With digital communication, marketing as an industry has grown exponentially, adapting to the new media and generating new strategies and products that have helped both marketers and non-marketers tremendously by automating data generation, making a bigger impact than printed ads could ever have.
But this transformation has posed some challenges for people that don’t know how to compete in the current digital media landscape even when they have a great product. Many recur to paid ads first because it seems like the logical choice, right? Just create some ads, pour some money on them and wait for the clients to show up! However, depending on the industry you’re into, the cost can be quite high and if you haven’t tested on different audiences and platforms, then your initial investment will typically be a lot higher than what you may have budgeted.
So, before you get into paid ads, here are 3 basic marketing strategies you should try first:
MAILING
Emails may seem boring and outdated, but nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the latest benchmarks report by Campaign Monitor from 2021 shows that the average open rate for emails are 21.5%, 3.5% more than 2020, and some industries go up to 28%. A lot of marketers use email for marketing purposes and with great results, especially if you have an ecommerce site and rely on current customers to keep buying your products, platforms like Klaviyo help a lot with email funnels that help you boost your sales with customized templates and automation.
Here are some tips to have a successful email:
- Try to add a concise but precise title for your email. You can add an emoji, just don’t use more than two.
- If you have a platform like Mailchimp, the sender should be identified as someone from the company. For example, since Pau, our Business Manager, sends many of the email campaigns, we name the sender “Pau from Simbiosis”. This helps in giving a human touch and making it easier for people to trust the sender.
- Try to test different times and days so you can have more data on when can you have the best results for your email campaigns.
- Have a clear message and objective for each email. Performance is better when you add a clear call to action.
CONTENT MARKETING
Before you start thinking that I’m about to suggest using TikTok, read me out. Many entrepreneurs and non-marketers feel overwhelmed every time they try to make a content marketing strategy. In an era where there is constant competition and change in trending content, there is pressure to keep your social media accounts relevant to your audience. But trust me, you don’t really NEED to focus on ALL social media channels. Start small but steady, consistency is key. Choose one or two main channels that you feel hold the most importance to your audience and dedicate some of your time to create content that is relevant to them.
Some tips to implement a good content marketing strategy:
- Identify pain points that are relevant to your audience and then make content that will help them overcome some challenges.
- Content marketing is not just about posting in social media. You can prompt users to share their information on your site in exchange for some valuable information like a free e-book or even having your own blog to drive traffic to your site!
- Consider using smart video editing tools such as Magisto to get started on video content. If you’ve got a platform with different features, try recording your screen and audio so you can explain the user step by step how to use it.
- Test different formats, evaluate their results and then change your strategy to push the best performing formats and leave the ones that didn’t work behind.
SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. This has to do with everything related to content, hyperlinks, keywords, format, hashtags, even metadata. Everything counts so that search engines can deem your site relevant to determined audiences should they search for similar keywords. The best way you can start to implement a good SEO strategy is through… well… search engines. Yes, Google. Test out different keywords that can be related to your business and competitors. What keywords are they using? Are those keywords applicable to your business’ context?
Since any content, whether it is from your site or your social media accounts, is technically part of SEO, this should be the first thing you establish before anything else. Some tips ahead:
- Try to constantly update your website information and keep it within relevant keywords. Remember, some keywords have to be updated, removed or added since trends are always changing the way people search for products and services.
- Some tools like SpyFu let you use their keyword analyzer a few times before asking you to pay. Others, like Semrush or Ahrefs are much more complete platforms that can help you not only identify the best performing keywords but also helping you correct performance and metadata issues in your website. Be prepared to pay more than 100 USD per month though. Be sure to check them out.
- Apply black fonts when you use terms that have the most impact and relation to your business. This helps search engines prioritize them over others and can boost, if just a little, the relevance of your site.
As you can see, there’s a lot of alternatives to paid ads and I encourage you to try them before considering to pay. Keep in mind that for this to work out, you need to be consistent in every strategy for it to work. I suggest you try at least three months so you can have enough data to decide the next steps, whether that is to step it up or change directions. Only by understanding the reactions from your audience you’ll know what to do next. Trust your data and keep testing new trends and ideas. Until the next time, thanks for reading our blog!
- Andrés
