Guest post by Marcus Lansky

Marketing is one of those business functions that has continued to evolve over the years. Furthermore, from traditional forms of marketing to more modern forms of digital marketing, the term ‘marketing’ now encompasses a blend of conventional and newer ways of showcasing your business’s USPs (or Unique Selling Points) to your target market. So much so, that even business owners can now handle the marketing functions themselves (with the help of a few handy marketing tools, that is). Let’s find out what these are and how they can help you achieve your marketing objectives.

This article is one of several great pieces of content you can find on the Solomon Bruce Consulting blog.

Determine your marketing channels

When it comes to the various marketing platforms that you can use to communicate your

message, ReferralRock notes that there are many. More specifically, there are two types of marketing channels that you could choose to concentrate on, this includes both online and offline marketing channels. The reason that marketing channels are so diverse is that audiences are so diverse, and each marketing channel caters to audiences differently.

Online marketing channels

As the name implies, online marketing channels use the online marketing technique to communicate with your audience in real-time. These include social media, SEO, display advertising, and more.

Establishing your brand’s footprint

Establishing what it is that makes your brand truly identifiable from your competitors, and then focussing on marketing your unique benefits to your audiences, is a critical component of any marketing strategy. This can include aspects such as making your website more appealing or concentrating on your logo a bit more to make it that much more eye-catching.  Furthermore, it pays to reduce your marketing expenses where you can.

Offline marketing channels

On the other hand, offline marketing channels can be seen as simpler more traditional means of marketing and include things like brochures, flyers, posters, telephone poles, and billboards, for example. It’s possible to appeal to both online and offline channels by offering such things as contest rewards or giveaways that appeal to segments of your target audience. For example, if you have a portion of your customer base that consists of sports fans, you can create a fun and engaging promotion giving out Astros tickets to attract more clients or customers. Or, for those who are more entertainment-minded, hand out tickets to an upcoming concert.

What is your marketing message? 

VoilaNorbert points out that establishing your marketing message is vitally important because your message will need to stand out amongst the plethora of competition vying for your audience’s attention. In essence, it’s about how your message resonates with your target audience the best. Naturally, the marketing channels you decide to use will also play a role in how well your marketing message is received by your audience.

What is your marketing angle? 

Often, when it comes to marketing, you’ll find that your current marketing strategy may need to be tweaked here or there as you go along to achieve your objectives. Again, this may include discovering ways of how to differentiate your business from the competition. For example, it could include things like defining or even redefining your target market and also delving further into the requirements of your target audience. Furthermore, it also includes things like changing your marketing strategy to include more content or digital marketing, for example.

How to determine if your marketing efforts were successful

At the end of the day, it is also important to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts to see whether you have achieved your end objectives or not. Tools you can use to measure your marketing campaign’s performance include:

Return on Investment (ROI) 

Return on investment is one of the simplest methods you can use to measure how much your business benefited from your marketing campaign. The formula for calculating return on investment is relatively straightforward and takes into account the sales revenue earned for each dollar that is spent.

Purchasing funnel

Measurement tools such as Google Analytics can help you measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns by showing how many leads were generated by your marketing campaign, how many of these leads converted into paying customers, and your customer retention rate as well.

In conclusion, you don’t always need a dedicated marketing department to market your business adequately. In fact, if you have the right tools and know-how at your disposal, you could very well handle a large portion of this function yourself.

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