pick one channel to start with, paid social advertising or social media marketing are great options for B2C.

B2B COMPANIES

In contrast, paid search is a great option for B2B companies. Most B2B companies have very specific niche audiences that can be hard to target using social media. However, if you sell $150,000 drill bits and someone searches for “diamond-tipped oil drilling bit manufacturer”, you want to be the first result they see. Yes, you might pay more for your click than you would with paid social advertising, but with a $150,000 price tag, it’s money well spent.

In addition, most B2B companies have a much longer and more involved sales cycle than B2C companies. If you’re selling a $150,000 drill bit, most people probably don’t come to your site, give you a call and say “I want one.” As a result, longer-term strategies like content marketing or email marketing are often necessary to close a deal.

Of course, the right blend of digital marketing tactics will vary from industry-to-industry and business-to-business, but simply comparing B2C to B2B should help give you a sense for how different strategies can be better for certain businesses. Not every strategy is right for every business, but with a little trial and error, you should be able to identify the most profitable approach for your company.

How Do I Get Started?

The good news is, getting started with digital marketing is fairly easy. Most online advertising platforms make it easy to sign up and create your first campaign (it is how they make money, after all). Here are a few links to beginner guides for several different digital marketing strategies:

Paid search advertising

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Paid social media advertising

Social media marketing

Conversion rate optimization

Content marketing

Email marketing

The core of every successful digital marketing campaign, however, isn’t a guide. Regardless of which strategies you choose to use, here are 4 questions you need to answer before you get started with digital marketing:

1. HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED TO MAKE?

To figure out what you need to spend on digital marketing, you first need to clarify what your goals are. How you approach digital marketing can vary quite a bit depending on whether your ultimate goal is to drive clicks, conversions or leads, sales, revenue or a certain return-on-investment (ROI).

When you get right down to it, the ultimate goal of any marketing effort should be ROI. After all, if your digital marketing spend isn’t driving profitable revenue for your business, why are you marketing online?

Clicks and even conversions are great, but your company doesn’t make money from clicks (in fact, you actually spend money on clicks) or conversions. It makes money from sales.

With that in mind, the first thing you need to determine before you decide what your digital marketing budget should be is to decide how much revenue you want to drive. Once you know that, you can use that information to determine how much ad spend it will take to reach that revenue goal.

2. WHO ARE YOU MARKETING TO?

Once you know how much money you want to make from digital marketing, you need to identify who you are marketing to. This is critical, because different buyer personas require different marketing tactics. And, even more importantly, different buyer personas turn into different types of buyers.

So guess what? If you don’t understand your buyer personas, you can’t create an effective digital marketing strategy!

If you’ve got a sales team, talking to sales can be one of the fastest ways to get a decent buyer persona together. After all, they’re the ones who talk to your customers the most, right?

However, even talking to your sales team and doing a little research isn’t enough to really get at the level of detail you need to put together an effective digital marketing plan. To do that, you need to get on the phone and call your actual customers.

Ask how they found you, why they converted and what convinced them to pay you. This information will give you a ton of insight into your marketing and sales process that you can use to both improve the performance of your advertising and choose your marketing budget.

3. WHAT ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS WORTH?

Typically, people look at buyer personas as a good way to craft an effective marketing strategy. Buyer personas are great for this, but they are also an important part of putting together an effective digital marketing plan.

For example, imagine you are advertising for a SaaS business called SaaS-A-Frass that has the following pricing structure:

In this situation, you’re probably targeting 3 different buyer personas:

Small business “Steve”

Mid-market business “Mandy”

Enterprise business “Edward”

Small business “Steve” has much smaller and simpler business needs than Edward or Mandy, so he’ll probably choose the Starter package. Mandy will probably want the Professional package and Edward will likely need the Enterprise package.

Assuming that Steve, Mandy and Edward stick around for an average of 14 months, 4 years and 9 years, respectively (average lifetimes for a SaaS client) and buy 5, 20 and 100 licenses (again, respectively), here’s the lifetime value for each of these personas ( [licenses/mo] x [# of licenses] x [typical customer lifespan in months] ):

LIFETIME VALUE

Steve: $1,750

Mandy: $72,000

Edward: $1,590,000

These numbers look really exciting, but not all of that money is profit.

A normal SaaS company pays about 22% for fulfillment, 9% to sales and has a 40% overhead, leaving them with about 29% of the lifetime value of each client to play around with. That means to simply break even, SaaS-A-Frass has to spend less than the following to acquire a customer from Facebook:

MAXIMUM ACQUISITION COST

Steve: $507.50

Mandy: $20,880

Edward: $461,100

If SaaS-A-Frass can keep their acquisition cost below this threshold, they’ll make money. If it costs more than this to acquire each of these customers, they’ll lose money.

See why buyer personas are so important to budgeting?

Of course, it’s unlikely that the market is saturated with Edwards, so SaaS-A-Frass will need a mix of these deals to hit their revenue goals. That mix will dictate their Facebook budget.

So, if SaaS-A-Frass is willing to spend $0.18 on marketing to produce $1.00 in lifetime value (for a 11% total profit margin), SaaS-A-Frass’s can afford to pay the following for each buyer persona:

CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST

Steve: $315

Mandy: $12,960

Edward: $286,200

If SaaS-A-Frass can’t produce paying customers from a particular buyer persona at a price point below this threshold, they probably shouldn’t be marketing to that buyer persona.

However, if SaaS-A-Frass’s digital marketing efforts are currently producing buyers from each persona at these CAC (or even a CAC below these thresholds), SaaS-A-Frass can use that information to then calculate their marketing budget.

4. HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED TO SPEND TO REACH YOUR GOALS?

At this point, things are pretty simple. Just take your CAC, average purchase order value and average number of purchases (if you have a subscription model, you can just use the average lifespan of each buyer persona here) and plug them into this calculator!

The default for this calculator shows the monthly budget and ROI for SaaS-A-Frass, assuming that SaaS-A-Frass wants to produce $2,425,500 in new revenue from digital marketing each month and they’ve determined that to do that, they need their marketing efforts to produce 100 sales a month (90 Steves, 9 Mandys and 1 Edward).

Per our example, a new Steve pays $125/mo for an average of 14 months, a new Mandy pays $1,500/mo for an average of 48 months and a new Edward pays $15,000/mo for 108 months.

Plugging all of that into the calculator, SaaS-A-Frass will need to budget $348,300/mo to achieve their new lifetime revenue goals.

See? I told you this part is easy! To make things even better, you can use this calculator to calculate your overall digital marketing budget or you can pick a specific strategy and use it to figure out whether or not a given strategy makes sense for your business. For example, if you need a CAC of $75, but your average cost-per-click on AdWords is $25, AdWords may not be the right digital marketing channel for you.

Now, as you might imagine, this approach isn’t a perfect estimate of what it will take to hit your revenue goals. This calculator is only as accurate as the information you can give it. But, it’s a lot better than picking your monthly at random and hoping that digital marketing will produce the results you need.

How is Digital Marketing Different on Mobile?

As you can probably imagine, digital marketing on mobile is very different from digital marketing on desktop. These days, these differences are particularly important because smartphones are now the primary device people use to interact with the internet.

With 60% of internet activity taking place on mobile devices, the shift from desktop to mobile has had a profound effect on digital marketing.

Last year, Google Ads got rid of the sidebar ads on their results pages to create a consistent experience between mobile and desktop. Facebook Ads still shows sidebar ads on desktop, but only shows in-stream ads on mobile. Shorter blog posts outperform longer blog posts on mobile…and the list of differences goes on and on.

To be honest, in today’s digital marketing world, it’s a good idea to assume that people will encounter your marketing on mobile and then adapt your strategy for desktop as needed.

In addition to optimizing your ads for mobile, it’s also important to think about your site and landing page experience. Sure, your website might look beautiful on desktop, but if it’s impossible to navigate on mobile, you’ll end up alienating a significant percentage of your web traffic.

At a minimum, you should have a mobile-responsive website, but ideally, your mobile experience should be specifically designed to facilitate an effortless mobile experience (not just an adapted version of your desktop experience).

Whether most advertisers realize it or not, digital marketing is primarily a mobile experience now. The good news is, if you’re relatively new to digital marketing, you don’t have to worry about reinventing the wheel. You can start by coming up with compelling mobile advertisements and then adapt as needed for desktop.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is the marketing of the future. In addition to all of the benefits we’ve discussed throughout this article, you can track the results of your digital marketing efforts with incredible accuracy, which means it is easy to see which strategies are producing profitable results and which ones need some work.

Incidentally, if this article has convinced you that you need digital marketing (or need to up your digital marketing game), but you’d like some help identifying the right approach, let us know here or in the comments! We love helping businesses grow with digital marketing.

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