With marketing teams struggling to find the right capabilities and seeking more responsiveness from marketing leaders, it’s necessary for chief marketing officers to implement their marketing strategies effectively to ensure their marketing campaigns succeed. Besides their constant need to evolve to face these challenges, CMOs need to maintain customer loyalty and engage with potential new markets with their campaigns.
Let’s look at some sage advice for CMOs from digital entrepreneurs. What do successful campaigns have in common? And who are the entrepreneurs behind them? Here are some tips from successful digital marketing trendsetters who’ve been in the industry for years.
Don’t Take Things Personally
Business startups and marketing promoters often pick products they like and with which they have personal attachments. They build campaigns appealing to their own personal interests, then wonder why they fail.
Here’s a newsflash: succeeding in online business isn’t about you.
According to online marketer Adrian Morrison, you’d be better off working with real data, looking at the niches that have successfully been marketed online. Connect audiences with products that appeal to them, rather than what appeals to you. If they like what you’re selling, maybe they’ll take a chance on something you’re truly passionate about.
When you stop putting what you think is cool ahead of what audiences need and want, you’ll see success come to you more quickly. As the adage goes, think of your friends – in this case, your customers – first.
Build Community
The Internet connects more people than ever before, but keeps us personally disconnected from one another. With so much time spent online and with advertising so competitive, businesses need to build relationships with customers that last.
Steve Howe, founder of Yoga Lifestyles, believes strongly in building communities online around topics people are passionate about. Finding a topic that aligns with your business is an ideal way to build your brand.
Make your fans and customers a tribe loyal to your business. Give them content that attracts them, allowing them a voice and a platform. In this way, they can build relationships with other customers who share the same interests. It’s a sure strategy that will keep customers loyal.
Leverage Marketing-as-a-Service Companies
Marketing–as-a-service (MaaS) companies are becoming more common. Whereas ad agencies were the primary sales drivers in the 20th century, MaaS agencies look like the drivers of online sales in the 21st. According to Domenic Colasante, CEO of 2X Marketing, there are four reasons to include MaaS in your 2020 marketing budget:
1. Reduce cost and gain more operating leverage
It’s not about reducing your budget. It’s about spending in the right place. You get more productivity when you reduce the cost of sales opportunities, and MaaS allows you to save both money and manpower to allow your company to do what it does best.
2. Expand and scale the marketing function
CMOs are tasked with improving customers’ experience, SEO marketing, and supporting new marketing territories, among other things. MaaS agencies offer talented experts that can complement your existing teams or add skills your in-house people don’t have.
3. Shift focus and evolve
It’s important for businesses to adjust to change. Too many marketing professionals get stuck doing the same old thing. MaaS partners have specialized teams that help implement new technology and techniques, while you develop what your company does best.
4. Be more agile
Businesses need to adjust quickly to changing environments. When it comes to making your business more competitive, utilizing an outsourced team gives you flexibility and helps you achieve goals more quickly.
You can read more about those four points here.
Hiring outside companies to take care of marketing makes sense. It gets down to doing what your company does best and hiring experts to do the rest. There’s no need to invent the wheel when you’ve got companies making Ferraris.
Be the Brand
Actor and entrepreneur Vito Glazers believes customers prefer to do business with people they know. That’s why some corporate leaders like Virgin’s Richard Branson or Tesla’s Elon Musk make public appearances to promote their brands.
Social media allows even the little guy to build a personal brand from nothing, allowing you to position yourself as an authority in your niche. Strong personal brands attract a following. By relating to others and showing that you share their values, people are more likely to buy from and do business with you. By connecting with customers and delivering content that’s worth following and sharing, businesses can build ongoing relationships.
By following up consistently and directly engaging, customers are more likely to identify with your brand. You don’t need Internet fame or have millions of followers to position your business online. Just being credible in your industry gives you authority.
Just stay true to your brand.
Integrate Cryptocurrency
Technology disrupts, even with money. Mitch Sanders, real estate investor and entrepreneur, believes that whenever massive change happens, the potential for forward-thinking entrepreneurs to strike it big increases.
Integrating crypto currencies as methods of payment looks to be one of these opportunities. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and other alternate currencies have exceeded $300 billion dollars in value. That’s a lot of cash. Considering, too, that there are limited ways to spend crypto currencies (i.e. pretty much only online) there’s definitely an opportunity for merchants willing to accept them.
Remember: Content Is King
People love content. Ronnie Sandlin, president of Temet Nosce, understands why people are so addicted to their computers, tablets, and smartphones. They love to consume content. People watch or read over one billion hours of content every day, with American consumers spending as much as five hours daily on their phones.
While consumers generally dislike ads, advertising that connects your brand to the content they’re watching or reading will encourage them to share your message. Going viral is the advertising jackpot of the 21st century, and one of the most important trends for any forward-thinking company in the coming year. Just make sure the content is relevant to your brand.
Conclusion
We could add more for chief marketing officers to consider, but we’ve covered a lot of ground with these six points. There are commonalities among successful marketing campaigns, whether online or off, and by looking at what’s succeeded in the past we can find future success.
