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Small Business Marketing 101: Using Email, Social, Video and More

Introduction to small business marketing 101.

Whether your small business has existed for years, or just recently started up, finding the most effective marketing strategies is critical. That’s because small businesses don’t have the same resources to execute as larger scale firms. In fact, you may be the founder and CEO who has also taken up the mantle of marketer.

That’s why Sprout Social worked with our amazing partners at HubSpot, Animoto and Campaign Monitor to put together this guide to small business marketing.

Together, we’ve covered some of the most frequently discussed topics among small business marketers. We’ll continue to work with more partners to expand on these topics over time. For now, keep reading for the following:

• HubSpot on inbound marketing for small businesses
• Animoto on video marketing for small businesses
• Campaign Monitor on email marketing for small businesses
• Sprout Social on social marketing for small businesses

Small business marketing with inbound

Would you rather have your customers searching for you instead of the other way around? Look no further than inbound marketing. In this section, HubSpot discusses the importance of inbound marketing for small business, the basics of getting started and how to choose the right channels for your organization.

Let’s talk about a framework for bringing the ideal customer to your website. It’s used by tons of businesses, big and small, and it can work for you as well.

What is inbound marketing?

One quick definition we at HubSpot use is to think of outbound marketing as “push” marketing and inbound marketing as “pull.” Rather than interrupt customers with disruptive ads or unethical sales tactics, you attract them via valuable content that helps them accomplish their goals.

To further elaborate, it’s about three pieces:

You attract prospects and customers to your website and blog through relevant and helpful content.

Once they arrive, you engage with them using conversational tools like email and chat and by promising continued value.

Finally, you delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic advisor and expert.

The inbound methodology isn’t specific to marketing, by the way. The same process and mindset can be used in sales and services, too.

So, how do you actually do inbound marketing?

Inbound 101: The basics for getting started

There have been many books and courses on inbound marketing, so we won’t be able to comprehensively cover the idea here. Rather, we’ll give the 80/20 so you can start to take action. After you get your wheels on the ground, you can always go back and learn more about the methodology.

So what are the basic steps for getting started?

• First, map out your ideal audience, aka your target market. Who do you want to sell to?
• Second, map out the channels you can use to attract, engage and delight your customers. Where do they hang out and how do they communicate?
• Finally, begin crafting content and messaging that will be used to attract, engage and delight customers. Make sure you have analytics in place, because you’ll need to constantly learn and update your strategy based on the results you get.

Let’s dive into each one of these individually.

Know your personas & target markets

It’s possible you know your target market and have already built your buyer personas , but even if that’s the case, it never hurts doing this work again and learning more about your customers. The more you know about your customer, the better you can craft your messaging and strategy.

In defining a target market, you narrow down your audience to the level that you can choose correct marketing channels and start to define a buyer persona for messaging.

In building a buyer persona, you create a representative model of your prototypical customer. As in machine learning, you need to split the difference between perfect accuracy and perfect utility . In other words, you should gather enough data and information to make a buyer persona largely accurate to the real world, but you shouldn’t gather too much information and make it too complex.

How do you gather data to inform your buyer persona? There are many ways, some easier, some harder, depending on the stage of your company:

• Customer interviews (phone or in person)
• Digital analytics
• Surveys (on-site polls like Qualaroo and customer surveys )
• User testing
• Live chat transcripts and intelligence via sales and service teams

You’ll want to answer core questions about your ideal buyer, such as:

• What are their motivations and fears?
• How do they prefer to make purchases?
• How much research do they do and what kind of content is useful to them?
• How do they interact with brands? What do they prefer the relationship to look like?
• Who do they look to when they’re making decisions? Who influences them?
• Where do they hang out? How can you reach them?
• What type of language do they use?

All of these things will help you a) choose channels and b) craft messaging.

Just don’t create a silly made-up buyer persona with a cute name just to go through the motions. Also, it probably doesn’t matter what your buyer persona’s favorite color of car is unless you’re selling paint or used vehicles. Stick to the stuff that’s important and knowable.

Map out your channels and tactics

When you have a target market and buyer persona, you can look into different channels. There are only so many inbound marketing channels:

• Facebook Ads (suggested reading: Are ads inbound? )

Some channels won’t work for your business no matter how hard you try. For example, virality probably doesn’t make sense if you sell dish soap.

Similarly, some channels could potentially work but will take so much effort and risk to pull off, that you should probably table them for the time being in favor of higher impact channels. For example, if you’re a LawnStarter (lawn care) or ProTranslating (translation services), social media may not pay off.

Though oddly enough, MoonPie kills it on Twitter

To identify your best channels, use this heuristic: “how does a customer buy this type of product?”

In the case of lawn care, it’s usually when their lawn grows too long and they need someone right away. SEO and search ads are perfect to capture this type of demand.

Some products, such as Chubbies or Airpods , are naturally viral. Just optimize the viral components and add a little wind to the sail.

Others make a perfect fit for content marketing, such as B2B software companies like Wordable or Mutiny . These products tend to require a little bit of upfront education, and their target customers are accustomed to learning via blogs, webinars and ebooks.

Content often works well for SaaS products

In any case, just think about it and discuss with your colleagues before jumping into a channel. Don’t simply join a channel because your competitors have or because it’s new and buzzworthy. We don’t need more gurus or businesses trying to make it big on Snapchat, and we especially don’t need more businesses trying to go viral on Reddit. Do what makes sense for you.

Create content and execute on the playbook

Any inbound channel—nay, any marketing channel—will require some sort of messaging strategy. How you execute on messaging will largely determine how effective the channel becomes.

Let’s say, for example, we want to use blogging and SEO as our inbound channel. This usually forms the basis of such efforts, as it’s an owned channel, and you can generally compete with very large players and win some or much of the time on quality and 10x content .

Now, what do you blog about?

While you can answer this question many ways with some degree of validity, we like to follow the Pillar + Cluster model .

In plain English, your “pillar content” represents the big topic you want to rank for, and “cluster content” represents supporting content that relates to your big topic. Hyperlinking pages together shows Google they’re related to each other.

For example, let’s say your big topic is “personalization” For this, you might create a pillar page called “The Ultimate Guide to Web Personalization.”

Then you could create several cluster content blog posts to support the pillar page. These could be on topics like:

• How to personalize email newsletters
• Top personalization tools in 2019
• Personalization examples
• How to measure ROI from personalization

…And on and on.

We like to start backwards from our product and branch out from there. So, basically, what’s the end goal? Define that product page, and then come up with high traffic pillar page ideas that can support that. From there, break topic ideas off of your pillar page to create long tail blog posts. A good way to find long tail ideas is on Answer The Public .

Soon, you’ll bring in tons of traffic, and then you’ll simply have to worry about converting that traffic into leads, users, demos…whatever your goal conversion is.

Unfortunately, that’s a huge topic, and one we can’t crack into here. So here are some resources on email marketing and conversion optimization to check out:

• Lead Magnets – Ideas to get people to sign up for your list
• Web forms guide – Best practices to get form completions, no matter the purpose)
• A/B testing guide – Everything you want to know about running your own tests

Obviously this is a short primer on inbound, and there’s a lot more to talk about. But if we could boil it down to the simplest possible summary, we’d say, “Define your audience, go where the fish are and craft your messaging in a way that resonates with them.”

This sounds easy, but it takes a lot of work. In fact, we’ll end by emphasizing the need to keep learning and improving.

Make sure you have proper analytics in place, and continue to improve and optimize your inbound funnel.

When it works, it really works. And when it really, really works, you can build a moat that is hard to compete with.

Small business marketing with video

Is your growing business interested in taking advantage of the power of video? Then you have come to the right place. This section discusses the importance of video marketing for small business, how to overcome hurdles in video marketing. It ends with ideas to consider for your own strategy.

According to Forbes , 90% of consumers say videos help them with buying decisions. Sixty-four percent say that watching videos makes them more likely to purchase. Forbes also reports that businesses that use video in their marketing see a 41% increase in search traffic compared to those that don’t.

Video has taken social media, and marketing in general, by storm.

But for small business owners or marketers, it may feel daunting. Here at Animoto , we’ve spoken with countless small business owners that already wear a lot of hats. We know adding video to the mix may feel overwhelming—especially without the time, resources or technical expertise needed for video creation.

But guess what? Video marketing isn’t as time-consuming or difficult as you may think. We’ve put together a quick guide to help you get started (and show you how easy it can be). We’ll share:

• Why video matters for small businesses
• How to overcome the hurdles to video creation
• Small business video ideas
• Tips and tricks for small business video creation
• How to get started with video marketing today

Let’s dive in!

Why Video matters for small businesses

Video affords marketers at businesses of all sizes a massive opportunity. We’ll take a quick look at what video can do for your marketing on social media, on YouTube, on your website, in your emails and even in your store or at an event.

Social video for small business

According to a recent Animoto survey , consumers rank video as their number one favorite type of content to see from brands on social media, and 93% of marketers using video on social media say it’s landed them a new customer.

Video has become increasingly important on social media, where it generates 1200% more shares than images and text combined. Video can be incorporated into your social marketing throughout the customer journey to maximize the success of your campaigns.

YouTube video for small business

You’ve likely already heard that YouTube is the second largest search engine, after Google. What does this mean for you? More consumers than ever (including your own customers) search YouTube for product reviews, how-tos and more.

Creating YouTube videos means that you’ll get in front of more customers searching for videos related to your industry and products or services.

Website video for small business

Did you know that the average customer spends 88% more time on a website if it has video? Pretty incredible, right? There are all sorts of ways to incorporate video into your website, including an introductory video on your

• Product videos
• A personal video for your about page that showcases your small business story

And guess what? These videos can also be repurposed to share on YouTube and social media.

Email video for small business

Including video in email can lead to an up to 19% increase in open rate and an up to 50% increase in click-through rate, according to Campaign Monitor .

The even better news? Adding video to your emails isn’t as complicated as it may sound. In fact, the videos don’t actually have to play in your email. Rather, you can simply link out to them and mention “video” in your subject line to start seeing results.

In-person video for small business

Video doesn’t have to be limited to the web. You can also use it for your in-person marketing—in your shop, at events and trade shows and in sales sessions. Loop a video on a screen to attract foot traffic or include videos to make presentations more engaging.

Overcoming the hurdles to video marketing

Our recent survey on the State of Social Video Marketing showed that marketers aren’t making as many videos as they’d like. The reasons? They say video requires too much time and budget and the tools and software seem too complicated.

As a small business owner, you likely face similar hurdles. We’ll break them down here and show you why video is easier to get started with than you may think.

Myth #1: Video is too time consuming

There’s a common misconception when it comes to video that it takes days (or even more) to create a single video. In truth, this may be accurate when it comes to professional productions with big production crews, designed to be run as television ad campaigns. However, creating videos for social, or to embed on your blog and website, doesn’t have to take a ton of time.

You can get started with as little as a couple hours a week, and as you get better at making videos, you’ll need even less. You can repurpose photos and videos you already have or use stock imagery to save time on production.

We’d also like to call out that even big brands with big budgets have started opting for less polished social videos for a more authentic look. You don’t have to spend hours to reap the benefits of video.

Myth #2: Video is too complicated

But even with the time set aside, a lot of small businesses don’t use video because they believe they don’t have the expertise. Yes, some video editing softwares require advanced know-how. But a wide range of video editing solutions cater to non-professionals. And you can use these to create professional videos on your own. We promise you.

We should also mention that, when it comes to social video especially, you don’t need heavy production. A lot of the most engaging videos are short clips with just a few shots, or even a single clip with text on it. Start simple and as you get more familiar with video creation you can try new, more complicated things.

Myth #3: Video is too expensive

Finally, video production doesn’t have to break your budget. As we mentioned above, you likely have the photos and video clips you need to get started. If you don’t, you can use your smartphone instead of an expensive video camera.

Add text over your video clips and you don’t need to worry about expensive audio equipment (85% of people watch with the sound off anyway). And you can tie it all together with an inexpensive, easy-to-use video editing tool.

Small business videos ideas

Okay, so now we’ve convinced you that you need video. But what types of videos should you make? This is one of the biggest questions faced by small business marketers looking to get started with video. We’ve rounded up some small business video ideas and examples for inspiration.

And to help you out, each of these video examples includes a template that you can customize to make your own .

About us video

Share the story behind your business. Who are you and what products or services do you offer? An About Us lets you show off the people and story behind your business, which can work especially well for small and growing businesses.

Product story video

A product video ad, which we’ll get to next, works when you want to close the deal and make a sale. But telling the story of your product or service can engage with potential customers on a whole other level. Telling the backstory of a specific product can make for share-worthy content, as you can see in this example. Do you offer a product with an interesting backstory?

We promised a product video ad, and here it is. A video ad should be short and sweet. It introduces your product to the target audience and provides a clear call to action (CTA) so they know how they can purchase.

Fun social video

Looking for a quick video idea for your social media pages? Try a quote. Quote videos take little time to make and rack up shares to boot. Just pair a nice photo or video clip with a quote that’s relevant to your business or industry.

How-to video

A how-to video lets you showcase your expertise. Answer a question you hear a lot from your customers or share an insider tip based on your industry expertise. Share it on social media and YouTube too, where potential customers are searching for answers. You can also share your expertise with a list or step-by-step instructional video.

Blog teaser video

If you’ve got a blog or other content on your website, try creating a short video teaser to promote it. Make sure to include a clear call to action with the link where viewers can go to read more.

Testimonial video

With testimonial videos, you can share social proof and help new customers feel comfortable doing business with you. While you can actually shoot interviews with your customers to create testimonial videos, there are some easy alternatives too. Try using quotes from Yelp, social media or customer emails, paired with accolades and imagery of yourself or your product.

Video tips and tricks for small businesses

We hope we’ve inspired you to start making videos. Before you dive in, here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your video marketing.

• Get started with what you have . You likely already have photos and video clips you can use to create your first videos. Look on your phone, your desktop, your website, and your social media profiles for content to get started with.
• Plan for sound off . When creating videos for social media, remember that 85% of people watch with the sound off. Use text to tell a story that translates whether or not viewers turn the sound on.
• Keep mobile in mind . More and more viewers watch videos on mobile devices,. Make text large enough to read and go for a square or vertical format for videos designed for mobile or social media.
• Target your video ads . With the targeting capabilities of Facebook Ads Manager and other social platforms, you can reach the audience most likely to engage with your business or product.
• One size doesn’t fit all . Creating a video for Facebook? For the Instagram feed? Twitter? An Instagram story? Different types of formats and content work best on different platforms, so plan your video content accordingly. Here’s a cheat sheet to help you out.
• Use your smartphone . You don’t need fancy equipment to get started. We’ve all got great professional cameras in our pockets. Your phone shoots better video than you think!
• Pay attention to lighting . Good light (or lack of it) can really make or break the quality of your video. Don’t have professional lighting equipment? Try shooting outside in the sunlight, next to a window or simply turn on as many lights as you’ve got indoors.
• Pay attention to audio . Similarly, the state of your audio can have a big impact on the quality of your video. When recording, listen with headphones to make sure everything sounds OK. And remember, even if you do plan on using audio you should plan for sound-off viewing and use text or captions.

Animoto for small business

Ready to dive in? We’re here to help. Animoto provides everything small businesses and marketers need to drag and drop their way to powerful and professional videos. With customizable video templates, designed with success in mind, Animoto makes it easy for anyone to create their own videos in minutes. With over a decade in the industry and partnerships with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, Animoto is used by more than one million businesses worldwide.

Video templates for a variety of small business use cases, including all the ideas we shared earlier in the article, can be selected and customized. Add your own photos, video clips and text. Then, add your logo and update the colors to fit your brand and you’re done

We invite you to try it for free today. Happy video making!

Small business marketing with email

Email marketing is a must-have for business, but that doesn't mean it's easy to get right. In this section, Campaign Monitor discusses why email marketing is important for your small business, how to send amazing emails and, most importantly, how to scale your efforts.

When you started your own business or started working at one, there were probably a few hats you were expected to wear—like creator, CEO, founder or visionary.

But as your business grows, there will inevitably be a few more hats you have to put on—hats that may not fit quite as easily, like email marketing aficionado.

At Campaign Monitor we want to empower you with email marketing tools and tips that are powerful yet simple, so you can get back to doing what you do best.

Email marketing is alive and well

With so many options for marketing a new and growing business, you may struggle to decide where to focus. Research supports prioritizing email marketing. Let’s take a look at the stats:

• There are over 3.7 billion email users in the world currently, which means the projected number of users by 2021 is 4.1 billion.
• 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI.
• Email marketing drives $44 for every $1 spent .
• 89% of marketers say email serves as their primary channel for lead generation.

Before your first send

So you’ve decided to implement an email marketing strategy. Now what? First, you need to understand the purpose of email marketing: to create, secure and nurture relationships.

Yes, you’ll likely meet other goals along the way, like increasing customer engagement and ROI, but don’t lose sight of the people whose inboxes you’re sending to. With this in mind, we’ve compiled a few tips for maximum success.

1. Start with a plan

There’s no right or wrong formula for your first email marketing plan, as long as it answers the following questions:

• Why am I sending emails?
• Who am I sending them to?
• What value can I offer subscribers?
• What are my email marketing goals?

Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s time to map your customers’ journey. Think of this like mapping out a route for marathon runners; make sure the path is clear of barriers and the signs point the right way. You need to be familiar with the journey your customers take from lead to conversion so you can anticipate any needs or questions they will have along the way.

2. Segment your audience

When setting up your email subscription form, consider the information you’ll need long-term. Name and email address are the traditional fields, but collecting additional demographic information will help you to segment your audience into groups based on age, gender, location or another variable.

Rather than send the same mass email to your entire list every time, segmentation allows you to send customized and relevant content that your subscribers will more likely engage with. After all, proper email list segmentation can double email open rates.

As an example, Facebook segmented their list based on location and invited users to events in their area:

3. Personalize your messages

Once you’ve divided your list into groups based on purchase history, interest or other variables, it’s time to create content specifically for the people in that group. Maybe something they indicated interest in has gone on sale, there’s an event happening in their area or you want to address them by name and recommend something they’ll love.

One of our favorite ways to do this using Campaign Monitor is by inserting dynamic content into your message. This shows your audience that you understand and care for them, and it will add an extra “wow” factor that will surprise and delight them. And in case you needed additional convincing, MarketingSherpa ’s research shows that open rates increase by 41% when a personalized subject line is used.

See how Lyft uses the information they’ve gathered about their customers to create a pretty cool personalized email:

4. Scale your efforts

So you’ve mapped out a plan, organized your list into segments and created personalized content that drives engagement. It’s time to take all the tools and tactics that work and scale them to reach more people. At this point, automation is your go-to.

By scheduling emails to meet your subscribers at each point in their customer journey (which you already mapped out in step #1), you’ll continue to ensure that your content is relevant and fulfilling your customers’ needs. Plus, automated email messaging can increase open rates by 70.5%.

Paravel uses automation and personalization to send customized trip “postcards” to their customers:

5. Measure your success

You made it to the final step—see, that wasn’t so bad. The best way to continue to improve and refine your email marketing skills is to look at the data and find out what works, what you could do better and what you can live without.

Keep an eye on your metrics, try to retarget the subscribers who don’t engage and maintain good deliverability to ensure long-term email marketing success. Seventy-seven percent of ROI comes from segmented, targeted and triggered campaigns, so find what works for you and continue to help it grow.

What to look for in an email marketing platform

When it comes to email marketing platforms, there are a lot of options to choose from and ideas to consider. We’ve given you tips and tricks to begin creating your email marketing strategy, but choosing the right provider can make or break your business growth. Of course, you’ll want to choose a provider that can grow with your business in terms of subscriber list size and functional capability, but what about features to enhance your segmentation, personalization and automation?

If you’re looking for a service provider that will help you focus on your subscribers’ needs, design beautiful emails and scale your success, Campaign Monitor could be the perfect fit. With robust features for segmentation, personalization and automation, as well as 24/7 access to customer support, our team is here to help you drive engagement and increase ROI. Happy sending!

Small business marketing with social

Social media is a critical channel for growing your audience, showcasing your organization, and creating lasting relationships that will yield delighted customers. In this section, Sprout Social discusses the value of social for small business, how to get started on social and shares tips for advanced audiences.

Sprout Social works with thousands of small businesses to help them improve their social marketing strategy while also saving time online. Over the course of working with so many organizations, we’ve gotten good at helping guide their social strategy.

Here we’ve put together the essentials for small business marketing on social, but for a more comprehensive guide you can see our entire guide to social media for small business .

The value of social media for small business

Social is essential for driving your inbound marketing strategy, sharing your videos and increasing leads to email.

But social media is also important on its own.

Social media is valuable for businesses of any size or industry, and finding customers on social media has a direct impact on sales and your bottom line.

In fact, those individuals who follow you on your social channels are 57.5% more likely to buy from you.

But it doesn’t stop there. If you can actually manufacture a great positive social media experience that number increases to 71%.

These numbers prove your brand should capitalize on the power of social media for small business marketing.

We’ve broken the next sections down by where you may be in your social strategy, including information for those just getting started and more advanced tips for those with an established presence.

Getting started with small business marketing on social

1. define your social goals.

If you don’t know what you want to accomplish on social media, then you’ll never know when you succeed or fall short. Without this, you’ll likely struggle to maintain a nimble strategy.

Goals can vary wildly from one industry to the next. While a retail company may look for direct purchases from social, someone in higher education may look at new enrollment rates.

Our recent Sprout Social Index asked social marketers about their biggest goals. You can use their responses to help you choose your initial social media goals, then refine those as you get a better sense of what social marketing can provide your business. We’ve included a cheat sheet to define each item below.

• Increase brand awareness: How familiar social users are with your brand
• Increase community engagement: Authentic conversations you have with your followers
• Increase web traffic: The number of website visitors driven from social channels
• Generate sales/leads: Individuals who purchase your goods or services, or those who fill out a website form, from social channels
• Distribute content: Sharing your content to your social channels.
• Increase brand advocacy from customers: Getting happy customers to share their experiences on social
• Support customers: Using social to respond to customer inquiries and create better customer experiences
• Grow influencer marketing program: Increase the number of influencers discussing your brand on social

2. Define your core metrics

Think of your social goals as the destination and your core metrics as the map that helps you get there. Once again, we’ve provided a cheat sheet to some key metrics for social media marketing below.

Impressions : The number of times an individual saw your message

Engagements The number of times an individual has interacted with your message, including:

Engagement Rates : The number of engagements divided by the number of impressions

Site Visits : The number of times someone visited your profile page

Mentions : The number of times your handle or brand was mentioned on social. Followers : The number of individuals who follow you on social, usually shown as an increase or decrease over time

New Sales/ROI : The new revenue generated from social visitors, trackable with UTM tagging and website analytics

3. Target your audience and social networks

Social media provides one of the best ways to reach a targeted audience, but first, you have to identify that audience. Consider things like:

Remember the more specific you can get, the better. This will enable you to create a strong social media marketing strategy around these individuals and take a targeted approach to reach the right people at the right time.

Once you know who you want to reach, you’ll have to figure out where they are. Earlier in this guide, HubSpot noted that not every single inbound channel works for small business marketing. The same is true for specific social media networks—not every single one will make sense for your business. Social networks have varied user bases. Don’t invest in one network if your core audience is on another.

Before choosing a platform, ask yourself things like:

• Which platform best fits your B2B or B2C interactions?
• How often do you publish content?
• What’s the lifespan of your content?
• Are you using social media for customer service?
• Are you engaging with user-generated content?
• Can you automate parts of your social media?

The answers to those questions will inform the networks you should choose.

4. Figure out what to share

To figure out what content to post, look no further than what has worked best in the past. If you’ve published to social media before, tools like Sprout Social , Twitter or Facebook Insights can help you understand what resonated most with your audience.

Below is an example of how to view your Sent Messages with Sprout ( available with a free trial ).

Sort your messages by your key metric and you’ll see the top posts for that metric. Look through a handful to find any consistencies and leverage that insight when choosing what to publish.

5. Build your publishing calendar

Once you know what kind of content works, you can create social media posts to automatically publish at the times and days of your choosing. Additionally, you can use a social media publishing tool like Sprout Social to visualize your entire Publishing Calendar, across all of your networks and profiles.

Automatically export your calendar as a PDF to share with other key stakeholders throughout your organization.

6. Respond to inbound messages

Unless you sell the most niche product in the world, your customers likely post about it (and you) on social media. Whether they directly tag you or use certain keywords and phrases that relate to your company, it’s your job to respond to their messages to create a better user experience.

Monitor your social channels for conversations or posts that warrant a response. You can use a social media engagement tool to pull in the conversations that directly mention you or mention something relevant to your organization.

7. Analyze your results

Once you’ve established the metrics that matter most to your brand, and spent time on social channels posting and engaging, you can start to track the impact of your efforts.

The frequency with which you analyze your social media results will likely depend on your time and how much you utilize social. Remember that it’s important to track metrics to optimize your strategy. You can use a social media analytics tool to automatically run high-level or in-depth reports if your time is limited.

Advanced tips for small business social

1. search social for new opportunities.

We’ve established that small business marketers must respond to social media posts that tag or mention them. For a more advanced tactic, we suggest monitoring social media for conversations on topics related to your business, and then joining in.

Let’s say you own a pizza restaurant in Chicago that prides itself on its gluten-free offering. By using a social media listening tool , you can track everyone who mentions a term like “gluten free pizza” in the Chicago area.

These conversations will populate in your inbox in real time so that you can reach out to anyone looking for a recommendation and suggest your restaurant.

2. Run competitive analyses

Keep an eye on your competition’s social media strategy. Doing so will help you understand the industry and how you measure up as well as develop unique ideas to stand out from the crowd. We’ve created this entire guide on running a competitive analysis , including a free template to help you conduct your research.

3. Leverage relevant hashtags

Hashtags help you get your content in front of new audiences on social media. Not sure which to use? Our free Hashtag Holiday calendar contains a ton of ideas. Just make sure that the hashtags you use actually make sense for your brand and you’re not forcing it.

4. Create great visuals and videos

Earlier in this guide, Animoto shared the importance of video:

“Video has become increasingly important on social media, where it generates 1200% more shares than images and text combined. Video can be incorporated into your social marketing throughout the customer journey to maximize the success of your campaigns.”

They also shared some tips to make creating videos easier on your team. Now that you’ve bought in, make sure that you share any and all videos you create with their guidance on your relevant social channels.

5. Get your teammates on social

Social media poses so many opportunities for businesses that it can feel a little overwhelming at times. As a small business marketer, you may be in short supply of resources, but if there is anyone at your organization that can help you keep up, then invite them to join you.

If your concern is in doubling efforts or reducing how secure your accounts are, then never fear. Social media collaboration tools can ensure that you effectively manage your presence as a team.

6. Boost your content with paid ads

If you don’t get the impressions you hoped for on social media, it could make sense to boost your views by putting some paid advertising dollars into your posts until your presence takes hold. Each native network has its own paid social functionality, or you can use a paid social tool to quickly boost your posts.

Using a social media tool

A social media marketing tool like Sprout Social saves you countless hours managing your presence. Long gone are the days that you should find yourself manually logging in and out of each social profile when it’s time to publish a message, respond to customers or get your social media analytics.

Learn all about Sprout Social for your small business and start a free 30-day trial today.

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MARKETING INSIGHTS

11 best marketing strategies to accelerate your business (+ examples)

• Lena Sernoff
• Aug 2, 2023
• 17 min read

The first and most crucial step in your marketing strategy is marking your online territory. When you create your own website , you're claiming a digital space that's entirely yours. Next, you'll need to outline your company's growth plan using the right marketing strategies to generate more leads, web traffic and acquire new customers. From influencer marketing and PR to SEO, we'll explore precisely which types of marketing to focus on in the year ahead to fuel significant growth for your business.

Start building your online presence with Wix .

What is a marketing strategy?

The role of a marketing strategy is to map out how you plan to promote and sell a product or service. Its ultimate goal is to reach your target audience through marketing and advertising campaigns and then get them to buy or engage with your service. It can also help you map our your target audience, as well as the best ways to reach them with tracking and insights.

Essentially, a marketing strategy is an overarching plan that anyone deciding how to start a business , or working with an existing business use to increase visibility and ultimately their profits. It can involve anything from creating a strong brand identity to developing innovative products and services. Successful marketing strategies should be tailored to your specific goals and objectives.

Creating strategic marketing strategies starts with defining what is product marketing for your niche, understanding where you are now, identifying key areas of improvement and focusing on achieving specific goals.

Marketing strategy vs. marketing plan

While these terms are used interchangeably, marketing strategies are broader summaries of what your business does to overcome your pain points, meet your goals and reach your audience.

A strategy provides a larger picture of how you plan to stay ahead of your competition. It can reveal threats that you may need to consider for long-term sustainability . By contrast, the marketing plan methodically outlines details of how you will implement your strategies and how you will track your marketing ROI .

Additionally, your marketing plan is highly detailed and involves the four Ps of marketing : product, price, place and promotion. It helps to ensure a more integrated marketing approach—that is, a unified message across all of your promotional channels.

Why marketing strategies matter

There are plenty of benefits to defining your marketing strategies early on. Marketing strategies are essential for businesses as it helps them to identify their goals and objectives, understand their target audience, and develop an effective approach to reach out to them. A well-crafted marketing strategy can help you gain a competitive advantage , improve your brand image and increase sales and revenue. Setting clear goals and objectives and aligning the marketing strategies to achieve them best sets you up for success. To understand more about the theory behind why marketing matters, we recommend the ideas and work of Michael Porter . He is credited with developing the concept of competitive advantage, for example. There's a lot to be gained from understanding his research and incorporating it into your marketing management .

Furthermore, marketing budgets might be limited when starting a business , and a clear plan ensures you won't waste any resources. Besides, how will you measure success if you don't first establish what it looks like or how you'll get there in your small business marketing goals?

The main elements of a marketing strategy

These may vary but generally include:

Establishing your target audience through market analysis

Deciding on your Unique Selling Proposition , Go to market strategy

Creating your market positioning , and establishing product differentiation, how customers will perceive you and your product

Establishing your pricing

Setting the budget for your marketing strategy

Implementation of your chosen strategy

Continuous tracking and improvement of your plan

For more information on what makes an effective modern marketing strategy, we recommend looking to Phil Kotler , whose work on marketing management and the importance of connecting with your audience, has been instrumental in improving marketing strategies.

11 best marketing strategies

One of the biggest challenges in marketing strategies is keeping up with changing market trends and consumer preferences. Developing an effective marketing strategy can also requires significant time, resources, and expertise; t he list of the types of marketing strategies out there is extensive. By analyzing the top marketing trends and doing in-depth customer and market research, we've narrowed it down to the top 10 strategies for you.

Remember that no matter which methods you decide to include, they will only be effective if your audience likes and trusts your business. As you carry out campaigns, aim to educate, inspire or entertain your audience, so you'll see the most impactful results.

Content marketing

Social media marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Email marketing and newsletters

Influencer marketing

Earned media and PR

Landing pages

Advertising

Affiliate marketing

Retargeting

AI marketing

01. Content marketing

In the past decade, there's been a shift in the marketing mindset. Today we see a rise in blogs, podcasts and webinars that are engaging and inclusive to audiences—so they feel more connected with brands.

Creating valuable and informative content has become a win-win especially when it comes to developing and improving customer engagement . Content marketing creates a strategic opportunity for your business to connect with a customer meaningfully.

Content marketing also helps you generate awareness, become an authority and tell a story. Focusing on this strategy early on is handy for other marketing ideas , as you can share your content on social media or in email newsletters later. The most popular content strategies are:

Content writing

Infographics

Video marketing

Starting a podcast

02. Social media marketing

71% of small-to-mid-sized businesses use social media for marketing . This high percentage comes as no surprise. Social media marketing is one of the most influential ways to use digital marketing to increase visibility and gain traffic to your website. More so, it can be a valuable lead generation method, a sales channel, an audience insights tool and a customer service outlet.

From Instagram Reels to TikTok, your options of getting in front of new audiences are endless. Ensure you strategically choose which channels you focus most on, based on your target audience. If you aim to reach a professional audience, LinkedIn is a must for creating a company page. Social media platforms are a great way to secure first-mover advantage , a concept in marketing and business when companies are the first to market in a specific product category. The speed at which its possible to generate and distribute multimedia content on social media is ideal for this.

Video marketing is a format that is becoming more heavily favored on social media as users consume more content on their mobile devices (this marketing strategy also works well if you're focusing on mobile marketing), so consider this as an important form of content creation in your marketing strategy. This marketing strategy also allows brands to tap into the phenomenon of viral content. While not easy to achieve, it can have a dramatic impact on key marketing metrics and KPIs, such as website traffic, and brand visibility.

Social media advertising is another component that should not be overlooked. For example, advertising on Facebook can drastically increase new customers. Want to try Facebook advertising for your business? Facebook Ads by Wix directly connects to your website to set up and optimize your campaigns. Remarketing on social media channels is a highly effective way to bring people back to your website to complete a purchase.

Popular social networks for promoting a business:

Instagram marketing

YouTube marketing

TikTok marketing

Facebook marketing

LinkedIn marketing

Pinterest marketing

Twitter marketing

Our recommended reading to improve your social media strategy:

Types of Social Media Content for Your Business

How to Increase Social Media Engagement

Ways to Improve Your Social Media Presence

03. Search engine optimization (SEO)

Search engines are filled with micro-moments. These are high intent instances when someone wants to learn, buy or do something. By optimizing your chances of ranking higher on search engines to show up at these instances, you're practicing search engine optimization SEO .

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be used as a core marketing strategy or a marketing tactic. In either case, a solid SEO strategy centers around making a brand’s content desirable, discoverable and accessible for web users via search engines like Google and Bing. Like inbound marketing, the most effective SEO strategies will include a great deal of audience research (typically with keyword research) and will be designed to ensure the brand has competitive visibility within the target audience.

SEO strategists tend to focus on industry specialisms and niches, such as technical SEO . Taking this approach can help brands to concentrate knowledge, utilize the most effective SEO tools , and best satisfy user intent.

Using SEO techniques, you'll direct the right kind of traffic to your site. People who find you through searches already arrive at your business website with intent. Driving traffic to your website isn't the only significant benefit. Bottom line sales also improve with SEO. In fact, 70% of online marketers say that "SEO is better than PPC advertising for generating sales."

To implement an SEO strategy, start by learning how to do keyword research the right way. After selecting which high intent keywords you're after, you can begin optimizing your content and improving your online presence to increase your search ranking and visibility.

04. Email marketing and newsletters

Recent studies show that 89% of marketers use email as the primary channel for generating leads . However, for email marketing campaigns to succeed, they need to deliver the right kind of message to your audience (no spammy "Buy now" emails). Good email marketing builds a relationship and acquires trust with readers.

You can still automate emails (check out marketing automation software ) but remember to always add value. These newsletter examples show how all-sized companies can communicate uniquely and interestingly with subscribers. When you make a newsletter , conduct A/B tests to maximize performance.

When done correctly, your newsletter and email marketing strategy can create a strong ROI, improve customer retention and influence purchasing decisions.

Email marketing tips:

To build your email list , add a pop-up to your website to collect user information.

Share engaging content in your emails, such as blog posts, user-generated content and videos.

Personalize emails by adding information such as first names and customizing content based on how the user engaged with your site.

05. Influencer marketing

According to author and entrepreneur Seth Godin, "People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories, and magic. These wise words sum up the power of influencer marketing . As one of the quickest growing marketing strategies, influencer marketing uses real people to speak for your brand. Another side of it, is tapping into celebrity branding - using high profile influencers or online celebrities as part of your marketing efforts.

Influencers are individuals with high following or authority on a given topic or niche. This is one of the best marketing strategies because you get to expose your products and brand to a high follower reach without spending time building the audience. More than that, the influencer you've chosen to work with can use their authority to sway potential consumers to buy. Influencer marketing is not unlike word of mouth marketing or referral marketing.

The key is to find influencers that relate to your product and align with your brand values. Don’t be afraid to start with smaller partnerships with nano and micro-influencers . Interestingly enough, often their engagement rates and conversions are much higher than the ones with massive followers.

After reading these impressive stats below, you’ll further understand the lucrative power of a good influencer marketing strategy in helping your secure greater market penetration as part of a wider mass marketing strategy:

60% of marketers report better performance with influencer content vs. their own brand content.

Over 70% of marketers agree that the quality of customers and traffic from influencer marketing is better than other forms of marketing.

Influencer marketing yields between $5.20 to $6.50 for every one dollar spent.

06. Earned media and PR

After you've launched your business and website, it's time to spread the word. Gaining positive publicity and traction from media outlets will create the buzz around your business to get the attention of the masses. Business marketing strategies within this realm come in varying forms, including TV, newspapers, radio and podcasts.

Ideally, the press and publicity you acquire are organic (unpaid), but even if you’re considering working with a paid PR agency, the ROI can prove worthy. Bill Gates himself said, “If I only had two dollars left, I would spend one dollar on PR. It's an effective way to take your marketing communication to the next level.

07. Landing pages

What is a landing page? In simple terms—a marketer's best friend. This standalone page has one clear goal which is conversions.

No matter how successful your various online marketing strategies are, your landing pages and website must convert at a decent rate to make all the efforts worthwhile. Even just a one-second delay in page-load speed leads to a 7% drop in conversions.

Stay up to date with landing page best practices to increase your website conversion rate . By using Wix’s landing page builder , you’re already optimizing with best practices in mind. The landing page templates have customizable designs with CTA buttons placed strategically, built to be mobile-friendly, and critical information above the fold. Simply upload your images and change the text to fit your business.

08. Advertising

There are numerous types of advertising to consider for your business. From social media advertising to TV and print advertising , the options for advertising campaigns greatly vary. One thing is clear, online advertising is a powerful way to get your audience's attention. Its digital technology helps you better target, track and measure the results of your paid marketing investment.

Learning how to advertise on Google early on will significantly benefit your growth within digital advertising. Since Google is the largest search engine globally, you want to stay ahead of the competition and show up for strategic keywords related to your offerings with Google ads. Advertising on Google and many social media platforms is also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising .

To choose the proper advertising methods for your business, consider:

Your audience

Costs and budget

Timing and length of your campaign

Creative assets available

09. Affiliate marketing

To answer the question, “ What is affiliate marketing? ” you can think of it as paid partnerships where others promote your brand for you. By creating an affiliate marketing program, you’re ultimately working with another affiliate that will distribute product promotions on their social media accounts, blog, or other platforms. Their sales get tracked with unique links called affiliate links, which allow the individual to get compensated based on performance.

This type of marketing is increasing in popularity, and more and more companies are rolling out their own affiliate programs. Due to this growth, today, 81% of advertisers include affiliate marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy.

10. Retargeting

Retargeting is a highly effective way to reach people who are already familiar with your brand and have expressed some level of interest in what you have to offer. It allows you to show ads to people who have already visited your website or shown interest in your products or services.

There are a few different ways to retarget people who have visited your website, from display and social media ads to email marketing, which can help you in the following ways:

Increase brand awareness. Make sure your brand is top of mind for people who have already visited your website. This can make them more likely to remember you when they are ready to make a purchase.

Generate leads. Showing ads to people who have visited your website and have done nothing else can encourage people to take the next step. Try offering free discounts or trials to give further incentive.

Drive sales. People who abandoned their shopping carts or visited your website but didn’t buy anything might just need a reminder, and you can make sure they get one.

Whichever platform you choose, just make sure you are tracking the results of your retargeting campaigns so that you can see what’s actually working.

11. AI marketing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the world of marketing. AI-powered tools and technologies are being used to automate tasks, personalize experiences and target audiences more effectively. As a result, AI is becoming an essential part of any successful marketing strategy.

AI marketing is still in its early stages, but is rapidly growing in popularity. As AI technology continues to develop, it's likely that AI marketing will become even more important in the future. Here are some specific examples of how AI is being used in marketing today:

Chatbots: Chatbots are AI-powered software programs that can simulate conversation with human users. Chatbots are increasingly being used in marketing to provide customer support, answer questions, and generate leads.

Personalized recommendations: AI can be used to recommend products or services to customers based on their past purchase history, interests and online behavior. This is a powerful way to increase customer engagement and drive sales.

Targeted advertising: AI can be used to target ads to specific audiences based on their demographics, interests, and online behavior. This is a more effective way to reach target audiences and improve the return on investment (ROI) of advertising campaigns.

AI website maker : There are a number of AI-powered design tools available that can help businesses create websites more quickly and easily. These tools use AI to generate templates, layouts and even content for websites.

These are just a few examples of how AI is being used in marketing today. As AI technology continues to develop, we can expect to see even more innovative and effective ways to use AI in marketing in the future (such as AI marketing automation ).

Marketing strategies examples (and why we love them)

Wix: content marketing with education in mind.

If you haven't yet heard—we launched a podcast. Now What interviews leaders to discuss the future of business, design and eCommerce. The episodes are filled with helpful insights on succeeding as an entrepreneur as technology keeps changing.

Podcasting is a content marketing strategy that centers around the listener. On top of educating and informing with this content, Wix also turns some episodes into blog posts and shares them on social media. We saw how helpful it could be to have all types of content that listeners and readers can consume in the medium that best fits them. And most importantly its not just about promotion—it can inspire and teach something new. Podcasts and other forms of marketing content can also be used as part of your customer relationship management, as they allow you the ability to engage directly with your users or potential customers.

Berta : Social media marketing that keeps up with the trends

Bridal company Berta didn't earn its 2.9 million followers for nothing. Their highly engaging, humorous and trendy Instagram Reels and TikToks take over social media feeds. In one of their Instagram videos , they used a trending voice-over of the Kardashian family speaking. They styled each Kardashian voice with a different Berta dress to playfully showcase their dress line to each unique personality.

Their trendjacking marketing strategy is not only clever and entertaining, but it also displays products naturally. Berta makes themselves relatable and likable, while also positioning themselves as driven by innovation, through social media—something all brands can learn from.

Etsy : Email marketing campaigns that add value

Etsy, a platform known for its handmade gifts, understands how to use email marketing to showcase products while also benefiting the reader. The sharp yet level-headed subject line "Next-level gifting" grabs attention immediately. Opening the email with the following helpful advice:

"A few tips for nailing their gift: 1) Try a pick that's unexpected—but so perfect. 2) Celebrate your connection, whether it's a shared hobby, a sweet message, or an inside joke. 3) Add a personal detail to make it completely one of a kind."

The email grouped different products, such as jewelry, cozy gifts, heartfelt art and more. As a receiver, you're happy you got some thoughtful gift ideas from Etsy. Instead of spamming product links into an inbox, Etsy added value and tried to find ways their marketing could be helpful.

Blue Apron : Influencer marketing with a niche

As a meal prep business, you can only imagine how strategic it was for Blue Apron to partner with a top chef like Sam Kass . Kass reaches 20,000 followers that are likely all food lovers. Blue Apron's use of influencer marketing and personalization has boosted engagement by hosting a virtual cooking class with Kass, helping them foster brand trust. They stayed focused on their niche within the foodie world and used leaders aligned with their values to represent their brand. While a highly effective strategy on its own, mass marketing is not necessarily the right approach in every situation. Understanding your market share within a niche that is more likely to convert is more important sometimes than focusing on a wider market grab. In essence, strategic marketing is where it's at.

How to choose and create a marketing strategy in 5 steps

Define your goals

Identify your target audience

Understand your customer’s pain points and your value proposition

Select your marketing channels and allocate budgets

Decide on the messaging, creatives and implementation plan

01. Define your goals

Data repeatedly shows that ​​those who write down goals achieve more than those who don't. There are several ways to set your objectives, such as using the SMART Goals method, broader SWOT analysis . You might also need to run a marketing audit of your current strategies to see what's working, what's not and how this will impact your new marketing goals.

Your business goals might be to develop your brand awareness, break into a new geographic area, or increase online sales by a given percent. The more specific and numerical these goals are, the better they can be tracked, measured and replicated.

02. Identify your target audience

After you determine exactly whom your business wants to reach, it will be clearer which marketing strategies to choose. That's because the messaging and platforms you'll use need to fit your target audience and target market . Audience parameters can be tied to demographics like age, gender, geographic region, likes, interests, etc. They can also be enhanced with competitor analysis . Create different l ightboxes or conduct market segmentation to assist you in the process.

03. Understand your customer’s pain points and your value proposition

To develop a marketing strategy that works, you must understand what your ideal consumer struggles with regularly. This awareness will align your product, place, price and promotion to solve their pain points and increase your chances of scalability. Once you’re confident in your value proposition , you’re ready to proceed.

Not sure where to start with this? Consider using the marketing mix, or 4p's of marketing . This is an approach that helps organizations develop and implement effective marketing strategies. It consists of four key elements that collectively shape a company's marketing approach - product, price, promotion and place or distribution.

04. Select your marketing channels and allocate budgets

Where does your audience spend the most time? Is it social media or reading publications and online magazines? Once you know where the people you want to be reaching are, you can best select the types of marketing you wish to implement in your strategies and the marketing channels to target. While niche marketing can be impactful, you can also consider the benefits of diversification in your marketing strategies - is offline marketing worth it for you, for example. Sometimes not putting all of your eggs in one basket is the better approach.

Likewise, choose which marketing tools will help you execute the campaigns. Allocating a specific budget for each channel and your KPIs is also important to do in this stage. Using a marketing plan template is a simple and effective way to document your process.

05. Decide on the messaging, creatives and implementation plan

The final step in your marketing strategy is working on your messaging and creative formats. For example, if you plan to educate customers on product capabilities and spend a lot of time on YouTube, you might create a video campaign. The video messaging will resonate with your target audience in a relevant and meaningful way.

How to track marketing strategies

Tracking your marketing strategies according to their set KPI's is essential for understanding how effective they have been, and so you can optimize them as they run.

We've put together some of the main ways in which you can track your marketing strategies from planning to execution. The specific KPIs for each marketing strategy may vary, but in general they should all be tracked according to the following steps.

Set your goals and define what you want to achieve with your marketing strategies. Do you want to increase website traffic, generate leads, boost sales or improve brand awareness?

Choose the key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your goals. If one of your goals is to increase website traffic, then your KPIs or marketing metrics would be page views, bounce rate and time on site.

You should use always tracking tools in order to collect the specific data you need to understand how close you are to meeting your KPI's, or not. The exact tool/s you use will vary according to your goals and specific metrics but some popular examples include Google Search Console, tools that track social media analytics and email marketing software. Make sure to fully understand what it is your tracking before choosing the right analytics tool for you. Some tools can measure multiple KPIs, such as traffic sources , traffic numbers and more. You may need to check that you have the necessary tracking codes installed on your website and landing pages to monitor your campaign's success.

Once you've collected your data, you'll need to analyze it. First of make sure to regularly review and analyze the data collected from your tracking tools, either on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. This will help you identify what's working and what needs to be improved. It should also help you plan better future marketing strategies and campaigns.

Don't be afraid to adjust your strategies. Based on the insights gained from your data analytics, you'll most likely need to adjust or optimize your marketing strategies to improve them. One example of this is if your social media campaign is not generating the desired engagement, try experimenting with different content formats or posting times.

Monitor your strategies and their progress both over the short and long term. This should be a continuous process that involves reviewing your KPIs and metrics to ensure that you're on track to achieve your objectives.

What is a marketing strategist?

A marketing strategist is someone, generally referred to as a professional, who develops and implements marketing plans and campaigns to achieve a company's marketing and sales goals.

Their responsibilities include conducting market research, analyzing consumer behavior and market trends, and identifying target audiences. From this information, they create effective marketing strategies and tactics, including product positioning, pricing, promotion, and distribution. The ultimate aim of a marketing strategist is to increase brand awareness and drive sales growth.

Marketing strategies FAQ

What are the main components of a good marketing strategy.

While the precise marketing strategy you choose will depend on your specific business, industry and marketing KPIs, the components of a good marketing strategy remain the same. These include clear goals and objectives, a well-defined target audience, a unique value proposition, a solid competitive analysis plan, a great marketing mix, a clear budget and metrics complete with a structured implementation plan.

Why is a good marketing strategy so important for your business?

What are best practices for marketing strategies, what are the 4 types of marketing strategies, related posts.

Marketing plan template: step-by-step guide plus examples

40 effective types of marketing to boost your business

A look forward: 6 marketing trends to embrace in 2024

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11 marketing strategies (+how to execute them effectively)

Marketing is the foundation of how you communicate your value to potential customers and convert them.

Developing an overarching marketing strategy is all about understanding who your customers are , how your product fits into the market, and where to reach the right people.

The trick to building a successful marketing strategy is choosing the right one for your needs, and getting it down on (proverbial) paper. In fact, marketers with documented strategies are a whopping 313% more likely to be successful!

We’ll walk you through what a marketing strategy is, how to build a marketing plan based on that strategy, and how to oversee day-to-day plans and execution seamlessly.

Get started with monday.com

What is a marketing strategy?

A marketing strategy is your business’s game plan for finding your target audience — those people who are your potential customers — and turning them into such.

A marketing strategy should also support your business’s value proposition and communicate why you’re the better choice over your competitors.

It’s critical to get organized when it comes to your marketing strategy.

In fact, organized marketers are 397% more likely to report success, and goal-setting marketers are 376% more likely to report success — both practices are a natural part of building a marketing strategy.

One of the most critical parts of building a marketing strategy is documenting it and tracking its success, both of which can be done using monday.com’s Work operating system (OS).

Our marketing strategy template allows marketing leaders to easily keep track of campaigns by department or goal — including important elements like the project brief, status, priority, and timeline.

This template can be adapted to keep track of projects by goal, or narrowed further to keep track of specific asset optimization.

Finally, there are placeholder columns to help marketing leaders keep an eye on deadlines and target goals.

But before you dive into actually documenting your marketing strategy, you might want to perform a marketing SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis helps you think about your business in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Marketing leaders can use monday.com’s Work OS to document potential projects, goals, and needs in our marketing SWOT analysis template .

This template organizes groups of tasks by the four pillars of a SWOT analysis and ranks tasks or goals in terms of relevance and priority.

Marketing strategy vs. marketing plan

It’s important to note that a marketing strategy is not the same thing as a marketing plan .

You might have one overarching strategy, and then sub-strategies for different areas of marketing — as we’ll see in a minute.

Similarly, you might have one overarching plan, bringing together all the steps that need to happen to achieve every strategy, or you might have a separate plan under each sub-strategy.

How you build it out is up to you.

Of course, using monday.com you can create a separate strategy and plan for each marketing area and link them all together, so you also have a cohesive overall strategy and plan.

But the important point to remember here is that strategy = what, and plan = how.

A marketing plan is often tracked and documented using a marketing calendar . These are most often organized by month, and include plans for campaigns, distribution, status, and due date.

monday.com’s Work OS makes it possible to view your marketing calendar in both list and table format as well as using an actual calendar, as shown below:

Of course, you can’t execute a marketing plan without a budget. In order to track your marketing budget , use a template that allows you to estimate planned spend, record actual spend, and keep track of things like campaign status and media type.

What are the most effective marketing strategies?

After defining your overall marketing strategy, performing a SWOT analysis and setting up an overall marketing plan and budget, let’s dive into the various marketing strategies that you can use in support of your goals.

Digital marketing strategy

A digital marketing strategy encompasses all digital marketing platforms, including pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), paid and organic social media, email , blog posts, web pages, and so much more. Pay-per-click is a marketing method that brings instant results, whereas SEO is usually a long-term project.

It’s often a catch-all for everything your business does online in support of marketing efforts, and excludes activities like in-person events, print sales materials, company swag, and out-of-home media buys like billboards and other ad types.

Including interactive content such as  flipbooks , polls, quizzes and AR advertisements in your digital marketing strategy is also important as it keeps people on your website  for longer and improves their experience.

To accurately plan and execute a digital marketing plan in support of your strategy, you’ll need to track the status of various campaigns, platforms used for execution, and various stakeholders.

From there, tracking allocated spend versus actual spend, target audience, and path to content creation in support of the campaign are crucial for an on-time and impactful launch.

To keep track of campaign performance, link your digital marketing strategy to a campaign tracking dashboard to easily view details like performance by platform and campaign duration.

If your campaigns aren’t organized by channel, try this marketing campaign template , which provides a broader overview of campaign success for marketers who might need it.

Content marketing strategy

A content marketing strategy is closely associated with inbound marketing , and is the process of building high-quality assets (pieces of content) for relevant target audiences, in order to move them down the funnel to purchase.

Content calendars are the core of a content marketing strategy, assisting marketers in planning, executing, and publishing various types of content to support this goal.

A content calendar is typically organized by month, and includes the status, stakeholders, audiences, and final publish link of each asset — as well as anything else your organization might need to track.

The terms content calendar and editorial calendar are often used interchangeably, but they’re not exactly the same.

A content calendar might include things like product webpages and sales one-sheets, whereas an editorial calendar typically focuses on things like blog articles, videos, bylines, and more.

Blogging strategy

Part of your content marketing strategy is likely going to be running a blog . Execute your blog plans with a tracking template that captures content type, category, stage of creation, publish date, and more. Make sure that your blog content follows best practices , i.e. it is well-structured, delivers a great user experience, and answers user intent. If search engine optimization (SEO) is a core part of your blogging strategy, our template is set up to make sure you’ve tracked whether or not your assets hit your SEO goals before they go live.

Video strategy

Content marketing strategies almost always include brand awareness and video these days. In order to track and manage the creation and distribution of video content , adapt this content planning template to include steps like storyboarding, production, editing, and more.

Organize your plans by date, or perhaps by channels — YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram (posts, reels , and stories), TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn are often popular channels through which marketers distribute video content.

Audio strategy

These days, your content strategy isn’t complete without an audio content or podcast strategy . Our podcast planning template allows you to track audio content creation, production, and distribution all in one place.

Social media marketing strategy

A social media marketing strategy is your business’s plan to leverage specific social media channels to meet your needs.

Your social media strategy can sometimes overlap with your digital marketing strategy if you choose to plan both paid and organic social media efforts under one roof.

Much like a content calendar, marketers often rely on a social media calendar to keep operations running and track the success of various campaigns.

Outside of producing social media content and getting it live, you’ll also want to make sure you’re crystal clear on which efforts have been successful and which have not.

monday.com’s social media metrics template allows marketers to track campaigns by impressions, engagement, link clicks, and other metrics that matter to them.

Product marketing strategy

A product marketing strategy is the bridge between your product team and your marketing team, and includes the management of a go-to-market strategy plan for new products or features on your product roadmap.

Product roadmaps are often used to help business functions like marketing and sales plan for new feature launches and create supporting assets like sales decks, one-sheets, talking points for account managers and sales representatives, and much more.

Email marketing strategy

An email marketing strategy includes everything that’s communicated via email from your business to your customers or prospects — including marketing messages , product updates, sales outreach, and more. Think of your email marketing strategy as the blueprint for targeting the right audience and the best route to speak directly to them.

Email marketing is often fragmented in the sense that ownership spans multiple different teams within marketing. It’s important to keep track of one master email marketing calendar, so you don’t lose sight of the overall customer experience, or worse, end up spamming your customers.

monday.com’s email marketing template allows teams to organize email communications by category, send date, audience, status, and much more.

Our template can be expanded to include important email metrics like open rate, click-through-rate , and website traffic, so you can determine which marketing efforts have been successful and which have not.

Event marketing strategy

An event marketing strategy includes the attendance or sponsorship of both online and offline events — conferences, webinars, trade shows, client dinners (if relevant), and more.

Event planning is easily planned and executed with monday.com’s event schedule template , which allows marketers to view task lists alongside a calendar. Marketing teams can assign event leads, assistants, status, dates, timelines, and more.

PR strategy

A public relations (PR) strategy is an organized effort to target media outlets — including online, print and broadcast — for the purpose of reaching a broad audience and influencing brand perception and sales.

It can often be complex. Relationships need to be built not just with customers, but with journalists, government decision-makers, and other influential entities and institutions.

In support of your PR strategy, monday.com has an easy to use media coverage template that supports PR teams in tracking various types of coverage.

SEO strategy

Last, but certainly not least, an SEO strategy is one of the most important traffic drivers for any website or business.

This encompasses the creation of content that ranks for certain keywords through organic search engines, so that relevant consumers find your website and products.

The foundation of any SEO strategy is keyword research — which is the process of identifying relevant search queries in search engines like Google and Bing — and developing a plan for a web page or series of web pages to rank for those keywords. Check out this local SEO guide to learn more in-depth about the importance of keyword research!

monday.com’s keyword research template allows marketers to collect and analyze data across various long-tail keywords and clusters, and then build those content plans into a content calendar.

Your keyword research will include documentation and analysis of things like difficulty, search volume, average cost per click (CPC) if using paid advertisements, and landing pages which you plan to utilize in support of your efforts.

Optimize your marketing tactics with the right tools

All marketing strategies need to be integrated with one another, and are often dependent on the successes and failures of one another.

For example, a blog post might not be successful without a social media or email campaign to distribute it. Or a PR campaign might not be successful without attending a flagship event where your team can meet multiple reporters at once.

For the best chance of success, you’ll want to build your marketing strategy on a Work OS that acts as everything you need all in one — a project management tool, performance tracker, communications tool, file storage system, and so much more.

monday.com has everything marketing teams need to execute their marketing strategies. Get started today.

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16 Most Effective Marketing Strategies for Fast Business Growth

As if starting and growing a business weren't hard enough already, it's become increasingly difficult to capture the attention of your target audience and spread the word about your products and services. Without the right tools and marketing strategies to spur your growth, staying afloat—not to mention turning a profit—is an uphill task.

But how do you develop an effective marketing strategy for your business? How do you effectively and efficiently get your message across to your target audience? And how do you profitably boost visibility and sales for your offer?

In this post, our goal is to help you figure out the answers to these questions. We will explore 16 of the most effective marketing strategies for fast business growth and recommend tools to help you implement them. But first, we must establish what we mean by marketing strategy so that we're on the same page.

What is a Marketing Strategy?

So many different definitions have been applied to marketing strategy that it's deceptively difficult to pinpoint a definition that everyone agrees with. So, it's in our best interest to articulate how we define the concept in this post.

Marketing strategy refers to the process by which businesses attempt to understand their markets and their methods for getting customers to take profitable action.

In other words, marketing strategy aims to help you:

• understand who buys your services or products,
• establish how you'll motivate them to take action,
• keep an eye on competitors trying to do the same thing, and
• measure your results and refine your methods.

Essentially, these make up the four Ps of marketing ( Product, Price, Place, and Promotion ), also known as the Product Mix . Understanding this concept is crucial to success in marketing.

Developing an understanding of the fundamental principles of marketing strategy will equip you with the ability to apply your knowledge broadly, regardless of changes in trends or platforms.

Why Does Every Business Need a Marketing Strategy?

While you may still see results without a clearly defined marketing strategy, they are likely sporadic and could disappear if you face new competition or your industry changes even slightly.

On the other hand, if you have an old strategy that you still rely on even when your business or the market has changed significantly, it is likely ineffective. You should revisit your marketing strategy every few years to ensure that it is still relevant.

There are several other reasons you need a marketing strategy. Here are a few of them:

1. Speak Directly to Your Target Audience

For any marketing strategy to be effective, it must be targeted at the right audience. Therefore, you must first define and understand your target audience before you can reach them.

The best way to do this is by building a buyer persona which is a key component of marketing strategy. A buyer persona is simply a data-driven avatar of your ideal buyer and it spells out everything about them in as much detail as possible. It notes their preferences, as well as their demographic and psychographic characteristics.

Armed with such information about your target audience, you can speak directly to them, and this directly translates to higher conversion rates.

2. Avoid Wasting Time and Money

Having a clearly defined marketing strategy can also help you reduce or completely eliminate marketing waste.

The first way they do this is by ensuring that your efforts are targeted to the right people. This means that you can avoid wasting time and resources marketing your business to people who would never buy your product. Would you waste time and money erecting a billboard in the South Pole marketing ice to Eskimos?

The other way they do this is by identifying the channels that are most relevant to your target audience. Snapchat marketing is great, but not if your product is intended for Baby Boomers.

3. Keep Your Message Relevant and Consistent

A marketing strategy also helps you keep your marketing message consistent and relevant to your target audience.

These are naturally built into the marketing strategy as appealing to a clearly defined target audience forces you to focus exclusively on a message that is relevant to them.

4. Set Clear Goals and Measure Results

A marketing strategy will inevitably contain clearly set objectives and key results to track and measure success. Without a strategy, you will be taking a spray and pray approach to marketing. And that is not only wasteful but also an inefficient way to achieve your business goals.

5. Create a Point of Reference for Strategy

A documented marketing strategy can serve as a point of reference and guide for your employees. You and your team can always revisit the document whenever you feel like you're losing your way or need to check if a marketing tactic or method fits into your overall strategy.

There will also be times when you can't remember important details such as specific information about your ideal buyer or why you made a particular marketing decision in the first place. If you have a clearly documented marketing strategy in place, it could serve as a reference in such situations.

What are the Best Marketing Strategies to Try?

There are so many channels and strategies competing for our attention today that identifying the right ones for your business may seem like rocket science. From social media to search engine optimization, pay-per-click, and blogging, it’s easy to see why most are so overwhelmed and just about ready to give up.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the 16 most effective strategies for fast business growth.

1. Start a Blog and Benefit from Content Marketing

Blogging is a great way to set yourself up as an authority in your industry and a go-to resource. If you create a value-packed blog for your business, you can inspire trust and loyalty in your customers. You can differentiate yourself from the competition as an expert.

By regularly publishing timely and relevant content, you can develop a strong relationship with your target audience. And in time, they’ll come calling when they need your product or service.

Besides, several statistics validate the importance of content marketing.

For instance, content marketing is three times as effective at lead generation as paid search advertising.

70% of people prefer to learn about a company from blog posts than from ads.

Internet users spend around 20% of their online time consuming content.

68% of people spend a decent amount of time reading about brands that they find interesting.

At least once a month, 57% read content marketing publications.

And 80% of people prefer to learn about a company via custom content.

And those are just a few stats.

One great thing about blogging is that whether you have an existing website or not, getting started is quite simple and you can start today.

If you have an existing website without a blog, you first need to check if your CMS (Content Management System) offers blogging capabilities. If you use WordPress, then you’re in luck!

WordPress was designed for blogging. Although it offers many more advanced features now, it is arguably the best platform for blogging. It has an intuitive user interface and is geared for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so that your website can be found on Google via search.

A simple Google search will unearth tons of tutorials about using WordPress’s blogging capabilities and you can find one to help you understand what you need to do to get started.

If you use any system other than WordPress—such as Webflow, Squarespace, or Shopify—find out how to add a blog to your website.

If you’re starting from scratch without an existing website, here are steps you can take to get started:

Get a domain name and hosting account

The first step in creating a website is to register a domain name and get web hosting . These are usually two distinct steps. But with our recommended hosting provider, Bluehost , they are essentially a single step as Bluehost gives you a FREE domain name and website security for as little as $2.95/month.

Bluehost offers excellent web hosting for your website, whether you have a blog or an e-commerce store. Plus, you get a 99% uptime guarantee and 24/7 customer support.

Bluehost is recommended by WordPress and as you would expect, this means that it works seamlessly with WordPress. It offers a dedicated WordPress hosting plan that automatically installs WordPress for you.

Choose a WordPress Theme

Now, after getting web hosting and logging into your WordPress dashboard, you will need to pick a design for your blog. You do this by choosing a theme.

If you don’t like any of the themes that come preinstalled on WordPress, you can go for a paid theme. You can get one from theme marketplaces like ThemeForest , Elegant Themes , or Mojo marketplace .

Customize Your Theme

After selecting a theme of your choice, you’ll need to customize it to look exactly how you want. The exact steps will vary according to the theme you choose.

Add Content to Your Website

What’s a website without content? Content is critical to the success of your website. Determine how many pages you’ll need. You’ll have at least a homepage, an about us page, and a blog.

And that’s it! You have your blog up and running. While we chose to focus on WordPress here, you’re in no way limited to WordPress. There are tons of other great blogging platforms out there.

2. Use Social Media to Drive Free Traffic to Your Website

As you know already, social media is an important channel through which many businesses connect with their target audiences. You might even post on Facebook or tweet yourself now and again.

And you’re not alone. Of the small business owners that use social media, 92% consider it vital to their business. This is because it can help you build brand recognition, grow a community around your business, and grow your bottom line as well.

And with the number of social media users across the world expected to hit 4.41 billion by 2025 , it’s clear that social media is one of the best ways to reach your target audience with unprecedented precision.

You can take advantage of this vast audience to drive traffic to your business. Here are five tips to help you do just that.

Promote Your Blog Content

There’s no point in creating great blog content if no one reads it. You can get more people to see your blog content by promoting it on social media.

Studies show that brands that create 15 blog posts per month generate an average of 1,200 new leads each month. That sounds like an awesome marketing opportunity but if no one reads your blog posts, you won’t be getting any of those new leads. This is where promoting your blog content on social media comes in.

Of course, you don’t have to create that many blog posts every month to see tangible results. You can start at any time by promoting any piece of content. Keep your feed fresh by promoting your content with a variety of messages.

Make It Easy to Share Your Content

Your goal when creating content should be to get people to share it with their network. You may have come across a post by your friend on Facebook in which they shared a link or video. That’s what you want for your posts.

You can—and should—encourage site visitors to share your blog content by embedding a social sharing tool on your site. Some tools will even show the number of shares that each post has earned.

This is important because over 41% of people measure how influential a blog is by how many shares it gets. Making this information known to your site visitors could build trust and eventually lead to higher conversions.

Post When Your Audience is Most Active

The best time to post on social media is your audience’s “peak time”, which is when they’re most active.

In the beginning, when you’re still building out your social strategy, you can follow these guidelines for the best days and times to post on particular channels:

• Twitter: Thursdays, 5 pm.
• Facebook: Thursdays, 8 pm.
• LinkedIn: Wednesday, 9 am.
• Instagram: Friday, 7 pm.
• Pinterest: Friday, 1 am.

Later, you can begin testing the waters to see when you specifically get the most engagements and clicks.

Share Visual Content

Visual content wins on social, so much so that it is 40 times more likely to be shared than other types of content.

Also, tweets with images receive up to 150% more retweets than those without images in general. So, by using visuals and graphics in your tweets, you could potentially be putting your content in front of more eyeballs!

So, add elements like infographics, GIFs, videos, graphs, photos, and animations to your content.

Consistently Engage with Your Audience

Another effective way to drive traffic to your website—and improve the public perception of your brand—is to engage with your audience consistently.

Because only 11% of people receive replies from brands they interact with on social, you can easily stand out from the pack with a few personal comments.

Participate in chats on Twitter.

Respond to tweets and comments that mention you or your business.

Use a hashtag generator tool to search for relevant hashtags.

And finally, contribute to relevant forums.

3. Create Video Tutorials and Master YouTube SEO.

People are three times more likely to prefer watching a video tutorial over reading a product’s instructions. Tutorial videos have the primary goal of enabling the user to accomplish a task, and every element must fall into the right place to achieve that goal.

The easiest way to start making tutorial videos is by making screencast videos. As your skills improve, you can branch out into experimenting with other forms and styles of video, too. Here are some helpful tips for successfully creating great tutorial videos.

Select the Right Tools

To create a quality tutorial video, you must use the right tools.

Your microphone is one of such tools. If you plan to record screencasts regularly, you should consider investing in a USB microphone rather than using your computer’s inbuilt microphone. Using your computer’s microphone could result in a muffled sound.

You’ll also want to make sure that you’re using the right screencasting software.

Choose the Right Recording Location

You’ll want to record in a space that has good acoustics and is devoid of background noises. Echoes and background noises are bad for the viewer experience.

You also want to make sure that all your private information is kept off-screen when recording as everything on your computer screen is recorded during a screencasting session.

Taking these precautions can help you save time; it is better to control the recording environment rather than having to spend countless hours doing extensive editing during post-production.

Edit Post-production

During editing, you should add any elements that will make viewing easier and more enjoyable. You can add annotation, chapters, and closed captions. You can also add visual effects to make your tutorials more visually attractive.

Chapters are a great idea if your video runs more than a few minutes long. Viewers can use them to skip sections they may already understand and jump to sections most relevant to them.

Upload Your Video Tutorial and Optimize for Search

YouTube is the most popular video platform on earth and is even the second most used social platform after Facebook. As such, uploading your video to YouTube will potentially expose it to billions of viewers.

But this popularity can work against you, too.

Every single day, over 720,000 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube. That’s a lot of content competing with your tutorial. The only way to stand out is to master YouTube SEO and optimize your video for search.

YouTube SEO can be broken down into three major components:

• keywords , which involves analyzing the words that people use when searching for your topic,
• video content , which involves making a video that contains the information that people are looking for, and
• signals , which involves putting the right information in the right places so that YouTube will rank your videos well when people search using your keywords.

To sum it up, YouTube SEO is just like Google SEO, but using YouTube’s ranking factors. You can optimize your video description for better search results by using keywords in them. Discover the best keywords for your tutorial videos by using the Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool .

4. Run Free or Paid Webinars

A webinar is simply a seminar that is held over the internet. The word ‘ webinar ’ is a portmanteau of the words ‘ web ’ and ‘ seminar ’.

Webinars are used for various purposes. They can be used for video workshops, building relationships, product demos, and making presentations.

Hosting a webinar requires webinar software , a strong internet connection, and the material you’ll be sharing with the webinar attendees. There are several options when it comes to webinar software. Our top recommendations are WebinarJam and Demio . 

You’ll also need a webcam and microphone. While your inbuilt camera and microphone may serve you well, you would do well to invest in an external set for 4K recording and better sound quality.

On the other hand, the webinar attendees only need an internet connection and a viewing device—either a computer or a smartphone.

There are several benefits to hosting webinars for your business. But we’ll take a look at just four of them:

Capture High-quality Leads

Webinars make it easy to capture high-quality leads for your business. This is because they use a registration process, which means that only those who are truly interested in your content will sign up. Studies even show that hosting a webinar is the best way to generate high-quality leads for your business.

Another thing that makes webinars so effective at lead generation is the fact anyone who spends 45 minutes – 1 hour watching your presentation is most likely interested in your solution.

Build Your Mailing List

You probably know and understand the value of having an email list; email lists provide a direct link to your prospects and customers no matter what platform you may be using.

They also give you full control of your engagements with your audiences, unlike social media. As such, email lists are a true reflection of your audience size.

Webinars are a surefire way of building your email list as they require email addresses when registering.

Save Time and Money

Comparing the costs of hosting a seminar with the costs of hosting a webinar presents a remarkable difference. Webinars are not just cheaper for the organizer than seminars are, they are also cheaper for the attendees.

On the side of the organizer, when you factor in the costs to rent a conference room, snacks, travel, equipment, and accommodation for a seminar, it becomes clear that webinars are far more cost-effective.

For attendees too, no one has to spend time preparing to attend or waste long hours stuck in traffic. They can attend the seminar from the comfort of their home or office.

The convenience also makes it easy to convince prospects to attend.

Build Trust and Position Your Brand as an Industry Leader

Webinars allow you to set yourself apart as a leader in your industry. Industry leaders like SAP and Salesforce regularly host events that help them solidify their positions as industry leaders. Webinars level the playing field by allowing you to host your own events without expending a lot of resources.

Also, by providing valuable information to your attendees and showing how your solution can address their pain points, you can use webinars to bolster your prospects’ trust in your brand.

Paid Webinars

These days, there’s so much information that’s available for free that one might wonder, “are people still willing to pay for content?”

The short answer is yes—if it is worth it. And this is just as true for webinars. But why would you host a paid webinar? There are several reasons to consider this.

If you’re offering advanced training, you want people to commit, or you already have a loyal audience, then a paid webinar might work for you.

Building the perfect paid webinar that’s worth the price might seem daunting, but here are a few tips to help you on your way:

• Pay attention to detail : Double- and triple-check everything for accuracy. Make sure you have a good-looking and perfectly functioning landing page. Plus, you must make sure to offer stuff that people won’t find online with a quick Google search.
• Make it exclusive : If you make your webinar a one-of-a-kind event and limit availability, you can convince people to pay to attend. This is because people love to attend exclusive events that their friends and colleagues cannot get for free.
• Make it a series : Viewers may be more willing to pay for five sessions at $100 than to pay $20 for each one.
• Give attendees something to leave with: You may consider building an online course or certification around your webinars. This way, your attendees come in with the expectation that they’re not just coming for information—they’ll have something to show for their investment afterward.
• Make sure to use the best webinar software you can get : Get the best webinar software possible. Our top recommendations, Demio and WebinarJam , are the industry leaders and provide top-of-the-line service. You don’t want your attendees regretting their investment due to a software freeze during transmission (by the way, WebinarJam has a panic button feature just for this purpose. Pressing this button creates an entirely new session and automatically pulls in all your attendees from the old session. This way, your webinar continues smoothly). You also want software with an easy-to-use chat function and automated reminder emails and recaps. In all, you want something that makes the broadcast and viewer experience pleasurable and seamless.

5. Understand SEO and How to Attract More Google Traffic

In the past, you could rank high in search engines by slapping lots of search terms onto web pages, regardless of whether they were relevant or not. But these days, SEO is more complex.

There are three crucial elements of SEO. They are Keywords, Content, and Off-Page Signals.

Including keywords in your title, header tags, meta descriptions, and body copy is one of the most basic aspects of SEO. Search engines use them to understand what your site and web pages are all about and help them determine if your page is relevant to users searching for those keywords. There are two main types of keywords that you should use: Long-tail keywords and Location-based keywords .

Long-tail Keywords are longer and more specific keyword phrases that searchers are likely to use when they’re closer to making a buying decision.

If you own a car dealership, you might think that you should try to rank for words like “ car ”. But it won’t be easy as there are thousands and thousands of other websites about cars.

Instead, what you should aim for are long-tail keywords like “ used car dealership ”. While far fewer people will search for “ used car dealership ” than for “ car ”, the search intent would make a remarkable difference in both instances.

People searching “ car ” may be looking for any number of things, from photos to forums, the movie, and other such things. But people who search “ used car dealership ” are likely looking to buy a car.

Focusing on longer keywords like this gives you a better chance to rank well and also helps you attract more qualified traffic.

Location-based Keywords tell search engines where your business is located.

In keeping with the last example, if your dealership is located in Miami, you could use a keyword like “ used car dealership in Miami ”. This is even more targeted and will help further qualify your site visitors.

For keyword research, you can use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs . They are some of the best SEO and keyword research tools on the market. You can learn more about these tools in our guide to the best tools for keyword research .

In addition to having the right keywords, you also need to have quality content on your site to rank well. Search engines may not be able to read your content as a human would, but they look at certain signals to understand whether your content would be worth recommending to searchers.

For one, they consider the length of the content, preferring substantial content to shorter content. This is because while short blurbs may be easier to write, they don’t provide much value to readers. Therefore, you should aim for quality over quantity. You don’t need to write entire encyclopedias, but your content should provide comprehensive information to visitors to your site.

Search engines also prefer sites that stay fresh and are regularly updated. In other words, you can’t just create a bunch of web pages and leave them sitting, hoping that your search ranking will improve.

If you like the content on those existing pages, then there’s no need to change them just for SEO purposes. In such cases, you should consider creating a blog. Even if you only post once a week, search engines will know and understand that your site is regularly maintained and updated.

Additionally, your site most likely contains content that is related. Whenever you can, you should link such content together.

Off-page Signals

Search engines also rank your website based on the number of unique domain names linking back to it. In other words, they take into account how many site owners are referencing your content in their own content.

These are called backlinks . They operate like votes in favor of the quality of your site’s content. In other words, they position your site as a reliable source of knowledge. As such, it is worth spending time to get them.

Guest blogging is a great way to attract the audiences of other websites in your industry to your website. You should take advantage of any opportunity to create content for other websites and, if the editor allows it, you should include a link back to your site.

Also, while you should never just directly ask a site owner to link to your site, you should be looking to build relationships that could eventually grow into links.

6. Leverage Influencers with Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing simply involves recruiting people to promote your brand. Although it can take on many forms, it usually goes hand-in-hand with social media.

Influencer marketing is a different marketing approach. Brands identify the audience they’d like to market to and then find and reach out to leaders who can persuade the audience.

Benefits of Influencer Marketing

• People trust other people : Influencer marketing works because people trust people more than they trust businesses.
• Influencer marketing is more effective than advertising : 41% of people use ad-blocking software these days. So, if you’re relying on website or Google ads, you’re playing a losing game. (That being said, what does work is Facebook marketing , and these stats prove it).
• Influencer marketing offers new ways to share your message : Influencers can help create new and innovative ways to promote your brand that you would never have considered.
• Get more leads : Influencer marketing is essentially word-of-mouth marketing. And a recent study by McKinsey found that word-of-mouth marketing results in over twice the number of sales you’d get from a paid advertising campaign.

How to Find the Right Influencer for Your Brand

• Start with your audience : Decide who you want to receive your message before deciding on who to carry that message to them.
• Determine your goals : You need to decide exactly what you want to achieve with your campaign. Do you want to sell more products? Or do you want to increase brand awareness? Knowing exactly what you want to accomplish is crucial to finding the right influencer.
• Find the influencers : You can do a regular Google search for influencers in your niche. Or you can search for them using an influencer marketplace like Famebit , Tidal , and TapInfluence . You could also use a tool like BuzzSumo to find influencers who are already talking about topics you care about.
• Research the influencers : You need to check out your potential influencers and understand who they are before you approach them.
• Don’t get caught up in the numbers game : Yes, follower count does matter a little, but it is not as important as the quality of followers. You want an influencer who has the trust of their followers and the ability to persuade them to try something based on their recommendation.
• Introduce yourself : After selecting the right person, it’s time to approach them. Develop a friendship with them first and build slowly from there. Then after you’ve established a relationship, ask them if they’d be interested in promoting your brand.

Remember: even though you may be paying the influencer, their loyalty remains with their audience and you as a brand must respect that. Don’t go asking for glowing reviews or else. Allow them to be truthful about your brand, even those parts that they may not like. After all, authenticity is what helped them become influencers in the first place.

7. Build Your Audience with Email Marketing

There’s no better time to get into email marketing if you haven’t already. Email marketing continues to outperform other digital marketing channels, including search marketing and paid advertising, returning a whopping $42 for every dollar spent .

Here, we outline five tips to help you get started on your journey to email marketing wizardry.

Choose an Email Marketing Service

As a self-respecting email marketer, you need to work with an email marketing service. This way, you can leverage automation tools to get the best out of your efforts and effectively deliver your messages to large groups of subscribers.

You’ll also benefit from tools that can help you grow and manage your mailing list, as well as professional email templates and tracking features that let you understand how your subscribers engage with your messages and campaigns.

There are several good email marketing platforms to choose from, including both free and paid options. Our top recommendations are ConvertKit , Constant Contact , and SendinBlue . These options offer all the features you would need in an email marketing software such as a drag-and-drop editor, bulk personalized and targeted emails, list segmentation, email scheduling, A/B testing, seamless integrations with other tools such as CRMs, analytics, and email tracking and monitoring, and many other advanced features.

If you’re building your list from scratch, don’t be discouraged. You can start simply by using a paper sign-up sheet near your cash register, or by adding a sign-up form to your website. You can also get on social media and encourage your followers and loyal customers to sign up.

Set Up Your Welcome Email

Your welcome email is your first impression on your new subscribers. As such, it must pack a punch and deliver a truckload of value right out of the gate.

Understand the Importance of Subject Lines

You need to spend time on your email subject lines. These are the most important lines of text in your entire email. The reason is obvious: they are the first line subscribers see even before they open your email.

If your subject line does not capture their fancy, they will skip over the message entirely. Keep it short and sweet—under 40 characters, if at all possible.

Track Your Results

If your subject line does not capture their fancy, they will skip over the message entirely. Keep it snappy—under 40 characters, if at all possible.

Email marketing does not end when you hit send. You should track metrics like your open and click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, etc., and work to improve them as time goes on.

8. Use Facebook Ads with Re-Targeting

Most people find it difficult to wrap their heads around how an ad for a website they visited recently pops up in their Facebook feed. But to the digital marketer, it’s no magic; just plain old retargeting.

Retargeting is one of the most powerful and effective techniques for closing potential customers. It yields one of the highest returns on ad spend for digital marketers. But how does it work?

How Retargeting Works

Retargeting is simply targeting your Facebook ads to people who have already expressed interest in your site. Through retargeting, you remind them of how great your product or service is and why choosing it is the right decision.

To take advantage of retargeting on Facebook, you’ll first need to install a snippet of code on your website. This code will place a cookie on the computers or devices of people that visit your website and send back information to Facebook about which pages they viewed.

Then, from your Custom Audience preferences, you’ll retarget to different segments—you can target people who visited a certain page, or those who added a product to their cart but didn’t complete the purchase.

5 Steps to Launch a Facebook Retargeting Campaign

Follow these steps to set up a Facebook retargeting campaign. Note that these steps assume that you already have a Facebook account for your business.

• From your Facebook Ads Manager, select Audiences . You’ll find it in the dropdown menu when you click on Business Manager at the top left-hand side of the screen.
• Click on Create Audience and select Custom Audience . Again, you’ll find the Create Audience option at the top left side of your screen. Then, for retargeting, you’ll need to select Custom Audience .
• Select Website Traffic . This will allow you to reach people that visit your site.
• Select your target audience from the dropdown menu. The dropdown menu gives you the option of targeting anyone who visits your website, those who visit specific pages, those who visit specific pages but not others, those who have not visited in a certain amount of time, or any custom combination of these attributes.
• Get your Facebook Pixel and place it on your website. This is necessary to start retargeting. To get the code, go to the Audiences section of the Ads Manager. There, you’ll find the new retargeting campaign. Select it, and then click on Actions . Click on View Panel in the dropdown. From here, you’ll get your pixel code which you must now embed in your site. And you’re ready to go!

9. Launch Your Own Podcast and Reach Millions of People

Podcasts can be a fantastic marketing tool for your business if you know how to use them. Here are a few tips to get the best out of them:

Position Yourself as an Expert

People only buy from brands or people that they trust. You can leverage podcasts to gain or elevate prospects’ trust in you by positioning yourself as an expert in a specific field.

While you don’t necessarily have to be an expert in a broad topic or even something related to your brand, your content needs to be entertaining and engaging.

Use Your Podcast’s Description to Market Your Brand

Another great way to market your brand is to write a great podcast description. To be clear, we’re talking about the description of the entire podcast, not the show notes you write for each episode.

The description should answer questions like who the podcast is for, what they will get from it, who you are, and what they can expect.

Use Podcasting to Grow Your Brand’s Social Media Following

If you’re not using your podcast to get more social media followers, then you’re missing out on a lot of potential business. In every episode, make sure to:

• Mention all your social media accounts at the end
• Pin new episodes to the top of your social media pages
• Keep re-sharing episodes that had a lot of positive responses
• Tease the next episode on social media

Use ‘ Stories ’ on social media to make your podcasts more interactive

Release a Blog Post with Each Podcast

You can use blog posts to recap or expand on topics you discussed in your podcast. When you release a blog with each podcast episode, you can include a transcript for people who prefer to read and clarify discussions. You can also use your podcast to train your listeners to visit your site to learn more about your products and services.

Interview Guests Strategically

Bringing good guests on your show can help you better engage with your listeners and add expertise to your discussions. In other words, good guests can bring a lot of credibility to your business.

Besides, your guests can share the podcasts on their social media accounts, thereby granting you access to their follower base to potentially expand your audience.

Add calls-to-Action

You can use your podcast to drive traffic to your website by peppering it with calls-to-actions. You can ask listeners to follow you on social media, invite them to ask questions or share their thoughts on the show, ask them to subscribe to the show, ask them to visit your website, or even invite them to a trade show or event that your business is attending.

Whichever way you choose to use them, podcasts can prove extremely valuable to your business.

10. Use LinkedIn to Attract More B2B Customers

LinkedIn is one of the largest and fastest-growing social media networks, boasting over 740 million users in 2021. It is a powerful platform for B2B marketing, being responsible for 46% of all social media traffic to B2B company websites. So, it makes sense that you should also take advantage of it. Here are a few tips to help you make the most of LinkedIn for marketing.

Improve on Your Business LinkedIn Profile

Creating a professional LinkedIn profile for your business is crucial. You used to be able to list only the basics like your work experiences and education on your profile.

But now, LinkedIn has added several more interactive features to enhance your profile such as status updates, videos, articles, presentations, projects, recommendations, patents, expertise, awards, and certifications. Take advantage of these features to create a rich profile.

Create a Highly-informative Company Page

Your LinkedIn page is an ideal place to tell your company's story. You must show clear information about your products or services as finding such information might be what drives people to visit your page in the first place. You must build a page that is helpful for both you and your connections.

Optimize Your Page for Performance

A complete and compelling profile is necessary to underscore your brand's presence. It will help your customers or connections better understand who you are and what you do. Therefore, optimizing your profile is crucial.

Include details like logos/headers, photos, details of key employees, and any other details that make your business seem more human and professional to your connections.

Identify your Audience

One of the most important factors for success in any marketing strategy is understanding the audience, and this applies just as well to LinkedIn marketing. LinkedIn makes it easy to get into your audience's insights and capture their traits by revising Website Demographics .

The tool tells you what pages your site visitors are visiting and what content they engage with the most. Armed with this data, you can more accurately target your content to the right audience, measure the impact, and optimize for better ROI.

Create Valuable Content

Producing great content can mean the difference between success and failure for your marketing. Ensure that the content you post on your LinkedIn page is valuable to your target audience. Viewers will only follow you and keep you in their connections if they find value on your page.

Make Good Use of Videos

Consider this: within the first year of launching LinkedIn native videos, video posts generated over 300 million impressions on the platform. LinkedIn has made video sharing accessible to companies of all shapes and sizes.

Studies show that video posts garner 4 – 5 times more engagement than text posts on average. Take the time to think about that before deciding that you don't want to take advantage of video.

Make Use of LinkedIn Community Features

There are community features available on LinkedIn that allow you to communicate conveniently with other users, partners, or clients to expand your connections. There are two types of standard community features: groups and influencers.

• Groups : join groups that focus on your interests or expertise. This way, you stay informed about the latest happenings in your field and keep in touch with people or companies in your network. Groups are also a great way to grow your influence and connect with others. You can even create a group for your company.
• Influencers : through LinkedIn Influencers, you can connect with many thought leaders. You can comment on their posts and enter deep into the discussion and in the process, you'll get noticed by them.

Try LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn offers a wide range of advertising campaign types to effectively drive lead generation and brand awareness. The most widely-used ad formats on LinkedIn are Sponsored Content, Sponsored InMail, and Text Ads. But the newest and possibly the most powerful is LinkedIn Video Ads.

11. Set Up Your Own Affiliate Program

One of the unwritten rules of business is this: your best marketers are happy customers. If you have happy customers, why not reward them for being vocal about your business and how much they love you? Starting an affiliate program is a great way to go just that; you'll be letting your most loyal customers share in your success.

Affiliate Marketing Explained

In affiliate marketing, you give customers a commission for sales directly resulting from their recommendation of your products.

There are two sides to this strategy. On the affiliate side, there are the users who earn a commission by promoting your products in their content. On the other, there are the companies that provide the affiliates with unique, trackable links that they can then embed in their content.

For example, in one of their blog posts, a travel blogger may recommend that people book hotel rooms through an online service called “Hotels.com”. If they've signed up for Hotels.com's affiliate program (assuming Hotels.com has one), they'll get a commission for any sales resulting from their blog's affiliate link.

On the company side, Hotels.com will provide customized and trackable links to content creators like the travel blogger. Hotels.com will also be responsible for paying out the commissions.

The bottom line is that at the end of the day, you increase your revenue and give your users an incentive to advertise your product. It's a win-win for everyone involved.

It is not enough to just create an affiliate program; you also need to get affiliate marketers to use it. Here are some ways you can go about this.

1. Start by reaching out to people in your personal network

No matter what business you're in, you probably have a few industry friends who are not in direct competition with you. Inform them that you've started an affiliate program. They most likely have an audience that would be interested in your product or service.

2. Reach out to influencers in your niche

These days, social media allows you to reach almost anyone. You can take advantage of this to reach out to social media influencers in your space. Explain what makes your product or service unique and why they should check out your affiliate program.

3. Join a community of affiliate programs

With the rise in popularity of affiliate marketing, many communities designed to help merchants get their products out there—such as ShareASale , ClickBank , and CJ Affiliate —have sprung up. These communities are exactly what you need to get your affiliate program noticed. They are an excellent resource for finding affiliates for your product or service.

4. Consider using your email list

If you have a robust email list, you can try to convince your subscribers to become your affiliates. While reaching out to your professional and personal connections is great, reaching out to your subscribers is even better as you’d be reaching out to people who have used your product or at least expressed some interest in it. This is one of the many benefits of building a solid email list for your business.

12. Industry Events and Conferences

No matter what field you may be in, you can get far more value from conferences and industry events than you currently do. Let’s jump straight into ways you can do this.

Leverage Events to Grow Your Network

The value of a quality network can never be overemphasized. Building a personal network takes time. And if you’re also advocating for your company at the same time, that means community development is also ongoing.

There are a lot of valuable outcomes that can come from attending both online and offline events such as collecting competitive intelligence, recruiting, vendor or consultant sourcing, partner sourcing, and prospecting for new clients or customers.

To get the most out of the networking opportunities that events create, you should set goals for the kind of contacts you want to make. Go as far as making a list of people you’d like to meet if they’re particularly important to you.

If you fail to set goals for your event networking and leave it to chance, you’ll end up leaving a lot of value on the table.

Curate and Create Content

Content marketing is hotter than ever before. But where most companies have a hard time is sourcing content, and this is especially true for companies that are new to content publishing.

Fortunately, every event — from Twitter chats to webinars, keynote presentations, and breakout sessions — provides an opportunity to capture, curate, and even create new content.

Consider how you can leverage your experiences during conferences to create content for your company blog or process documentation. You can live blog, conduct interviews, journal, and track your buzz if you are speaking at the event.

The content you capture and create can help you show clients and prospects that you are on top of what’s happening in your industry.

Share the Knowledge Gained from the Event

The most important reason for attending conferences and events is to hear industry experts share advice and insights into ideas and topics that you can benefit from.

To multiply the value of one person attending the event, it makes sense to collect actionable tips, statistics, and other useful information to share with the rest of the team, clients, and other groups within your organization.

For the sake of efficient knowledge transfer, it is vital to create a process for information capture, synthesis, and distribution.

• Capture : During this phase, you’ll want to target specific speakers and sessions. Make a note of questions you’d like to have answered and if the presentations don’t touch on those topics, find subject matter experts to ask those questions directly.
• Synthesis : As you formulate the questions, you need to have specific applications for your business in mind. When you get the answers to your questions, you must filter the information in ways that are practical and useful when shared.
• Distribution : Have a plan for how you will present all of the information gathered from the event to your colleagues, clients, and prospective clients. You can choose to write a report, prepare a presentation, host a webinar, or compile video clips and images to a voiceover narration.

Maximize the Marketing Value of Events

There are ways to gain more attendees, more media coverage, and more value before, during, and after the event. Before the event, you can do the following:

• Write headlines, tags, descriptions, and make trackable short URLs
• Create a contest or buzz around your presentation to get others to share it to their networks
• Pre-write tweets and updates, and decide on a hashtag
• Create a teaser for your presentation and share it on social media
• Submit your session to event listing sites, and create events on LinkedIn and Facebook
• When you meet people before your presentation, don’t hesitate to share when you’ll be speaking

During the event:

• Create content that the audience can participate in. For example, you can take photos of the audience and post them on Facebook so that they can tag themselves
• Have someone on your team monitor tweets and buzz during your presentation so that you can interact in real-time as appropriate
• Motivate desirable behavior such as asking questions by giving something away
• Use sharable or tweetable content in your presentation

After the event:

• Curate all the buzz about the presentation into a blog post or newsroom post
• Use media coverage from the event in your newsroom, corporate email, and other business communications
• Follow up with connections made during the event

There are many ways to get the most out of business conferences and events. Try some of the tips mentioned here and see the results.

13. Use Chatbots and Win with Conversational Marketing

With conversational marketing, you can connect with prospects at exactly the right moment through tools like chatbot and live chat. It is one of the quickest ways to move buyers through your sales or marketing funnel.

Conversational marketing allows you to capitalize on the power of real-time conversations to build relationships with prospects and create a more personalized experience for them.

In recent years, conversational marketing has been on the rise.

Consider that 80% of businesses are expected to have chatbot automation of some kind installed on their website by the end of 2021. Also, 86% of shoppers prefer proactive customer support which is something that chatbots can offer immediately. Moreover, 36% of companies already use chatbots for marketing, sales, or to handle customer service inquiries.

Plus, chatbots can help you save time and resources, help with lead and revenue generation, improve the overall user experience of your website, and provide after-hours support.

But applying chatbots to boost your conversational marketing strategy is easier said than done. So, if you’d like to get in on the action, here are five ways to use chatbots on your website.

Communicate with New Website Visitors

Without a doubt, this is one of the most common use cases for chatbots, and it’s one everyone’s familiar with. You open a website and shortly after arrival, you’re greeted by a chatbot offering general assistance.

Visitors may or may not be ready to engage. But it is important to give those visitors at the beginning of the buyer’s journey the opportunity to engage with your company without needing a specific reason for doing so.

Qualify Leads

Chatbots offer an immediate opportunity to qualify leads. Since lead qualification can take up a vast amount of the time and bandwidth of your sales and marketing team, it makes sense to let your chatbot do some of the heavy lifting. Through your chatbot, you can ask lead-qualifying questions like:

• What brought you here today?
• Do you need some help?
• Are you a [BLANK (business owner, role/title, etc.)]?
• Tell me more

These questions are helpful in qualifying leads because they help determine what the lead is looking for (to help determine whether your products are a right fit), who the person should connect with in your organization and the level of intent. These are details that can be passed on to your sales team for further action.

You can add a form on your chatbot so that after you’ve qualified leads, you can capture their information and have someone follow up with them later. This way, your sales team can reach out to them quickly while the lead is still warm.

Personalize the Customer Experience

The more personalized the experience is with your chatbot, the better. When it works, personalization warms up the user experience.

For example, say you visit a brick-and-mortar store and have a great experience. If you came back days later to be remembered by name or based on what you may have been looking for the last time you came, wouldn’t that enhance the experience?

Chatbots can do this virtually, recalling past visitors and their names or companies.

Provide Customer Support

Customers want to engage in conversations that are quick and seamless. A chatbot is a great way to provide assistance and customer support to customers who need immediate answers or solutions to their problems. This beats requiring them to log a ticket and wait indefinitely for someone from your team to reach out or respond.

Promote a Product or Service Offering

One thing that can help improve the overall experience with chatbots is to consider where someone is in the buyer’s journey. This can be informed by thinking about the intent a visitor has as they open each page of your website. If they make it to one of your product pages, you can use a chatbot to qualify them and offer more insightful information.

14. Point-of-Purchase Marketing

Point-of-purchase marketing is a method of promoting products using displays placed around where purchases are made in a brick-and-mortar store. It generally refers to any display or banner placed before or in the checkout aisle, and can also be used to refer to any display placed within the store.

POP displays are ideal for inspiring impulse purchases. There are certain products for which POP marketing can be more effective than advertising or other marketing tactics. They are also very flexible. Besides increasing sales, here are some other benefits of POP marketing.

Grab Customers' Attention

POP displays give customers something to pass the time while they await their turn at the checkout. You can use such displays to grab their attention and then answer any questions they may have about the product.

Inform Customers

Since the product on display can capture the full attention of the customer, you can take the opportunity to inform the customer about benefits and interesting facts about the product. This will further encourage them to pick up the product impulsively.

Direct Customers' Focus

Effective POP displays make the products they advertise stand out. By directing customers' focus to a specific product, you can indirectly call their attention to other related products placed strategically around the main display, further boosting sales.

POP displays can be used in concert with shelf displays to further develop the brand image in the eye of the customer. You can place creative displays that deploy lighting and appealing design at store aisles and checkout lanes to pique the interest of buyers.

Types of POP Displays

POP displays are classified into three main types according to how long they will be used and their construction materials. A seasonal product or one on which you have a limited-time offer might call for a temporary display. On the other hand, you might want to promote a product for a longer time and thus go for something more permanent.

• Temporary POP Displays : These are usually designed for short-term promotions ranging from a few weeks to a couple of months. They are ideal for seasonal products or for testing products that you might want to add to your inventory but are not yet sure about. They are made from cheap materials and this makes them ideal for experimentation or storage for seasonal usage.
• Semi-permanent POP Displays : These are displays that are intended to last for anywhere between a couple of months to a year. The materials used for such displays are generally more durable and may be designed to carry more than one product from the same company. They are more expensive than temporary displays but cheaper than permanent ones.
• Permanent POP Displays : These are displays that are intended to last several years. Upfront, they cost the most, and maintenance costs are also higher than other types of display. But if designed properly, they can yield a high return on investment.

Best Practices for POP Displays

• Make sure to use colors that are appropriate for the product
• Make use of interesting and eye-catching shapes
• Keep the message clear and concise
• Ensure that it is easy to access the products
• Make the user experience your priority
• Illustrate the benefits of the product clearly
• Customize the display to the product it carries.

15. Co-Branding and Cause Marketing

Cause marketing involves partnering with or donating to a nonprofit organization to simultaneously build your brand and promote the greater good. There are two main flavors of cause marketing: Collaborative Partnerships and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Collaborative Partnerships

When you think of cause marketing campaigns, this is probably what comes to mind. A collaborative partnership involves a for-profit company partnering with a nonprofit organization to raise money and awareness for their cause.

Collaborative partnerships are popular because both companies benefit equally. But they present a challenge in that both organizations need to pull their weight for the partnership to be successful. You should only get into such a partnership if both you and your partner are ready and willing to invest the time, money, and manpower necessary to make it work.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is popular among companies that want to get involved in philanthropy but don't want to launch a brand-new program. It is a set of standards that a company imposes on itself and holds itself to in a bid to deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits for the public, their stakeholders, and employees.

It is different from collaborative partnerships in that it usually encompasses more programs.

Cause marketing does just as much good for your bottom line as it does for the public. Consider that 68% of customers say they wouldn’t buy products from a company with poor ethics and 56% of customers actively seek. Besides, 67% percent of customers think companies are responsible for giving back to the communities where they do business.

It’s not enough to simply choose a charity and start throwing money at them – cause marketing is still a publicity play. Here’s how you can do cause marketing the right way.

1. Get Behind a Cause You Believe in

Authenticity is extremely important in cause marketing as customers can spot an inauthentic brand ploy from light-years away. And the easiest way to be authentic is to find a cause you believe in and get behind it. If your heart isn't in the game, you're setting yourself up to fail.

2. Find the Brand Alignment

Being passionate about the organization you sign on with is great, but it isn't enough; both your brands need to be in alignment as well. Consider your own company and what kind of nonprofit will make the most sense for partnership from a branding perspective.

3. Give More Than Your Money

While donating money is great as it helps nonprofits further their mission, there are other ways to support them besides money. You can donate your time, skills, or manpower. For example, you can organize a food drive for a nonprofit. Whatever you choose to donate, make sure it's something they need and can handle. And make sure to communicate your plans with them before executing them. Donating food is great, but showing up unexpectedly with a truckload of food could quickly turn into a logistical nightmare if they are unprepared to handle it.

4. Focus on the Partnership

Focusing too much on your brand instead of on the partnership as a whole is a common mistake. Consider why the organization you've chosen to partner with is a good fit, as well as who they help and what they do for the community.

People are inspired by outcomes; so, when you focus on outcomes instead of clout, you'll end up achieving more than if you did otherwise.

5. Track the Return on Investment

As with anything worth doing in business, it is important to track the return on investment. What's the point of continuing a cause marketing campaign if it doesn't yield the desired results? And how would you determine how successful the campaign is if you don't track your results and outcomes?

16. Hyper-Personalize Your Customer Communication for Better Results

Big data has made it possible to create a hyper-personalized experience for customers. Hyper-personalization is simply the process of collecting the behavioral data of customers in real-time to customize product or service recommendations and experiences to their needs.

Several studies prove the effectiveness of hyper-personalization. 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a superior customer experience. Moreover, a study by Thomson Data showed that 49% of buyers made purchases on impulse because of a personalized customer experience.

Benefits of Hyper-personalization

Hyper-personalization minimizes the effort customers need to make to find what they want. It does this by offering a simplified and uncluttered shopping experience that is the result of eliminating obstacles in the funnel.

It also eliminates “choice-overload” by providing only those options that are relevant to a customer.

Hyper-personalization vs Personalization

Conventional personalization relies on transactional or personal information like name, purchase history, company, and so on. If you've ever received an email with your name in the subject line, then you've been exposed to one of the most common examples of conventional personalization. This approach uses profiling to make assumptions about the customer based on their characteristics.

Hyper-personalization on the other hand is a more involved and complex approach that focuses on advanced real-time behavioral data like engagement, in-app behavior, and browsing behavior. The result is a more relevant interaction that ultimately leads to higher conversion rates.

There are four steps to hyper-personalization.

1. Data collection

This is the most important step in creating a framework for hyper-personalization. It is impossible to identify your customers without data. A report by IBM suggests that about 80% of customers believe that companies do not address them individually.

When dealing with a large number of users, determining the needs of each user can be difficult. This is where gathering accurate data comes into play. Actionable analytics and an automated consumer engagement platform can be of great help in collecting the required information.

2. Customer Segmentation

The data collected in the previous step will help you understand how customers engage with your company or brand. The next step is segmentation.

Using various factors like brand interaction history, demographics, satisfaction, average spend, location, etc., you can divide your customers into various subsets.

3. Targeted Journeys

By now, you have identified and segmented your customers. You can then move on to hyper-personalized communication. Securing the right channel and the right time are crucial to success. The more relevant and targeted communications you have with customers, the higher the possibilities of conversions.

4. Measurement and Analysis

As repeatedly stated, running a targeted cosign is not enough. Measurement is crucial. Ignore vanity metrics and focus only on metrics that will impact the bottom line and help the company in the future. This way, you can determine what strategies positively affect your revenue directly and replicate or scale them.

Marketing Strategy Examples from Brands You Know

True, no business starts out knowing exactly what they're doing. But your favorite brands didn't get to where they are today by winging it. They had a strategy.

Let's look at four well-known brands and how they achieved massive success. At a basic level, they all understood the needs of their customers, how to meet those needs in novel ways that their competitors hadn't contemplated, and the place that their products held in the market.

1. Marketing Strategy of Nike

Selling products that meet a clearly defined and widely acknowledged need is one thing. Selling a product that meets a need people don't know they have is another. In the latter case, you have to sell ideas to your target customers before you can sell them your products. And that's what Nike did.

Nike was the first to give running shoes a gripping surface by putting one on a waffle iron. They promoted jogging as a good way to keep fit, essentially getting more people into running. And to run, they needed shoes.

In addition to selling shoes, Nike also created educational content teaching people how to get the most out of their newfound hobby. Thus, they created a self-reinforcing cycle that simultaneously built trust with their customers and drove incredible sales growth.

2. Marketing Strategy of Starbucks

Starbucks understood that people don't want coffee for its taste or functional benefits alone, but the holistic coffee experience. They also understood that people like familiarity.

So, Starbucks created an experience that met people's needs for meeting and working space, as well as a destination to hang out with friends. The experience became a part of people's routines and Starbucks not only sold a lot of coffee but became a part of their customers' lives.

3. Marketing Strategy of Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is one of the most recognizable brands in the world. But how did they do it? The answer lies in brand consistency.

Coca-Cola has kept its brand and product consistent for more than 130 years. Their logo has stayed pretty much the same and their marketing campaigns have continued to broadcast the same message.

4. Marketing Strategy of Amazon

Amazon massively delays email marketing to dominate e-commerce, taking a personalized rather than promotional approach. They apply insights from the data they gather about their customers—such as online behavior, demographics, previous purchases, and so on—to recommend new features and products.

They also use emails to announce sales offers and request feedback in the form of reviews. Plus, they show you items you may have looked at while browsing the store but not purchased.

Besides, Amazon devotes as much as 90% of its marketing budget to SEO and PPC. And they've been so successful with these that 44% of shoppers now go directly to Amazon when searching for anything, and 90% will check Amazon when looking to make a purchase.

Marketing Strategies FAQ

The two main types of marketing strategy are Business to business (B2B) marketing and Business to consumer (B2C) marketing.  As suggested by the name, in B2B marketing, you're marketing your products or services to other businesses and organizations. It is distinct from B2C marketing in that it tends to be more straightforward and informational. This is because businesses make purchase decisions based on bottom-line impact. While ROI is hardly ever considered by the everyday person — at least, in a financial sense — it is the primary focus of corporates.  B2C marketing on the other hand refers to the marketing of goods and services to individuals rather than businesses and organizations.

Cart abandonment is one of the single biggest problems faced by e-commerce businesses the world over. With the limited attention span of people and the myriad online distractions and real-world interruptions readily available to capture our attention, there are many reasons people end up abandoning their carts.  To solve the problem, Nordstrom utilizes an assertive retargeting strategy involving a slew of emails and retargeting ad campaigns on social media networks that are activated by cookies and based on specific events. With this series of reminders, it is difficult for users to forget about the uncompleted purchases in their cart.

The most effective marketing strategies are those that are targeted toward a specific audience, focused on key benefits based on the audience's point of view and interests, and delivered at an appropriate time — when the audience is most likely to be attentive to and interested in the message being delivered. The best marketing strategies for your business are those that embed a strong storyline, build an emotional connection with the target audience, are customer-centric, scalable, and agile.

Ready to Skyrocket Your Customer Acquisition with Innovative Marketing Strategies?

Now you know exactly what marketing strategies to employ to grow a highly profitable business .

You’ve learned how to get the most out of content marketing, and social media, and industry events, as well as how to use webinars, video tutorials to supercharge your marketing.

You’ve also learned how to build your audience with email marketing, leverage influencers, launch your own podcast, and use retargeting to get people to come back and complete their purchase. And these are just a few of the strategies covered in this post.

Now, it’s your turn! Go and implement what you’ve learned and grow your business to unprecedented levels.

Learn about Different Types of Marketing & Strategies

• What is Omnichannel Marketing? (+Best Practices for Ecommerce)
• Integrated Marketing: What It Is and Why It Matters
• Global Marketing Strategies & Examples of Innovative Companies
• What is Service Marketing? Definition, Strategies, Examples
• Retention Marketing: What It Is, Strategies & Examples (2023)

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Martin luenendonk.

Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.

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What Is Marketing?

Understanding marketing.

• What Are the 4 P's of Marketing?

Types of Marketing Strategies

• Limitations

The Bottom Line

• Marketing Essentials

Marketing in Business: Strategies and Types Explained

Ariel Courage is an experienced editor, researcher, and former fact-checker. She has performed editing and fact-checking work for several leading finance publications, including The Motley Fool and Passport to Wall Street.

Investopedia / Lara Antal

Marketing refers to the activities a company undertakes to promote the buying or selling of its products or services. Marketing includes advertising and allows businesses to sell products and services to consumers, other businesses, and organizations.

Professionals who work in a corporation's marketing and promotion departments seek to get the attention of key potential audiences through advertising. Promotions are targeted to certain audiences and may involve celebrity endorsements , catchy phrases or slogans, memorable packaging or graphic designs, and overall media exposure.

Key Takeaways

• Marketing refers to all activities a company does to promote and sell products or services to consumers.
• Marketing makes use of the "marketing mix," also known as the four Ps—product, price, place, and promotion.
• Marketing used to be centered around traditional marketing techniques including television, radio, mail, and word-of-mouth strategies.
• Though traditional marketing is still prevalent, digital marketing now allows companies to engage in newsletter, social media, affiliate, and content marketing strategies.
• At its core, marketing seeks to take a product or service, identify its ideal customers, and draw the customers' attention to the product or service available.

Marketing as a discipline involves all the actions a company undertakes to draw in customers and maintain relationships with them. Networking with potential or past clients is part of the work too and may include writing thank you emails, playing golf with prospective clients, returning calls and emails quickly, and meeting with clients for coffee or a meal.

At its most basic level, marketing seeks to match a company's products and services to customers who want access to those products. Matching products to customers ultimately ensures profitability.

Formal Definition:

"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. " —Official definition from the American Marketing Association, approved 2017.

What Are the 4 P's of Marketing?

Product, price, place, and promotion are the Four Ps of marketing. The Four Ps collectively make up the essential mix a company needs to market a product or service. Neil Borden popularized the idea of the  marketing mix and the concept of the Four Ps in the 1950s.

Product refers to an item or items the business plans to offer to customers. The product should seek to fulfill an absence in the market or fulfill consumer demand for a greater amount of a product already available. Before they can prepare an appropriate campaign, marketers need to understand what product is being sold, how it stands out from its competitors, whether the product can also be paired with a secondary product or product line , and whether there are substitute products in the market.

Price refers to how much the company will sell the product for. When establishing a price, companies must consider the unit cost price, marketing costs, and distribution expenses. Companies must also consider the price of competing products in the marketplace and whether their proposed price point is sufficient to represent a reasonable alternative for consumers.

Place refers to the distribution of the product. Key considerations include whether the company will sell the product through a physical storefront, online, or through both distribution channels. When it's sold in a storefront, what kind of physical product placement does it get? When it's sold online, what kind of digital product placement does it get?

Promotion, the fourth P, is the integrated marketing communications campaign. Promotion includes a variety of activities such as advertising , selling, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, sponsorship, and guerrilla marketing .

Promotions vary depending on what stage of the product life cycle the product is in. Marketers understand that consumers associate a product’s price and distribution with its quality, and they take this into account when devising the overall marketing strategy.

Marketing refers to any activities undertaken by a company to promote the buying or selling of a service. If there is a limited quantity of a product, a company may market itself in an attempt to be better positioned as one of the few who get to buy something.

Marketing is comprised of an incredibly broad and diverse set of strategies. The industry continues to evolve, and the strategies below may be better suited for some companies over others.

Traditional Marketing Strategies

Before technology and the Internet, traditional marketing was the primary way companies would market their goods to customers. The main types of traditional marketing strategies include:

• Outdoor Marketing: This entails public displays of advertising external to a consumer's house. This includes billboards, printed advertisements on benches, sticker wraps on vehicles, or advertisements on public transit.
• Print Marketing: This entails small, easily printed content that is easy to replicate. Traditionally, companies often mass-produced printed materials, as the printed content was the same for all customers. Today, more flexibility in printing processes means that materials can be differentiated.
• Direct Marketing : This entails specific content delivered to potential customers. Some print marketing content could be mailed. Otherwise, direct marketing mediums could include coupons, vouchers for free goods, or pamphlets.
• Electronic Marketing: This entails the use of TV and radio for advertising. Through short bursts of digital content, a company can convey information to a customer through visual or auditory media that may grab a viewer's attention better than a printed form.
• Event Marketing: This entails attempting to gather potential customers at a specific location for the opportunity to speak with them about products or demonstrate products. This includes conferences, trade shows, seminars, roadshows , or private events.

Digital Marketing

The marketing industry has been forever changed with the introduction of digital marketing. From the early days of pop-up ads to targeted placements based on viewing history, there are now innovative ways companies can reach customers through digital marketing.

• Search Engine Marketing: This entails companies attempting to increase search traffic through two ways. First, companies can pay search engines for placement on result pages. Second, companies can emphasize search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to organically place high on search results.
• E-mail Marketing: This entails companies obtaining customer or potential customer e-mail addresses and distributing messages or newsletters. These messages can include coupons, discount opportunities, or advance notice of upcoming sales.
• Social Media Marketing: This entails building an online presence on specific social media platforms. Like search engine marketing, companies can place paid advertisements to bypass algorithms and obtain a higher chance of being seen by viewers. Otherwise, a company can attempt to organically grow by posting content, interacting with followers, or uploading media like photos and videos.
• Affiliate Marketing: This entails using third-party advertising to drive customer interest. Often, an affiliate that will get a commission from a sale will do affiliate marketing as the third party is incentivized to drive a sale for a good that is not their own original product.
• Content Marketing: This entails creating content, whether eBooks, infographics, video seminars, or other downloadable content. The goal is to create a product (often free) to share information about a product, obtain customer information, and encourage customers to continue with the company beyond the content.

In 1978, Gary Thuerk sent a message to roughly 400 people using ARPANET, the first public packet-switched computer network. With that message, the first ever recorded spam e-mail message had been sent.

What Are the Benefits of Marketing?

Well-defined marketing strategies can benefit a company in several ways. It may be challenging to develop the right strategy or execute the plan; when done well, marketing can yield the following results:

• Audience Generation. Marketing allows a company to target specific people it believes will benefit from its product or service. Sometimes, people know they have the need. Other times, they don't realize it. Marketing enables a company to connect with a cohort of people that fit the demographic of whom the company aims to serve.
• Inward Education. Marketing is useful for collecting information to be processed internally to drive success. For example, consider market research that finds a certain product is primarily purchased by women aged 18 to 34 years old. By collecting this information, a company can better understand how to cater to this demographic, drive sales, and be more efficient with resources.
• Outward Education. Marketing can also be used to communicate with the world what your company does, what products you sell, and how your company can enrich the lives of others. Campaigns can be educational, informing those outside of your company why they need your product. In addition, marketing campaigns let a company introduce itself, its history, its owners, and its motivation for being the company it is.
• Brand Creation. Marketing allows for a company to take an offensive approach to creating a brand. Instead of a customer shaping their opinion of a company based on their interactions, a company can preemptively engage a customer with specific content or media to drive certain emotions or reactions. This allows a company to shape its image before the customer has ever interacted with its products.
• Long-lasting. Marketing campaigns done right can have a long-lasting impact on customers. Consider Poppin' Fresh, also known as the Pillsbury Doughboy. First appearing in 1965, the mascot has helped create a long-lasting, warm, friendly brand for Pillsbury.
• Financial Performance. The ultimate goal and benefit of marketing are to drive sales. When relationships with customers are stronger, well-defined, and positive, customers are more likely to engage in sales. When marketing is done right, customers turn to your company, and you gain a competitive advantage over your competitors. Even if both products are exactly the same, marketing can create that competitive advantage for why a client picks you over someone else.

According to MarTech, a digital marketing provider, the world will spend $4.7 trillion on marketing by 2025. This estimate includes an increase of $1.1 trillion from 2021 to 2025.

What Are the Limitations of Marketing?

Though there are many reasons a company embarks on marketing campaigns, there are several limitations to the industry.

• Oversaturation. Every company wants customers to buy its product and not its competitors. Therefore, marketing channels can be competitive as companies strive to garner more positive attention and recognition. If too many companies are competing, a customer's attention may be strongly diluted, resulting in any form of advertising not being effective.
• Devaluation. When a company promotes a price discount or sale, the public may psychologically eventually see that product as worth less in the future. If a campaign is so strong, customers may even wait to purchase a good knowing or remembering what the sale price was from before. For example, some may intentionally hold off buying goods if Black Friday is approaching.
• No Guaranteed Success. Marketing campaigns may incur upfront expenses that hold no promise of future success. This is also true of market research studies, where time, effort, and resources are poured into a study that may yield no usable or helpful results.
• Customer Bias. Loyal, long-time customers need no enticing to buy a company's brand or product. However, newer, uninitiated customers may. Marketing naturally is biased towards non-loyal patrons as those who already support the company would be better served by further investment in product improvement.
• Cost. Marketing campaigns may be expensive. Digital marketing campaigns may be labor-intensive to set up and costly to maintain the scheduling, implementation, and execution of the plan. Don't forget about the headlines that promote Super Bowl commercial expenses in the millions.
• Economy-Dependent. Marketing is most successful when people have capital to spend. Though marketing can create non-financial benefits such as brand loyalty and product recognition, the ultimate goal is to drive sales. During unfavorable macroeconomic conditions when unemployment is high or recession concerns are elevated, consumers may be less likely to spend no matter how great a marketing campaign may be.

Marketing is a division of a company, product line, individual, or entity that promotes its service. Marketing attempts to encourage market participants to buy their product and commit loyalty to a specific company .

Why Is Marketing So Important?

Marketing is important for a few reasons. First, marketing campaigns may be the first time a customer interacts or is exposed to a company's product. A company has the opportunity to educate, promote, and encourage potential buyers.

Marketing also helps shape the brand image a company wants to convey. For example, an outdoor camping gear company that wants to be known for its rugged, tough goods can embark on specific campaigns that embody these traits and make these emotions memorable to prospective customers.

What Is the Purpose of Marketing?

An important goal of marketing is propelling a company’s growth. This can be seen through attracting and retaining new customers. 

Companies may apply many different marketing strategies to achieve these goals. For instance, matching products with customers' needs could involve personalization, prediction, and essentially knowing the right problem to solve. 

Another strategy is creating value through the customer experience. This is demonstrated through efforts to elevate customer satisfaction and remove any difficulties with the product or service.

What Are the 4 Ps of Marketing?

A commonly used concept in the marketing field, the Four Ps of marketing looks at four key elements of a marketing strategy. The Four Ps consist of product, price, place, and promotion. 

What Are the Types of Marketing?

There are dozens of types of marketing, and the types have proliferated with the introduction and rise of social media, mobile platforms, and technological advancements. Before technology, marketing might have been geared towards mail campaigns, word-of-mouth campaigns, billboards, delivery of sample products, TV commercials, or telemarketing. Now, marketing encompasses social media, targeted ads, e-mail marketing, inbound marketing to attract web traffic, and more.

Marketing is an essential part of any business. It allows for a business's products or services to be known to consumers and it helps entice consumers to buy its product over a competitor's. Though marketing costs a significant amount of money, companies create marketing budgets as a part of expenses in the hope that sales and profits will outweigh the marketing costs.

American Marketing Association. " What Is Marketing? "

World Economic Forum. " 40 Years On From the First Spam E-mail, What Have We Learned? "

Pillsbury. " How Well Do You Know the Pillsbury Doughboy? "

MarTech. " Worldwide Spend on Marketing to Hit $4.7 Trillion By 2025 ."

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For many, being a social media influencer has transformed from a side gig into a multimillion dollar business. Creators now have more say in the sponsored content they create for brands as well as the earnings they receive. And as creators continue to prove themselves as influential brand advocates, marketers are tapping these influencers for content beyond social feeds, including TV, out-of-home, and other digital media.  

Influencers have also proven resilient amid economic uncertainty and an increasingly crowded space. Influencer marketing spend rose roughly 3.5 times faster in 2023 than social ad spending, according to EMARKETER’s July 2023 forecast. 

In this guide, we explore the current state of influencer marketing, and why marketers, social platforms, and media companies should adjust their strategies as the power of the creator economy grows. 

• Want to learn more about influencer marketing and other marketing trends?  Sign up for the EMARKETER Daily newsletter.

What is the creator economy?

The creator economy , also called the influencer economy, is the interconnected ecosystem of creators, audiences, digital platforms, marketers, and agencies and/or vendors. The creator economy, as defined by EMARKETER’s Creator Economy Explainer report , enables creators to generate revenues in the form of money, goods, or services through their content, usually delivered via social media platforms. Meanwhile, marketers can partner with creators to build awareness for their brands.

Because interaction among stakeholders is constantly evolving, revenue data is sparse. A March 2023 estimate from Citigroup values the creator economy at $65.2 billion in 2023. By 2024, that figure is expected to reach $74.0 billion. 

What is influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing involves a celebrity, content creator, subject matter expert, or public figure endorsing a brand’s product or service to drive social proof. 

The market is rapidly expanding as influencer types have increased, with influencers filling every conceivable niche and sub-niche interest. 

Here are the types of influencers, based on follower count and focuses:

• Mega-influencers: Often celebrity influencers, those accounts with more than 1 million followers 
• Macro-influencers: Influencers with a follower count of 100,000 to 999,999
• Mid-tier influencers: Influencers with a follower count of 20,000 to 99,999
• Micro-influencers: Followers ranging between 5,000 to 19,999 
• Nano-influencers: A community of 1,000 to 4,999 followers 
• Kidfluencers: Gen Alphas with social followings that often review toys and games 
• Gaming influencers: Esport and video game players who discuss game strategy and livestream while in-game 
• Virtual influencers: Computer-generated avatars like Noonoouri, a fashion model and digital-only popstar 

The pandemic sped up changes in influencer marketing that were already underway, such as the trend toward “unfiltered” or less-scripted content, the rise of TikTok, and the popularity of “everyday influencers” with genuine and relatable personalities like Elyse Myers. 

Industries like financial services that hadn’t invested in influencer marketing earlier are also learning to navigate the space. And as ecommerce and social media converge, influencers will become increasingly vital intermediaries, helping to connect brands with consumers on social media. 

Creators vs. influencers: What’s the difference? 

Creators create content. Influencers are creators if the content they develop can sway the purchase decisions of a population regardless of whether they are being paid to promote a product. The term refers to a wide group of people from celebrities to loyal customers. Creators are influencers if their content affects purchase decisions. 

Who is a creator? 

Everyone has the potential to be a content creator thanks to how the term is defined. Adobe estimates there could be up to 303 million creators worldwide. For context, that figure is close to the US population at the start of 2023, per the US Census Bureau. 

Most content creators worldwide are under 41, but there are creators of all ages, including Gen Xers and baby boomers, per Adobe. 

Creators over 60 years old, dubbed “granfluencers,” have found popularity on social media due to their cross-generational appeal. 

For example, Nonna Pia, a TikTok account with 4 million followers, features a grandmother who cooks classic Italian dishes while her grandson narrates. Similarly, the Instagram account “Excuse My Grandma” follows a grandmother-granddaughter duo as they discuss generational differences in dating, fashion, and more. 

Creator categories

Although there is an account for every interest and target audience—from foraging to chiropractic medicine—lifestyle, fashion, and beauty are among the top creator categories.

While broad, these top categories overlap with many other industries, including travel, health, entertainment, food and drink, and art. Cross-category appeal is ideal for brand marketers looking to expand their reach to find like-minded audience demographics. 

Areas that have seen recent growth in creator focus include:

Collegiate sports

A 2021 NCAA policy change allows college athletes to be compensated for their name, image, and likeness. College athletes already command large audiences and regularly create content on social media, per August 2022 data from Curastory.  

B2B professionals 

Industry professionals are increasingly building audiences by sharing B2B content online. For example, a “ LinkedInfluencer ” is an influencer on B2B social platform LinkedIn. 

Nearly 1 in 4 people in the US are on LinkedIn, according to EMARKETER’s May 2023 forecast, as both the creator economy and B2B ad spending grow. As buyers get younger and B2B marketing becomes increasingly digital, authenticity and experience will matter more in marketing. 

Financial services

In the financial sector, “ finfluencers ” use their social media platform to share videos that cover personal experiences, tips, and advice about investing, budgeting, financial trends, and the economy. 

Finfluencers are capitalizing on a widespread lack of financial literacy. However, the quality of the content is controversial because some creators do not have a professional background in finance. Despite concerns, 60% of investors ages 18 to 35 use social media as a source of investment information, according to a Finra Investor Education Foundation report.  

The generational response 

Younger shoppers are more likely to use social media . About 129.5 million US Gen Zers and millennials will use social media in 2024, per a May 2023 EMARKETER forecast. 

Younger shoppers are also more likely to follow and buy from accounts run by influencers. A Q2 2022 Klarna survey found that over 40% of Gen Zers and millennials worldwide follow influencers , compared with one-quarter of Gen Xers and less than 10% of baby boomers. 

Millennials

Often considered a millennial concept, influencer culture is embraced by this extremely active social media user base. Close to 70 million US millennials will use social media next year, per EMARKETER’s May 2023 forecast. 

Millennials look to trusted influencers for product recommendations, reviews, and as a discovery point for new brands. 

They’re also willing to purchase what they see being promoted by their favorite influencers on social media. Over half (54.1%) of US social network users ages 25 to 34 will make a purchase on a social platform in 2024, per September 2023 EMARKETER data. 

In 2024, 60.7 million US Gen Zers will use social media, according to EMARKETER’s May 2023 forecast. And while that growth is expected to continue through 2027, Gen Z will remain slightly behind millennial users.  

Gen Zers, however, are not as sold on following influencers as their older peers. Less than half (48.6%) use social media to view creator/influencer content, according to a July 2023 EMARKETER survey’s findings. 

Where influencers do have an outsize influence over Gen Z is women’s beauty and wellness. Close to 80% of Gen Z women rank creators as their most trusted source for beauty recommendations, a survey conducted by LTK found. 

Those recommendations are also turning into online and offline sales. Eighty-three percent of Gen Z women shop for creators’ product suggestions online, and 82% shop for those items in-store.  

Influencing by “de-influencing” 

While the majority of influencers promote what to buy, some influencers are turning to platforms like TikTok to tell their followers what not to buy. As of January 2024, #deinfluencing videos on TikTok have roughly 1.3 billion views, up considerably from 208 million in February 2023. 

Seen as a method to combat overconsumption in a tight economy, deinfluencing videos often offer economical alternatives to expensive products or discuss the pitfalls of fast-fashion shopping hauls. 

Creators also use de-influencing videos to share critical commentary to distance themselves from brand controversies and post honest reviews of products that don’t meet expectations. Doing so can help reinforce creator trust through authenticity and transparency. 

Influencer marketing spend 

In 2024, advertisers will spend $5.89 billion on influencer marketing, a 14.7% increase YoY, according to EMARKETER’s July 2023 forecast, which excludes paid media. 

US influencer marketing spend grew more than three times faster than social ad spending in 2023, and it will remain ahead through 2025, according to a July 2023 EMARKETER forecast. 

Social platforms are reliant on creators, not the other way around, as creators’ options extend and include owned channels like blogs, podcasts, and newsletters.

A number of well-known creators, such as YouTuber MrBeast and podcaster Alex Cooper, have launched their own audio and video networks.

Although not every creator has a strong enough brand or following to create a successful media business , the growing success of these ventures should signal to brand marketers and entertainment companies that creators can offer much more than an outlet to generate hype or hawk goods. 

Where influencers post sponsored content

Creators utilize a number of social media platforms. 

To be impactful, influencer content should be engaging, entertaining, and educational, and marketers should work with credible creators who have built trust with their communities. 

US marketers will allocate over $1 billion to sponsored content on each of the top four influencer marketing platforms in 2024, according to EMARKETER’s July 2023 forecast. When it comes to influencer monetization , Instagram posts were the top format that creators worldwide were paid by brands to create in December 2022, per a Later and Mavrck December 2022 survey. Here’s a look at the top social media marketing platforms for influencers.

Instagram remains the top platform for sponsored content, per a June 2023 report from Mavrck. About 98% of US creators share brand content via Instagram feed posts, Instagram Stories, and Instagram Reels, while 69.1% go live on the platform. 

As of June 2023, more creators worldwide report being paid to create Reels (98.0%) compared with TikTok videos (89.6%). 

Creator monetization: In May 2023, Meta began testing a new payout model for Ads on Reels. The monetization program pays creators based on the performance of the Reel, rather than the earnings of the Reel ad, per TechCrunch. 

As TikTok’s popularity rises, brand opportunities for paid content is likely to increase as well. 

Influencer marketing spending growth on TikTok has grown 27.8%, compared with 12.7% on Instagram, according to EMARKETER’s July 2023 forecast.

In 2024, over half of marketers (54.0%) will use TikTok specifically for influencer marketing, with $1.25 billion in US influencer marketing spend going to the platform, per the same EMARKETER forecast.

Creator monetization: If an influencer promotes a brand’s product on TikTok Shop, the social app’s ecommerce tool, they can earn a commission through product sales. For both brands and influencers, TikTok Shop holds a lot of promise and room for growth. In 2024, we expect 40.7 million TikTok users to make a purchase on the app. 

YouTube, like Instagram and TikTok, has a solid hold on influencer marketing. YouTube is the top platform for US adults to follow influencers, according to March 2023 CivicScience data. 

EMARKETER forecasts that in 2024, US marketers will spend $1.07 billion on influencer content for YouTube. 

Similar to Instagram Reels, YouTube has been emphasizing Shorts as a cost-effective option for marketers.

Livestreaming is also leveraged by YouTube to connect influencers—and, ultimately, the brands they partner with—to followers. One-fourth (25.0%) of internet users say they watch creator- or influencer-led livestreams on YouTube, making it the most popular livestreaming app, ahead of TikTok (18.7%), Facebook (17.4%), and Instagram (14.0%), per an April 2023 survey by The Influencer Marketing Factory. 

Creator monetization: YouTube attracts and retains creators in a number of ways. The platform offers a way to connect creator, artist, and brand stores to their YouTube channel, enabling users to more easily find and purchase featured products. YouTube also has affiliate shopping capabilities for creators interested in revenue opportunities. 

Other platforms with influencer marketing potential include Facebook, Twitch, and to a lesser extent, Snapchat and X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter. 

Despite its waning popularity among users, especially youths, Facebook is still expected to see $1.00 billion in influencer marketing spending next year, per an EMARKETER forecast. 

Popular with the esports gaming community, livestreaming app Twitch recently launched a number of features for creators. In July 2023, Twitch announced its Discovery Feed, made up of livestream clips and ad features that help creators share their content from other platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, and Reddit. 

Snap has struggled with ad monetization and commands a fraction of influencer marketing spend compared with larger platforms. In 2023, Snap crossed $40 million in influencer marketing spending, and is expected to see growth of 3.4% in 2024.  

In October 2023, Snap released Creator Collab Campaigns, a suite of tools to facilitate brand-creator partnerships on the platform. Previously, Snap’s primary focus was helping creators monetize directly on the platform through programs like ad revenue sharing. 

X (formerly Twitter)

X saw total US ad revenues decline by 54.9% in 2023 after Elon Musk’s 2022 purchase, according to EMARKETER’s October 2023 forecast, which means it is not an attractive platform for influencer marketing. 

The aforementioned June 2023 Mavrck survey found that 45.9% of US creators shared promoted tweets, while a December 2022 Later and Mavrck survey found that 8.3% of creators worldwide have been paid by a brand to post on X. 

Influencer marketing strategy

An influencer marketing strategy allows a brand to further its reach and tap new audiences, but narrowing down the right creator to work with requires an understanding of the landscape and what type of partnership will best serve the brand’s objectives.  

Influencer marketing hubs: As influencer marketing took off, agencies dedicated to influencers sprang up to help brands manage the opportunity and vice versa. 

Acting as a directory, influencer marketing hubs organize creator profiles by follower count per social platform, audience demographics, location, services offered, the price of partnership, and their interests (e.g., fashion, travel, home improvement, etc.), to take the guesswork out of selecting an influencer to partner with.  

In addition to facilitating brand-creator relationships and identifying new talent, influencer hubs create campaign narratives, determine KPIs, and amplify influencer-led social campaigns, among other responsibilities. 

For creators, working with an influencer marketing agency can be beneficial to scale and manage their own business. As influencer campaigns become more complex, an agency can manage payment, negotiate contracts, handle data analytics and reporting, and oversee other business functions.

Influencer marketing campaigns: An influencer marketing campaign is one that leverages the influence the creator has over their followers. 

When in a paid partnership with a brand, the influencer campaign’s objective is to increase awareness, engagement, and, ultimately, sales. In comparison, an unsponsored campaign, while achieving the same objectives to various degrees, can be seen as more trustworthy and authentic by the influencer’s community.  

Influencer campaigns fall into two categories: 

• User-generated content (UGC) is organic content shared by a social media influencer to promote a brand or product without direct input from the featured brand. The influencer is not paid for UGC posts, and is often not as polished as content created with brand involvement. UGC posts range from product reviews, recommendations, tutorials, and personal experiences with a given good or service.
• Influencer-generated content is a collaboration between a creator and partner brand. These campaigns follow a brand’s creative guidelines—including tone of voice, talking points, aesthetics, and frequency of posts—to produce content fitting for that creator’s audience. As more influencers become trusted partners, brands have loosened the reins, allowing talent to tap into their own creativity for campaigns. Like UGC, influencer-led campaigns are more authentic and engaging, and may prove more effective for the brand involved. 

Influencer posts: When paid for by a brand partner, an influencer post is a type of native advertising. When unpaid with no brand involvement, the post is considered UGC. 

Most commonly seen on social media platforms, formats include Instagram photos with captions, short-form videos on TikTok, and long-form video content posted to YouTube. Influencers can also post written content on blogging platforms like Substack. Influencers will often promote their posts across various platforms to increase reach, engagement, and effectiveness. 

While format is an important aspect of influencer marketing, the post’s creative should be at the forefront. According to EMARKETER’s Influencer Monetization 2023 report, the “three E’s” of influencer marketing should be remembered when creating posts. 

“Regardless of the format, each piece of content should be engaging, entertaining, and educational to drive the most impact,” according to EMARKETER analyst Jasmine Enberg. Brands should also trust creators’ input on creative and format decisions because they know what will resonate best with their audience, Enberg continued.   

Product launches: Influencers are an ideal way for a brand to launch new products. 

When introducing a new product, brands can expand their reach by working with influencers with a similar following as the brand’s target audience. A kitchenware brand, for instance, may work with a popular food influencer to introduce a new range of pots to show off the products, its attributes, and how to buy. 

As influencers become brands in their own right, many have launched their own product lines.

Thanks to an engaged and well-known audience, some influencers are able to develop products that align with the interests of the community they’ve built across their social media footprint. 

For example, beauty vlogger and influencer Huda Kattan launched her own line of false eyelashes in 2013 after her community expressed an interest. Kattan then expanded the line into a full range of cosmetics. Huda Beauty, named after Kattan’s YouTube channel and blog, is now sold D2C and at Sephora. 

Creators with large followings have launched food and beverage products, fitness programs, clothing lines, restaurants, and more to capitalize on their popularity and the value and willingness of their followers to support their businesses. Venturing into their own products also helps creators diversify their revenues and avoid alienating their audiences with too much sponsored content. 

Collaboration: Similar to leveraging an influencer’s help to launch a new product, brands also partner with their stable of creators for product collaborations. 

Often developed as a one-off or limited-edition product, brand-influencer collaborations can be a great source of product innovation. 

In March 2023, Chipotle added two new limited-edition menu items to its quesadilla lineup, the “Keithadilla” and the “Fajita Quesadilla Hack,” which were developed and popularized by TikTok creators Keith Lee and Aleix Frost. 

For some influencers, a brand collaboration may be a jumping-off point to developing their own product lines if the collaborative effort was deemed successful. 

Common influencer marketing KPIs

These metrics are a good way for brands to measure their return on investment for influencer marketing campaigns: 

• Facebook engagement rates (subscribers only): Engagement rate is defined as measurable interactions on social media posts, including likes, comments, favorites, retweets, shares, replies, and reactions, and is calculated based on all these interactions divided by total follower count.  
• Facebook posts per week  
• Instagram affiliate engagement rate : The percentage of an affiliate influencer’s audience that interacts with an affiliate influencer’s campaign or post on Instagram; this includes likes, comments, and shares.
• Instagram affiliate impression per follower rate : The number of affiliate-generated views that a specific post or piece of content received over a specific period of time on Instagram. 
• Instagram affiliate reach : The percentage of followers and viewers from an affiliate influencer’s audience that is exposed to the affiliate influencer’s Instagram. 
• Instagram affiliate view rate : The percentage of an affiliate influencer’s audience that views an affiliate influencers’ campaign or post on Instagram. 
• Instagram engagement rates : Engagement rate is defined as measurable interactions on social media posts, including likes, comments, favorites, retweets, shares, replies, and reactions, and is calculated based on all these interactions divided by total follower count.
• Instagram posts per week
• Social affiliate clicks : The clicks generated by social influencer efforts, including generating traffic or leads (through affiliate links) to the company’s website.
• Social affiliate conversion rate : The percentage of clicks generated by social influencer efforts, including generating traffic or leads (through affiliate links) to the company’s website that also result in completed orders or purchases.
• Social affiliate engagement rate : The percentage of an affiliate influencer’s audience that interacts with an affiliate influencer’s campaign or post on a social media platform; this includes likes, comments, and shares.
• Social affiliate orders : The orders generated by social influencer efforts, including generating traffic or leads (through affiliate links) to the company’s website.
• Social affiliate sales : The sales or revenues generated by social influencer efforts, including generating traffic or leads (through affiliate links) to the company’s website.
• Social affiliate view rate : The percentage of an affiliate influencer’s audience that views an affiliate influencer’s campaign or post on a social media platform.
• TikTok affiliate engagement rate : The percentage of an affiliate influencer’s audience that interacts with an affiliate influencer’s campaign or post on TikTok; this includes likes, comments, and shares.
• TikTok affiliate view rate : The percentage of an affiliate influencer’s audience that views an affiliate influencer’s campaign or post on TikTok.
• X (formerly Twitter) tweets per week

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40 content marketing statistics every small business should know.

Content marketing is a powerful strategy for small businesses to connect with their audience, build brand awareness, and drive growth. In this article, we’ll explore 40 up-to-date content marketing statistics that highlight its impact and significance. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting out, these stats will provide valuable insights to enhance your content strategy.

Understanding Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic strategy that involves creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a specific audience. It’s an inbound strategy, focusing on engaging and educating the audience through digital assets like text, images, and videos rather than direct promotional messages.

What is Content Creation?

Content creation is crucial for businesses to attract and engage audiences, build authority and trust, drive traffic and SEO, fuel social media and email campaigns, and support sales and conversions. By consistently producing high-quality content, businesses can attract potential customers, build authority, drive organic traffic, engage subscribers, and guide potential customers through their buying journey, ultimately fostering brand loyalty and success.

The Evolution of the Content Marketing Industry

Content marketing has come a long way, adapting to changing consumer behavior, technological advancements, and market dynamics. Here are some key milestones in its evolution:

• Content marketing existed even before the internet. Brands published newsletters, brochures, and magazines to educate and engage their audience.
• John Deere’s “The Furrow” magazine (first published in 1895) is a classic example of early content marketing.
• The rise of the internet transformed content marketing. Websites, blogs, and email newsletters became popular channels.
• Brands started creating online content to attract and retain customers.
• Social media platforms emerged, providing new avenues for content distribution.
• Brands leveraged platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to engage with their audience directly.
• The proliferation of content formats expanded options for marketers. Video, podcasts, webinars, and interactive content gained prominence.
• User-generated content (UGC) and influencer marketing became essential.
• Personalized content experiences using data-driven insights became crucial.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) now assists in content creation, distribution, and optimization.

Why Small Businesses Should Invest in Content Marketing

Content marketing is a crucial strategy for small businesses due to its cost-effective reach, building brand awareness, establishing authority and trust, driving organic traffic, nurturing customer relationships, supporting other marketing efforts, driving conversions and sales, being adaptable and diverse, offering various formats like blog posts, infographics, podcasts, and videos, and providing measurable results through metrics like website traffic, engagement, and conversion rates. It also helps small businesses maintain a consistent brand experience by responding to comments, addressing customer pain points, and providing solutions. Content marketing also supports other marketing efforts, such as social media campaigns, email newsletters, and paid advertising, creating a cohesive brand experience. It also drives conversions and sales by guiding potential customers through their buying journey. Unlike paid ads, content remains accessible over time, providing ongoing value. Overall, content marketing is a cost-effective and effective way for small businesses to reach a wide audience and build a strong brand presence.

Diving into Content Marketing Stats

• There are over 600 million blogs online .
• Blogging has grown 12% since 2015.
• Over 6 million new posts are published every day
• WordPress is home to approximately 60 million blogs, and 43% of websites on the Internet are powered by WordPress
• 70% of consumers would rather read a blog post than view an ad
• 30% of readers prefer to read and share blog posts that have numbers in the title

Content Marketing Strategy Statistics

• 82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing, 10% report not using content marketing, and 8% are unsure if their company uses content marketing.
• 69% of marketers actively invest time in SEO.
• 76% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand/leads (a 9 percentage points increase since last year). In addition, 63% of marketers say that content marketing helps to nurture the audience/customers/leads, and 50% say that it helps build loyalty with existing clients/customers (a 13 percentage points decrease).
• 40% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. That percentage is higher among the most successful B2B marketers — 64% have a documented content marketing strategy .

Content Marketing Budget Statistics

• Almost 50% of professionals involved in content marketing expected their content budgets to increase over the next year, 26% expected them to stay the same, and 19% expected them to decrease.
• Content marketing revenue amounted to 63 billion U.S. dollars in 2022.
• The content market industry is set to reach 107 billion U.S. dollars by 2026 .

Successful Content Marketing Campaigns Statistics

• 82% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing.
• 40% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy. That percentage is higher among the most successful B2B marketers — 64% have a documented content marketing strategy.
• 76% of marketers report that content marketing generates demand/leads (a 9 percentage points increase since last year).
• Video was the primary form of content being created in 2023 (50%), followed by images (47%), and blogs (33%).
• Almost 80% of respondents had already adopted AI tools in their content marketing strategies.

Long Form Content Statistics

• Long-form content attracts an average of 77.2% more links than shorter articles.
• Articles with a word count of over 2,500 earn the most links.
• Long reads of 3000+ words get 3 times more traffic than articles of average length (901-1200 words).
• : Long-form articles generate 2 times the engagement of short articles on mobile devices.
• The average blog post is 1236 words long.

Content Marketing ROI Statistics

• 54% of marketing professionals stated their organizations measured the return on investment of content marketing activities.
• 20% of marketers stated that they spent between three and five thousand U.S. dollars on content marketing every month in 2022.
• Content marketing generates over 3x as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less.
• On average there is a content marketing ROI of 2.77 dollars for every dollar spent.

Statistics on Content Marketing Impact

• 51% of the businesses that invest in content marketing publish content every day.
• 73% of respondents prefer to learn about a product or service from a short video. 11% prefer to read a text-based article, website, or post. 4% prefer to view an infographic. 3% prefer to download an ebook or manual. 3% prefer to attend a webinar or pitch. 3% prefer to receive a sales call or demo.

Statistics on Content Marketing Trends

• Online videos have an audience reach of around 92.3% among internet users worldwide.
• 91% of people say they want to see more video content from brands.
• Video accounts for 82.5% of global internet traffic.
• 91% of marketers use video as a marketing tool.
• 66% of consumers report short-form videos as the most engaging content .
• 89% of people say watching a video has convinced them to buy a product or service.
• The average user spends 88% more time on websites that have videos.
• 85% of internet users in the United States watch online video content.
• YouTube is the most widely used video marketing platform, with 90% of video marketers trusting it.
•  Only 36% of marketers have published ‘live’ video content, such as live streams on social media channels.

Content Marketing Strategies

Content marketing is a crucial aspect of many businesses’ marketing strategies, with 82% of marketers actively investing in it. 40% of B2B marketers have a documented strategy, with 64% having a successful one. SEO is a crucial aspect of content marketing, with 69% actively investing in it. 76% of marketers report content marketing generates demand, and almost 80% have adopted AI tools.

The Role of Content Marketers

A content marketer is a professional who plans, researches, creates, distributes, and analyzes content to attract and engage potential customers. They typically create blog posts, how-to guides, videos, infographics, white papers, and more. Depending on their experience, content marketers may also be expected to conduct market research and analyze content performance.

Here are some common roles within the content marketing industry:

• Content Strategist: Content strategists have a clear overview and understanding of a brand’s goals, messaging, and values. They develop a content strategy that is aligned with the overarching business objectives and oversee its implementation.
• Content Creator: Content creators are responsible for producing a huge range of content types, from social media posts, video scripts, and long-form articles to guides, emails, downloadable content, and more. Their day-to-day work involves researching and writing engaging, accurate, and valuable content for specific audiences.

The Art of Creating Content

Creating content within the context of a content marketing strategy involves several key steps:

• Understanding Your Audience: The first step in creating content is understanding who your audience is. This involves creating buyer personas, understanding their needs, and identifying the type of content they consume.
• Setting Clear Goals: Your content should have clear goals. Whether it’s to drive traffic, generate leads, or increase brand awareness, having clear goals will guide your content creation process.
• Brainstorming Content Ideas: Once you understand your audience and have clear goals, the next step is brainstorming content ideas. This can involve keyword research, competitor analysis, and using tools like Google Trends.
• Creating the Content: The next step is creating the content. This involves writing the content, creating graphics, recording videos, etc. The content should be high-quality, engaging, and valuable to your audience.
• Promoting the Content: Once the content is created, the next step is promoting it. This can involve sharing it on social media, sending it to your email list, or using SEO to drive organic traffic.
• Analyzing the Results: The final step is analyzing the results. This involves using analytics tools to measure the performance of your content and see if it’s achieving its goals.

What The Latest Content Marketing Statistics Mean for Your Business

The latest content marketing statistics have several implications for your small business:

• Investment in Content Marketing: With 82% of marketers actively investing in content marketing, it’s clear that content marketing is no longer optional. It’s a crucial part of any marketing strategy.
• Documented Content Marketing Strategy: The fact that 64% of the most successful B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy highlights the importance of strategic planning in content marketing. If you don’t have a content marketing strategy yet, now is the time to create one.
• Content Marketing for Lead Generation: Content marketing generates over 3x as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less. This means that investing in content marketing can help you generate more leads while saving money.
• Use of AI Tools in Content Marketing: The widespread adoption of AI tools in content marketing points to the growing role of technology in optimizing content creation and distribution. If you’re not already using AI tools in your content marketing, it might be worth exploring.
• Long-Form Content: Long-form content attracts an average of 77.2% more links than shorter articles. This suggests that creating long-form content can help you attract more links and generate more traffic.

FAQs: Content Marketing Statistics

How effective is content marketing.

Content marketing is highly effective, with 76% of marketers reporting that it generates demand and leads. It’s a cost-effective strategy that drives organic traffic, nurtures customer relationships, and supports other marketing efforts.

Is content marketing in high demand?

Yes, content marketing is in high demand, with 82% of marketers actively investing in it. It’s a crucial aspect of many businesses’ marketing strategies due to its effectiveness in generating leads and building brand awareness.

How big is the content marketing market?

The content marketing market revenue amounted to 63 billion U.S. dollars in 2022 and is projected to reach 107 billion U.S. dollars by 2026, indicating significant growth and opportunities in the industry.

What is the most important content marketing statistic for small businesses?

For small businesses, the most important content marketing statistic is that it generates over 3 times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less. This highlights its effectiveness and cost-efficiency in lead generation.

How do content marketing statistics influence marketing strategies?

Content marketing statistics provide valuable insights that help businesses make content marketing work . For instance, the widespread adoption of AI tools in content marketing indicates the importance of leveraging technology for optimization. Additionally, the preference for long-form content underscores the significance of creating comprehensive, engaging content.

What content marketing statistic is most surprising and why?

The statistic that long-form content attracts an average of 77.2% more links than shorter articles is surprising because it emphasizes the impact of content depth and quality on link generation. It underscores the importance of investing in comprehensive, in-depth content to enhance online visibility and authority.

How can a small business use content marketing statistics to improve their marketing?

Small businesses can use content marketing statistics to inform their strategy and decision-making processes. For example, they can allocate resources toward creating long-form content to maximize link generation and organic traffic or even learn ways to improve writing and SEO . Additionally, they can leverage AI tools to optimize content creation and distribution, thereby enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.

What strategies do successful content marketers commonly use?

Successful content marketers commonly employ strategies such as having a documented content marketing strategy (adopted by 40% of B2B marketers), investing in SEO (69% of marketers), and utilizing AI tools in content marketing (almost 80% adoption rate). You can also step up your marketing strategy and make your content marketing more productive by creating targeted, high-quality content that resonates with your audience and drives results.

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I worked for Beyoncé for a year. She wasn't a diva and wasn't passive — it was a master class in digital strategy.

• Marcus Collins shared the major lessons he learned helping Beyoncé bring her fan base online.
• Collins said Beyoncé's platforms didn't perform as well as expected in the beginning.
• One lesson was the importance of facilitating an existing community instead of building a new one.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Marcus Collins , an author and professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. It has been edited for length and clarity. 

For a year I worked with Beyoncé, overseeing her digital ads and social media. I started working with her in 2009, as her director of digital strategy and new media. During that time I shifted my focus toward helping Beyoncé bring her fan base online. This is when I learned my biggest marketing lessons from her.

She's the most gracious and kind person I've ever met. At the same time, she knew what she wanted from her team. She has high standards for those around her because she has high standards for herself.

Here are three big takeaways from working with Beyoncé that have helped shape my career.

1. Don't build community, facilitate it

Part of my job in overseeing Beyoncé's digital strategy was maintaining her Facebook page and Twitter account. The team would put together our recommendations, and we'd present these ideas to her father, Mathew Knowles, who was overseeing Music World Entertainment, which produced her earlier work.

If he liked our ideas, we'd share them with Beyoncé. She'd hear us out, say what she liked or didn't like, and give recommendations. Even when she disagreed, she was always gracious. It was during these in-person meetings that it seemed she wasn't really excited by social media or inclined to post on Facebook or Twitter.

This was back in 2009 or 2010. The internet felt like the Wild Wild West. There were no rules. Beyoncé had just finished the Brazilian leg of her "I Am Sasha Fierce" tour, and it seemed like social media wasn't for her.

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In fact, for years she had a Twitter handle she never tweeted on. And yet she had lots of followers waiting for her. So when we became active on these platforms for her, we expected them to light up with activity. But they didn't in proportion to her stardom, which was a quagmire for us. We kept asking ourselves: "What is going on here? Why aren't any of her platforms taking off?"

Then the team noticed there was already a group that found each other online, and they were far more active than anything we were trying to do. And those folks were the Beyhive .

We stopped working on building Beyoncé an online community and instead started engaging with the online community that already existed. We found people who saw the world similarly to Beyoncé, and then we engaged with them based on their shared values and beliefs.

People who come together under the moniker of the Beyhive don't just love Beyoncé's music; they subscribe to her point of view. To me, that was one of the biggest lessons of my marketing experiences working with her: You don't build community, you facilitate it .

2. Dial in and focus on the creative vision

I think Beyoncé's greatest skill as a businesswoman was her ability to be involved in everything we did. It's wild to think that someone as talented and profound to the cultural zeitgeist would be so nice. You'd expect a diva attitude, but she's so far from that. She's extremely gracious, but she isn't a pushover.

As my interactions with her became more frequent, we started making plans to revisit her website, and she wanted to be very much a part of it. She wasn't the passive player.

She's dialed in. She was very aware of her creative vision , and I never had one bad interaction with her. I learned that you have to have a point of view about how you see the world. You have to know what you like and be courageous enough to follow it even if it's not the direction most people are going and folks may not seem to get it right away.

3. Engage authentically

It seems somewhat obvious now, but people who went online to engage with each other about Beyoncé didn't want to be treated like consumers. It felt like when we first engaged with them, they told us: "Don't talk to me as though I were someone with money in their pocket. Talk to me as if I were a human being and engage with me based on your understanding of who I am and how I see the world."

Beyoncé's fans use her music to see the world through a cultural lens. The fans liked her authenticity and responded to it. But bloggers at the time took great license in throwing shade and jabs her way. It was at this point that her community started to take shape. The Beyhive became a battering ram for all those bloggers.

Once we were able to shift from focusing on fans to focusing on the community, we connected with the audience in a more meaningful way

When we saw the targeted audience for who they were, they felt validated. And we learned they were then more inclined to be engaged. The secret was treating this community as a community, not consumers. And then what happens is those people you've engaged with in an authentic way tell other people. Then that community becomes the marketer for you.

After working with Beyoncé, I wanted to go into advertising because I felt like the ad industry was using contemporary technologies better than the music industry was. But I learned a lot from my time working with Beyoncé . My book, " For the Culture ," is predicated on these experiences. Chapter one is all about finding who your tribe is, which is what marketers do.

Watch: The Taylor Swift effect: How a pop star created her own economy

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