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Branding: The layer-1 of a successful Web3 marketing strategy

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By German Ramirez

Building on a blockchain follows similar fundamental principles to building in real life.

Building on a blockchain follows similar fundamental principles to building in real life. First, you establish the foundations, then you can start laying the bricks, and only once it’s built can someone begin experiencing the building’s purpose. With blockchain, establishing a foundation involves selecting (or even designing) a first layer. Laying the bricks is akin to writing the platform code, and only then the user experience can begin.

So why, if we know the process involved in building a successful, sustainable structure from scratch, do we ignore it when it comes to our crypto marketing efforts?

The naïve crypto founder’s marketing checklist

Building a Web3 project from scratch? Here’s a typical marketing checklist for starry-eyed founders:

  • Have a logo: something from a freelancer will do to start
  • Create a whitepaper: this is a must-have for VCs
  • Have a website and social media accounts
  • Create a blog (remember: SEO matters)
  • Engage a PR agency and issue lots of press releases ahead of launch
  • Use influencers (more followers = more reach)
  • Use paid placements to establish authority
  • Participate in sponsorships and time on stage at big events

Even if a project manages to survive the next crash, it’ll invariably end up rinsing and repeating this list with endless newer and more exciting features, products and services, with little return on its marketing spend.

The problem is, when everyone is doing the same thing, nobody stands out. And during the bear markets, what’s left? All of the above costs time and money, but none of it buys loyalty.

All entrepreneurs building on blockchain understand the importance of building from the foundations up — starting with layer-1. Layer-1 underpins everything.

What are the characteristics you seek from layer-1?

  • Decentralization with distributed shared ownership
  • Immutability
  • Transparency
  • Longevity

Nothing in the extensive founder’s marketing checklist shares these non-negotiable properties.

Your brand is your layer-1 of your marketing  

Successful marketing starts with its own layer-1 — building the brand. Your layer-1 is the keystone on which your entire platform is built, and your brand is the keystone on which your entire marketing strategy should be constructed.

Your brand isn’t a logo or a catchy slogan. It’s first and foremost a memorable, relevant, credible, unique, concise and consistent brand positioning and promise. Ideally, it’s supported by a clear set of values, ideas, narratives and visuals that pull everything else together.

Your brand is what makes people recognize you. It’s what invokes what your business is known for. And it’s the only part of your marketing toolkit that creates a truly emotional tie between you and your target audience.

Remember, your brand is the only asset that you can derive from your marketing spend. However much you pay a PR or marketing agency, no matter how much they talk about ROI — without a brand, it’s all just talk. Your brand is your layer-1.

That’s not to say that all the other stuff isn’t important. Your socials, blog and PR campaigns all matter. But they are your layer-2 — your touchpoints. If we take the blockchain analogy, your layer-2 marketing activities and touchpoints are like your dApps. They’re your presence — your voice to the world.

Layer-3 is where the magic happens. Layer-3 is the experience, where your brand, product and story come together to create traction, impact and enduring value. This is why people will come back and what will propel you through the toughest of bear markets and financial hardships.

But without layer-1 — your brand — you’ll never reach layer-3 based on a foundation of layer-2 alone. It would be like trying to launch a dApp without a blockchain.

Retrofitting works

Hang on, you may be thinking. I’ve already started my business, and I didn’t build a brand before I started. I already have my website, socials, blog and campaigns set up, but without a brand. Is it all now doomed to fail?

It’s not a problem.

Unlike dApps, which can’t run without blockchains, it is possible to retroactively build your brand. In fact, the chances are that in the process of building your layer-2, you’ve already started creating an impression that can help to form the basis of your brand.

What are you good at? Why does your community come to you above the competition? Why is your offering relevant?

Arguably, if you have already started, you’re in an even stronger position to build a brand retroactively because you already have enough data and input to be able to answer these questions. Those touchpoints you set up are a valuable trove of feedback from people who have engaged with your product and formed an impression. Listen to what they have to say.

Once you know what you’re good at, and how you’re being perceived, you have the ingredients to create your brand. The rest is pure science.

By German Ramirez

German is co-founder and chief relevance officer of THE RELEVANCE HOUSE, a branding, marketing and growth agency focused on blockchain and Web3.

Sourced from COINTELEGRAPH

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The 4 Marketing Strategies Your Shopify Store Needs to Drive Traffic

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By Eric Netsch

A successful Shopify store is built on a solid marketing strategy. Read on if you want to discover the secrets of Shopify marketing.

After taking the leap into the ecommerce world and launching your Shopify store, you’re probably looking for ways to attract new customers. Even with a great design and solid product offering, standing out in a crowded market can be challenging. Fortunately, you can take several practical strategies and actions to promote and drive traffic to your business. Depending on your needs and goals, these can include anything from social media marketing to paid advertising to email marketing campaigns.

Shopify is currently the leading platform for ecommerce brands, and it powers nearly two million businesses’ online stores. It goes without saying, but competition in the ecommerce world is fierce; retailers looking to remain relevant and stand out need to establish a solid marketing strategy that will actually move the mark.

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your business to the next level, it’s essential to prioritize marketing and make it a crucial part of your overall ecommerce strategy. Doing so can lead to increased sales, greater brand recognition and the development of a loyal customer base.

1. Boost your search engine appeal

To draw more traffic and give potential customers the best chance of finding you when they search for similar products, it’s essential to prioritize Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This strategy requires patience, time and ongoing effort, but it’s worth the investment.

There are several key steps to optimizing your Shopify store. These include optimizing your store’s architecture, conducting thorough keyword research to identify relevant keywords for your business, refining your on-page optimization over time and implementing an effective link-building strategy.

Remember that SEO is an ongoing process that requires continuous effort. Fortunately, Shopify offers built-in marketing tools, including SEO optimization features, to help you optimize for search engines. Moreover, you can enhance your SEO efforts and maintain a steady traffic flow by using various third-party SEO tools and Shopify apps.

If you prioritize SEO and take the essential measures to optimize your Shopify store for search engines, you can gradually attract a larger audience, increase your sales and expand your business.

2. Amplify your reach with digital ads

Investing in paid ads is a highly effective strategy, particularly if you’re just starting out or facing challenges in gaining visibility through organic search marketing. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, like Google Ads, can be an excellent option for driving more traffic to your site as ads appear at the top of search results. In a PPC campaign, you set a maximum bid and only pay when someone clicks on your link. A well-targeted and well-written PPC campaign can immediately bring traffic to your Shopify store. However, it’s worth noting that your competitors and the ads platform determine the amount you pay per visitor, even though you control your overall spending.

Another option for paid advertising is launching campaigns on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, the most common networks for paid advertising. To determine which platform works best for you, conduct different tests and analyse your ad’s performance.

Having attractive visual content and persuasive copywriting that appeals to potential customers is essential to creating successful ads. Be creative! Successful advertising campaigns need that creative appeal to capture the attention of shoppers.

Before launching your ads, consider the most relevant keywords for your business and target your ads to specific audiences to ensure your campaigns are effective. Paid advertising campaigns can inform potential customers about your Shopify brand and retarget previous site visitors, making it an effective tactic for attracting new customers and guiding shoppers back.

3. Utilize influencer marketing

In recent years, influencer marketing has gained immense popularity and has proven to be an effective way to market your Shopify store, especially for brands in the fashion, beauty and CPG industries. In essence, influencer marketing is a partnership between a brand and an influencer, and it is becoming an increasingly popular choice for brands’ marketing budgets. Finding an influencer whose niche audience aligns with your product or brand is crucial to begin with influencer marketing. You must also establish a relationship with the influencer, who will create their own content to help position your brand.

Influencer marketing is highly effective for ecommerce businesses. Seventy-one percent of marketers find that it generates better quality customers and traffic than other sources. Consumers trust influencer recommendations because they create a direct communication channel and leverage the credibility and trust of public figures. In fact, 64% of marketers agree that influencer marketing is an enhanced form of word-of-mouth marketing, which is the most effective form of marketing.

This personalized approach is particularly effective in today’s world, where so many brand choices inundate consumers. Influencer marketing is a highly reliable and direct marketing strategy, as recommendations from real people carry more weight than conventional paid advertisements.

4. Master your customer referral program

Referral programs can be an effective strategy where satisfied customers become brand advocates and receive rewards such as discounts or free products. You can reach a wider audience by incentivizing past customers to recommend your products to their network. This approach is particularly effective because people tend to trust recommendations from friends and family more than advertising. Word-of-mouth marketing is such a powerful tool that it can generate up to five times more sales than traditional paid advertising.

Unlike customer reviews, a referral program involves direct word-of-mouth marketing where people share their positive experiences with your products with those close to them, generating new leads that are highly likely to convert. Several platforms and tools are available to create a customer referral program, such as Talkable, which offers an in-app referral program to help find brand advocates.

To attract new customers to your Shopify store, you can use several strategies to promote your business and drive traffic, such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), paid advertising, influencer marketing and customer referral programs. Implementing these tactics can attract more customers, increase sales and develop a loyal customer base. Remember to be creative and invest time and effort into continuously improving your marketing strategy to stay ahead in the competitive ecommerce industry.

By Eric Netsch

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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5 Reasons to Start Producing Industry-Specific Content as Part of Your Marketing Strategy

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By Hillel Fuld

Start producing industry content now and watch everything else get easier.

How important is content as part of your overall marketing strategy? The answer is that if done well, content is the foundation for the entire building that is marketing.

To be clear, when I say content, I don’t mean PR as in a journalist writing about you. I also don’t mean the copy that’s on your website. When I say content, I am referring to you producing industry content on the company blog, podcast, YouTube channel, or elsewhere.

Once you jump into the content game, the rest of your marketing efforts are made increasingly simpler.

Here are five parts of your marketing that become easier once you start producing content.

Your social media accounts finally offer some value.

By now, if your company is not on social media, you should fire your marketing team. Everyone knows how potentially powerful social media is, but not many companies really think about what they are doing on social media.

Too many people and companies use platforms like Twitter as a broadcast platform. They think of these platforms as a megaphone. Instead of focusing on the media, they should try focusing on social.

That means they need to start thinking of how to provide real value instead of obsessing over how many followers they have. Well, if a company produces content regularly, now they have what to share on social media.

If you’re an AI company and you produce content about AI, all of a sudden, people interested in AI have a reason to follow you on social.

The foundation of all search engine optimization is content.

Anyone who knows how search engine optimization(SEO) works will tell you that content is the foundation. To simplify it, the goal of offsite SEO is to get as many incoming links as possible. When Google sees a site with thousands of incoming links, they understand that that site must be an authority in its space.

The question is how do you get links. Some SEO people go and buy links thinking they’re going to trick Google. Instead, focus on organically getting people to link to you and encouraging people to talk about you on the internet. How do you do that? Content. The more you write, the more people talk about you. The more people talk about you, the more they link to you. Period.

All of a sudden, your PR isn’t PR.

What is the first thing a journalist will do after receiving a pitch from you? That’s right, they’ll Google you.

When they Google you and come across all your industry content,  all of a sudden, you’re not just another company pitching that journalist. Now you’re a content creator just like they are. Content changes the whole dynamic and shortens the road to getting press coverage.

Your business development benefits from a head start.

Think about your business development efforts. Whether you’re a start-up or a larger company, surely you are looking for strategic partners to help grow your business.

Now think of the other side. What is that potential partner looking for? They’re looking to partner with leaders, not followers. They’re looking to collaborate with brands, not companies.

Well, when that potential partner Googles you and they see no footprint on the internet, that is a huge red flag. Alternatively, if they Google you and see you are producing a ton of industry content, suddenly you are the leader and the brand they are looking for.

Investors are looking to invest in good people so make sure you are what they’re looking for.

Every tech investor I’ve ever met says the same thing. “We are looking to invest in people.” That’s very nice but before that first meeting, how do they determine if a company has good people when evaluating whether to take that first meeting?

The answer is that they do their due diligence. Part of that process involves them looking at your site, your web presence, and of course, they look to see your thoughts on your specific space.

So to answer the question, your content becomes your company’s business card and if an investor wants to learn more about you before that first meeting, give them that opportunity by showing them how much of a thought leader you are in your space.

To summarize, content isn’t just a part of your marketing strategy, it is the foundation of it all and if done right, every other aspect of your marketing will be exponentially more successful.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Hillel Fuld

Sourced from Inc.

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This Coffee Company’s Been Spying on Customers With Its App, According to the Canadian Government

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By Dell Cameron

“You can’t spy on your customers just because it fits in your marketing strategy,” British Columbia’s privacy commissioner said of Tim Hortons.

Canadian regulators on Wednesday found that Tim Hortons—a popular fast-food chain owned by the same multinational company as Burger King—changed its mobile app in 2019 to track and collect sensitive location data on its customers.

An investigation led by Canada’s privacy commissioner found that, indeed, with the help of a U.S.-based company called Radar, Tim Hortons was able to collect data on its customers’ locations “as often as every few minutes.”

Regulators found the collection, described as “continual and vast,” ultimately served no legitimate purpose, and was “not proportional to the benefits Tim Hortons may have hoped to gain from better targeted promotion of its coffee and other products.”

“Tim Hortons clearly crossed the line by amassing a huge amount of highly sensitive information about its customers. Following people’s movements every few minutes of every day was clearly an inappropriate form of surveillance,” Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien said.

The government investigation into the company began in 2020 after a journalist at the Financial Post claimed the Tim Hortons app had recorded his GPS coordinates over 2,700 times in five months. The tracking occurred even when the app was not in use, the journalist, James McLeod, said.

Among many other locations, the app tracked McLeod each time he visited his parent’s farm in rural Ontario, while he was boarded a flight in Toronto and when he checked in to a Winnipeg hotel for a cousin’s wedding. “It bothered me,” McLeod wrote. “How many more times had Tim Hortons checked in on me? Was my coffee-ordering app tracking all my movements?”

In a statement, Tim Hortons underscored that the privacy commissioners’ report does not recommend any changes to its current app. After the Financial Post’s story, the company “proactively removed the geolocation technology,” it said.

“The very limited use of this data was on an aggregated, de-identified basis to study trends in our business—and the results did not contain personal information from any guests,” the company said.

“This investigation sends a strong message to organizations that you can’t spy on your customers just because it fits in your marketing strategy,” said Michael McEvoy, British Columbia’s information and privacy commissioner. “Not only is this kind of collection of information a violation of the law, it is a complete breach of customers’ trust.”

Phone makers have taken recent strides to stop unscrupulous app developers from farming location data. In April 2021, Apple introduced an update that gave users the option of preventing apps from tracking their locations and sharing that information with third parties.

Roughly two-thirds of iPhone users opted out of tracking when presented with the option, according to an October report by the analytics firm AppsFlyer.

Feature Image Credit: Tim Horton cafe in Manhattan.Photo: Spencer Platt / Staff (Getty Images)

By Dell Cameron

Sourced from GIZMODO

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How to Bring Authenticity to Your Start-up’s Marketing Strategy

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People are tired of being pushed into something they don’t want.

According to a study by Stackla, 90% of customers place a premium on authenticity when selecting which companies they like and support. But what exactly is authenticity? How can we show our customers that we’re human and relatable and not just a brand with an agenda?

Here are six practical tips on how to bring authenticity into your start-up’s marketing strategy.

What is authenticity in marketing?

Authenticity is having a genuine connection with your target audience. If you’re not authentic, it’s difficult for customers to connect with what you do. People want brands that they can relate to — companies who are just like them, only better at their job or service because of experience and expertise. Authenticity is also about transparency and showing the world who you are and what you believe in. So, think of authenticity as your company’s personality; it should be unique to every brand out there.

How can start-ups bring authenticity to their marketing

Did you know that nearly 90% of all start-ups fail? Start-up marketing is difficult because you are often underfunded, have a limited customer base or are just getting started. As a co-founder and owner of a business, I understand the challenges that you are facing. I’ve failed many times. That’s why I’d like to share some of the marketing strategies that have worked well for me and have helped people connect with us on an emotional level every day.

1. Know your target audience

You need to know who your target audience is and what their needs and interests are before you can create a message for them or speak about them on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The more you know, the better your marketing will be.

It’s your job to create an emotional connection between your brands and customers, and authenticity is key here too. Once you understand your target audience and their needs, you can speak to them more effectively on the proper social media channels.

2. Be genuine in your marketing messages

Knowing your target audience does not mean you should be overly promotional. You can still show people who you are as a brand and what makes your company unique while also being more realistic about your company’s benefits. Establishing authenticity in marketing means not trying to be something you’re not. People will see right through anything that seems fake or disingenuous. If you decide to be honest with people, then put all your cards on the table. Don’t try to market your start-up as something it’s not.

3. Be consistent with messaging across social media channels

It’s no secret that social media has changed the way that brands communicate with customers. Social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok are potent tools that can help you build relationships with people interested in your start-up’s product or services. Your brand messaging must be consistent across all these channels. You need to be consistent with your words, images and tone of voice if you want your target audience to trust what you’re saying. Why should, for example, potential consumers believe you if you send conflicting messages on social media?

Don’t forget to keep in mind that social media is a two-way street. Start-ups need to be engaging and respond quickly when people ask questions or have concerns about their product or service — this also helps build trust. It’s best to create one voice for your brand across all your social media channels. It will help you communicate with people more personally, and this is what authenticity is about: being real.

4. Give people something to talk about

Don’t just sell people your product or service. You need to give them a reason why they should buy from you. If someone isn’t interested in what you have to offer, there’s no point in pursuing the relationship. Give potential customers something that will make them want to work with you instead of against you.

5. Create an authentic voice for your brand

If you’re looking to create a brand that people will love, your voice must be authentic. Without an authentic voice, your customers may not get the experience they expect and could have negative feelings about your company. Don’t expect to win customer loyalty or get people excited about your product if you don’t sound like yourself. It’s not just what you say that matters. It’s also how you say it. Having an authentic voice for your brand means letting go of the idea that marketing is all science and no artistry. You need to put creativity into everything that comes out of your business, from product development to marketing and sales.

6. Use metrics and data analysis to improve your marketing

Just because you’re authentic doesn’t mean that your marketing will be successful every time. Even if you put a lot of effort into it, everything can still fall flat on its face. Remember that marketing is half art and half science. You need to put creativity into everything you do and keep in mind that metrics and data analysis are essential for adding substance to those creative decisions. What works today might not work next month or even tomorrow, so don’t get too attached to a single marketing strategy.

Take advantage of cutting-edge marketing tools such as social media advertising, influencer marketing and even email campaigns to get your startup’s name out into the world. Keep track of everything you do to improve it over time.

By

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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How to Bring Authenticity to Your Startup’s Marketing Strategy

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By

People are tired of being pushed into something they don’t want.

According to a study by Stackla, 90% of customers place a premium on authenticity when selecting which companies they like and support. But what exactly is authenticity? How can we show our customers that we’re human and relatable and not just a brand with an agenda?

Here are six practical tips on how to bring authenticity into your startup’s marketing strategy.

What is authenticity in marketing?

Authenticity is having a genuine connection with your target audience. If you’re not authentic, it’s difficult for customers to connect with what you do. People want brands that they can relate to — companies who are just like them, only better at their job or service because of experience and expertise. Authenticity is also about transparency and showing the world who you are and what you believe in. So, think of authenticity as your company’s personality; it should be unique to every brand out there.

How can startups bring authenticity to their marketing

Did you know that nearly 90% of all startups fail? Startup marketing is difficult because you are often underfunded, have a limited customer base or are just getting started. As a co-founder and owner of a business, I understand the challenges that you are facing. I’ve failed many times. That’s why I’d like to share some of the marketing strategies that have worked well for me and have helped people connect with us on an emotional level every day.

1. Know your target audience

You need to know who your target audience is and what their needs and interests are before you can create a message for them or speak about them on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The more you know, the better your marketing will be.

It’s your job to create an emotional connection between your brands and customers, and authenticity is key here too. Once you understand your target audience and their needs, you can speak to them more effectively on the proper social media channels.

2. Be genuine in your marketing messages

Knowing your target audience does not mean you should be overly promotional. You can still show people who you are as a brand and what makes your company unique while also being more realistic about your company’s benefits. Establishing authenticity in marketing means not trying to be something you’re not. People will see right through anything that seems fake or disingenuous. If you decide to be honest with people, then put all your cards on the table. Don’t try to market your startup as something it’s not.

3. Be consistent with messaging across social media channels

It’s no secret that social media has changed the way that brands communicate with customers. Social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok are potent tools that can help you build relationships with people interested in your startup’s product or services. Your brand messaging must be consistent across all these channels. You need to be consistent with your words, images and tone of voice if you want your target audience to trust what you’re saying. Why should, for example, potential consumers believe you if you send conflicting messages on social media?

Don’t forget to keep in mind that social media is a two-way street. Startups need to be engaging and respond quickly when people ask questions or have concerns about their product or service — this also helps build trust. It’s best to create one voice for your brand across all your social media channels. It will help you communicate with people more personally, and this is what authenticity is about: being real.

4. Give people something to talk about

Don’t just sell people your product or service. You need to give them a reason why they should buy from you. If someone isn’t interested in what you have to offer, there’s no point in pursuing the relationship. Give potential customers something that will make them want to work with you instead of against you.

5. Create an authentic voice for your brand

If you’re looking to create a brand that people will love, your voice must be authentic. Without an authentic voice, your customers may not get the experience they expect and could have negative feelings about your company. Don’t expect to win customer loyalty or get people excited about your product if you don’t sound like yourself. It’s not just what you say that matters. It’s also how you say it. Having an authentic voice for your brand means letting go of the idea that marketing is all science and no artistry. You need to put creativity into everything that comes out of your business, from product development to marketing and sales.

6. Use metrics and data analysis to improve your marketing

Just because you’re authentic doesn’t mean that your marketing will be successful every time. Even if you put a lot of effort into it, everything can still fall flat on its face. Remember that marketing is half art and half science. You need to put creativity into everything you do and keep in mind that metrics and data analysis are essential for adding substance to those creative decisions. What works today might not work next month or even tomorrow, so don’t get too attached to a single marketing strategy.

Take advantage of cutting-edge marketing tools such as social media advertising, influencer marketing and even email campaigns to get your startup’s name out into the world. Keep track of everything you do to improve it over time.

By

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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5 Reasons Why Landing Pages Are a Must-Have Element of Any Marketing Strategy

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By Peter Roesler

I have designed, published, and tested thousands of landing pages through my years in marketing. All this time, work, and effort resulted in discovering the main reasons why you should have landing pages for your business’s site. If you aren’t using landing pages, now is a good time to change that. Here’s why:

Increase Conversions

Quality landing pages result in more conversions. Whether it is newsletter subscriptions, sign-ups, downloads, lead generation, or something else, when you use landing pages, you experience higher conversion rates than sites that don’t.

Remember, having a landing page doesn’t guarantee a higher conversion rate. Instead, landing pages provide you with the tools to improve conversion rates as time passes.

Reduced Cost Per Acquisition

Cost per acquisition (CPA) is the total cost of acquiring a new customer. While there’s no universal set number to acquiring a customer, I’ve found that it’s much less when you have landing pages in place.

Landing pages increase conversions and help produce a higher return on investment (ROI). I’ve also found that landing pages also increase your Google pay-per-click (PPC) Quality Scores. This results in a lower cost per click, which reduces the cost per conversion and eventually a lower CPA.

Showcase and Optimize Your Offers

Every offer needs a home and landing pages provide this home. Depending on your marketing strategy, you may have several offers to showcase, including referral programs, promotions, white papers, resource guides, on-demand webinars, and more.

The information you collect and share on the landing page varies based on the type of offer you’re looking to highlight the most. Because of this, you need flexibility for changing form fields, editing layouts, and optimizing the design and copy– a standard, set template doesn’t work. Your offers also need an easy, shareable link that are easily found on your landing page.

Scale Your Marketing

With landing pages, you scale your marketing without scaling your resources, money, or time. In the past, building landing pages took a lot of time and money. However, this isn’t the case today. It’s easy, fast, and affordable to create and publish new offers and pages on your website. This makes it possible to increase your marketing efforts without spending too much time or effort.

Test and Validate New Ideas

You have the option to spend resources, money, and time to build an entire website for something new you offer and then wait and see if anyone likes it. Another smarter option is to use a landing page to validate the audience’s response and collect feedback on an idea to see if spending more money on it is a smart idea.

When it comes to creating a marketing strategy today, implementing landing pages is a must. These offer you a chance to increase conversions, reach more customers, and quickly add new offers to your site.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Peter Roesler

Sourced from Inc.

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7 Easy Ways to Improve Your B2B Marketing Strategies

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By Debraj Chatterjee

B2B is an acronym for business to business. Therefore, b2b marketing is where you focus on marketing your product to other businesses rather than individuals. Take the example of a company that sells office chairs on wholesale.

Although such a company can sell to individuals, their primary customers will be other companies seeking office chairs. Therefore, when the office chair company reaches out to the other company about their chairs, we call b2b marketing.

Why is B2B Marketing Important?

You might not have decided about whether to consider b2b marketing. While it is essential to stick to what you know for marketing, any business reluctant to embrace change will probably not last that long.

That alone won’t convince most people to give b2b marketing a chance. Here’s what will.

  • It Will Help Market Complex Products

There’s no better way to market complex products than b2b marketing. Most b2b products are usually complex and will therefore require different marketing strategies rather than the usual. That’s where b2b marketing comes in.

  • It is a Way to Adjust to New Marketing Strategies

B2b marketing is a different type of marketing when compared to the usual marketing. Therefore, it will enable you to adjust to the changing demands in the market and thus boost sales.

  • It Will Reach a Wider Audience

B2b marketing uses different marketing techniques to introduce the product to the market. Content creation and social media as some of those techniques. That ensures a business reaches a broader audience.
Easy Ways to Improve Your B2B Marketing Strategy

1. Consider Using Live Videos

According to Livestream, only 20% of people would prefer to read about a product via blogs or other written text. The rest would prefer if they could see the videos instead. If you know anything about marketing trends is that you need to follow the majority.

That isn’t surprising since videos are excellent at conveying emotions than written text. Don’t get us wrong; many people prefer to read social media posts on their phones. But information from videos will be better received by your audience.
So, you’ll want videos and especially live videos to be part of your b2b marketing strategy.

2. Grow Buyer Personas

This is an essential step for any marketing strategy and not just a b2b strategy. It is wise to look into your buyer’s personalities and know what product will appeal to them. The best way to grow buyer personas is to thoroughly research the customers’ needs to understand them so you can offer better solutions.

Buyer personas will enable you to connect with them more personally since you will know them better. Therefore, buyer personas will be an excellent way for you to improve your b2b marketing strategies.

3. Consider Content Marketing

Content marketing is an excellent way to tell potential customers about your products. But it has a catch. It would help if you focused more on speaking about your products and how they will solve people’s problems than about yourself.

Blogging is a powerful marketing tool if you adopt it. A potential customer could only be a Google search away. But that will only be possible if you’re willing to improve your b2b marketing strategy with content marketing.

That’s why it could be critical to you building a successful business, thanks to excellent marketing.

4. Collect Feedback

not having a way to get customer feedback is akin to pulling yourself down. You will be going in blind as far as your client’s needs are concerned. Collecting feedback will enable you to create a better relationship with existing customers.

Most relationship experts will tell you that good communication is vital if you want to create meaningful relationships. But what can you use to collect feedback from your customers?

You could start by having a feedback form on your website for buyers to fill in after getting their product or service. Qualaroo is a tool that will enable you to carry out surveys on your website and get their feedback.

5. Create a Brand Story

Ultimately, human beings will often associate more with brands that can trigger their emotions. Customers need to know that they can trust your brand to deliver. Gaining customer trust is easier said than done for businesses. However, creating a brand story will enable you to tug on people’s heartstrings and allow them to relate better to you.

A brand story will enable you to connect with people in b2b businesses on a personal level and thus drive sales for you. A brand story allows people to see the human face behind your products and relate easily to your company.

If your market is predominantly millennial or modern generations, you will need a brand story more than you think. Millennial’s and later generations have seen so many different marketing strategies and yearn for something fresh
A brand story will be perfect in sparking their interest.

6. Influencer Marketing

Ever considered influencers in your marketing strategy? If not, then you need to reconsider that. Influencers are online personalities with a large following. They can convince their many followers to follow or buy a certain product,
Even if you are selling to businesses, you will need to show that most people prefer your products. So, influencers are one way to improve your strategy and have your marketing reach a wider audience.

7. Customer Testimonials

Research shows that people are more likely to purchase something when they hear other people speak positively about it. Although a b2b business aims to make its products more visible to other companies, you first need to connect with the people running those businesses.

Therefore, having customer testimonials on your website will enable you to convert potential clients into loyal customers. It’s that simple. People want to associate with things that delight and impress other people.

Final Thoughts

A competent b2b marketing strategy could be the difference between growing to be among the richest Indian companies or a lowly player in the financial market. The amount of business you do will significantly depend on your marketing strategy, and these tips we have shared will help you massively improve it.

By Debraj Chatterjee

Debraj is a Founder of Cryptonidea, Coinvouge, CryptonBinary blog Services and oversees strategic, operational, and invest Peng aspects of the company’s wide-ranging digital content & digital revenue activities.

Sourced from readwrite

 

 

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Why An Omnichannel Marketing Strategy Should Be Your Top Priority

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By Bernard May

Every department (or agency) that specializes in a particular marketing channel understandably wants to claim success no matter the brand, audience or industry. Social media managers, Google Ads experts, SEO savants and others all have a stake in their particular strategy being labelled the silver bullet that is driving profitability for the organization or client.

The good part? Every department cares, has drive and wants to be the best. The bad part? From what I’ve seen, this ambition is often misdirected as individuals seek success for their own department rather than the overall success of a multichannel campaign.

Now, this is rarely the fault of individual marketing departments; rather, it’s due to the ways in which we have trained our teams to measure success as individuals rather than as a unit.

It’s time we all understand how to attribute marketing success as a collective, strategic front rather than assuming that the last touch solely defines the success of a campaign.

The Data Points To Omnichannel

Data shows that consumers visit more than two websites (on average) before settling on a purchase decision, and at the same time, nearly 90% of e-commerce shopping carts were left abandoned in March 2020.

This indicates that when it comes to e-commerce shopping, consumers are certainly doing their research and are willing to walk away from a purchase should they find a better option. It’s crucial for businesses, brands and marketers alike to see that consumer behaviour does not exist in a vacuum and that omnichannel strategies are a very real remedy.

Common Attribution Mistakes

Let’s take a look at some very common situations in which the reality of multiple touchpoints (along the customer journey) can lead to attributing success to the wrong places.

Situation 1: A customer sees your product in their social media feed and clicks on your ad but then decides to leave the platform and visit your site directly. After seeing your “On-Site Only” monthly promotion, the customer purchases a couple of products. You deserve a high-five. Attributed success: Organic SEO team. Actual success: Social media, SEO and web development teams.

Situation 2: A customer finds your business with a Google search, visits your site, looks at your latest products and leaves without a purchase. Later that day, a Facebook ad featuring these latest products from your site graces their news feed. The customer is intrigued by the 15% off social commerce offer and makes a purchase. Congratulations. You are a rock star. Attributed success: Social media team. Actual success: SEO, social media, social ads and graphics teams.

Situation 3: The customer sees an Instagram ad, visits your website, adds products to their cart, gets distracted and abandons their order. One week and three “You have items in your shopping cart!” emails later, the customer returns and completes their purchase. Whew — you had to work for that one. Attributed success: The marketing automation team. Actual success: SEO, social media, social ads, graphics and marketing automation teams.

In each of these common examples, there is an unconscious omnichannel mindset that customers have adopted and take part in regularly. Therefore, it should be a priority for your business to not only recognize but also leverage this to the customers’ (and your) advantage.

Leaving A Trail Of Bread Crumbs

Expanding your marketing (and attribution) strategy from single channels to omnichannel is akin to leaving a trail of “branded bread crumbs” to attract, nurture and ultimately convert customers. Here are just a few ways you can connect the dots and get your omnichannel machine moving:

• Facebook and Instagram: If you don’t have the Facebook pixel installed on your site (and you are running social media ads), you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. The pixel gives you the ammunition to retarget those non-converting website visitors with more personalized campaigns so you can bring them back. As these remarketing campaigns are only triggered by (shown to) those who have already been to your website, you not only know the multiple points of attribution, but you can also see what group of customers (and ad groups) is converting at a higher level.

• Google Ads: The remarketing/retargeting trend certainly did not originate with Facebook. As with Facebook, though, you can use this strategy to target your customers “beyond the click,” for example, via their Google news feed (Discovery ads), YouTube, display, dynamic remarketing ads or even just your website. Again, these segmented, remarketing-specific ad sets will be triggered by the placement of your Google Ads pixel — so you know where they found you first and what brought them back.

• Marketing automation and email marketing: This is an oldie but a goodie. Using supplemental nurturing emails as part of your various ad campaigns can bring that warmer traffic back — to either fuel their interest or even close the sale altogether — via automation. Seeing as you can provide specific messaging, templates and calls to action across your different campaigns, your marketing automation platform will show you which audiences, campaign types and emails are driving the highest returns.

Tracking And Attributing Success

The single biggest hurdle when it comes to applying (and benefiting from) omnichannel strategies is tracking success and attribution. This means that you need to track every campaign, ad variation, website, landing page and clickable link.

Set up goals in Google Analytics; create custom tracking links for emails; and ensure that primary, retargeting and nurturing campaigns (of all types) are separated and easily searchable should you need to dig up granular results.

If you can’t track it, you cannot accurately attribute success to it.

When channels start to multiply, make sure that your cross-channel marketing teams increase communication to keep everyone on the same page. SEO teams need to meet with Google Ads teams, who need to talk to the email marketing team, etc. Effective omnichannel strategies cannot function without communicating the big picture.

Going omnichannel won’t happen overnight and can include far more than the tactics I provided above, but the sooner you begin, the faster your business can reap the benefits.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By Bernard May

Bernard May is the CEO of National Positions, a 5-time Inc. 500 company, award-winning marketing agency and Google Premier Partner. Read Bernard May’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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How to Design a Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

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Do you need a better strategy? Wondering how to use data to gauge when to start, stop, or scale your marketing efforts?

In this article, you’ll discover why data is important, what data to look at, and how to use data to inform your strategy.

Why Data Is Crucial to Your Marketing Strategy

It’s important to understand that data is for everyone, whether you’re a new business owner or have been in business for a long time and already know your ideal customer very well. Without data, as you’re building your strategy, you’re flying blind with little more than a feeling and some hope that you’re right.

We tend to develop our strategies focusing on things we like, things we’ve been told, and ideas that we see others finding success in, and put blinders on to whether these things are actually working. Are your time, money, and effort being returned to you in the form of conversions moving toward your goal?

Data removes those blinders.

Additionally, data makes it easier to connect each of your efforts to dollars. Whether you’re a marketer or business owner running all of your own marketing, understanding exactly how each point within your marketing strategy connects to that revenue helps identify the value of that point in the big picture. This is one of the ways in which data becomes so powerful in the realm of social media marketing because it lets you see exactly where you’re leaking money.

Pro Tip: As a best practice, you should start collecting the data even before you need it. If you’re starting a brand-new business and you don’t need the data right away, track it anyway. Because once you need the data, you need the data. As with anything else, data takes a while to collect, and Google Analytics doesn’t work retroactively. So while you may not look at the data right away, having it collected as early in the business as possible will only help you in the long run.

Click HERE to read the remainder of the article.

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Sourced from Social Media Examiner

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