Digital marketing is constantly changing and evolving. Every quarter someone is insisting that one marketing technology is dead and the next best thing is on the horizon. For anyone who's trying to grow their business online, it's far too easy to get distracted by shiny objects and lose focus on what really matters.

How does your marketing strategy stack up? Does your marketing talk the talk and walk the walk? Let's find out.

What Really Matters?

Strategy.

If you don't have a good marketing strategy, it doesn't matter if you have the latest technology or a huge marketing budget. Too many companies focus on the tactics first - the quick fixes and easy plugs to fill the holes without thinking about the entire picture. Think of your marketing strategy in terms of taking a cross-country roadtrip. You want to make it from LA to New York and have all the destination stops you want to make along the way. The destination stops are your marketing tactics, but in order to get from coast to coast in the most efficient, streamlined way, you need your roadmap, or marketing strategy. Without the roadmap, you have no way of knowing how to find the awesome pit-stops or could get lost and end up at that creepy gas station that no one should ever go to, let alone achieve your goal of getting from point A to point B.

Dissect Your Strategy

Like planning a cross-country roadtrip, your marketing strategy isn’t created overnight. If you don't automatically know what your marketing strategy is, then you either don't have one or it needs to be tightened up. Don’t worry, use these 3 questions to help shape your marketing strategy and understand where to put your focus:

  1. Who are you marketing to?

It's hard to develop a marketing strategy if you don't know who you're marketing to. If you have clear and specific buyer personas then you're ahead of the curve. If you don't, then take the time to create buyer personas and understand the pain points that you solve for your customers. This will be the foundation of your marketing strategy and will help guide your decisions throughout the entire customer life cycle.

  1. Are you using inbound marketing?

If you are, then you're doing exactly what you should be doing and if you're not, then you're leaving serious money on the table. Not convinced?

  • Inbound leads cost 60% less than outbound leads
  • Inbound organizations are 4 times as likely to be effective in terms of executing a successful marketing strategy

As the future of marketing, anyone can use inbound marketing strategy to increase leads, sales, and website traffic, especially as more and more businesses go digital and consumers continue to use the Internet before making any purchase decisions. Don’t delay on adopting inbound marketing into your marketing strategy, because chances are your competitors already are.

  1. How are you tracking your results?

Analytics and results tracking are essential to developing an effective marketing strategy. If you don't know where your customers are spending their time online, you also don't know where you're the least effective and where you’re wasting your time and money. Start implementing an analytics and tracking system so that you can actually see what's driving your results and get better at doing those things.

Don't be fooled by the next fancy sales pitch or shiny object that comes your way. Digital marketing results are driven by strategies and data. If you don't have either of those, then start working to get them fast. If you do, then use your data, optimize your results and enjoy the benefits of being on top of your game. If you would like any more information or a starting point on the topics mentioned in this post, please contact us!

Work Habits & Productivity

2. Effortless
BY GREG MCKEOWN
Speaking of actions becoming more effortless, this is another book of McKeown’s that topped our 2022 reading list. Adding onto the powerful guidance around essentialism, this read delivers “proven strategies for making the most important activities the easiest ones,” like mapping out the minimum number of steps, finding the courage to “be rubbish” and more.
About the Author:
Nicole Rucker
About the Author:
Jay Feitlinger

Jay, the CEO of StringCan, oversees strategy and vision, building culture that makes going into work something he looks forward to, recruiting additional awesome team members to help exceed clients goals, leading the team and allocating where StringCan invests time and money.

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