Tag Archives: digital marketing toolbox

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Content Marketing Thursday: 4 Tips to Include in Your Content Marketing Strategy to Build Relationships with Your Target Audience

Content Marketing Source: http://www.seogon.com/blog/content-marketing-is-not-just-blogging-7-more-content-marketing-ideasBuilding relationships with your target audience is a top goal for a Digital Marketing Manager, and here are some content marketing strategies to put in your digital marketing toolbox in building relationships with your target audience. By implementing these content marketing strategies, it can increase your brand awareness and be highly effective in positioning your company as a thought leader in your field as well as shorten the length of the sales process.

Content marketing strategies are less formal than traditional marketing methods. So, when deploying your content marketing strategies be casual, and your target audience will be more open to the idea of building a relationship with your brands.

4 Tips to include in your content marketing strategy to build relationships with your target audience

  1. Embrace the Blog – Blogs give you the capability to talk to your target audience on a regular basis in a casual atmosphere. In addition to reaching your target audience, blogs assist your SEO efforts by increasing your search rank to drive traffic to your site.
  2. Promote through Social Media – Social media sites are one of the best ways to develop relationships with your target audience. Here, you can have two-way conversations with your current, past, and future customers, and social media allows your target audience to influence their social media communities.
  3. Drop the Sales Pitch – In the long run, content marketing strategies influence total sales, but content marketing tactics (blogs, social media, webinars, ebooks, whitepapers, mobile apps, newsletters, etc.) are not the forum to deliver sales messages. Consumers visit websites and social media sites to learn about a business’ brands and area of expertise, not to experience a hard sell. Content marketing provides the opportunity for your target audience to build trust in your brands and facilitates the relationship building process. Just be creative, informative, and engaging when communicating with your target audience, and they will place a purchase when they are ready to do so.
  4. Add Video – visuals help people connect with your brands. You-tube, Instagram and Vine are inexpensive ways to distribute your video content, so don’t be afraid of creating videos. Plus, search engines love video; therefore, as search engines tweak their algorithms, video will help you stay at the top of search engine result pages.

To help you utilize these tips you need to learn about your target audience by doing the following:

  • Listen to your Target Audience – listen to their preferences, needs, and wants
  • Understand your Target Audience – find out what is relevant to them and learn where they are on the Internet and when they are online.
  • Engage with your Target Audience – in the right time and the right place with what they want to read or hear

Try including these low-cost and effective tips into your content marketing strategy to watch your brand’s credibility and recognition increase without spending lots of money deploying traditional marketing methods.

Sources

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Learn More about Digital Marketing Manager, Cindy Plough

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Follow 8 Golden Rules of Social Media to Avoid the Pitfalls of Social Media in This Week’s Social Media Update

To implement your social marketing strategy seamlessly, Digital Marketing Managers need to follow the golden rules of social media to make your social marketing successful and help you reach your overall digital marketing goals.

Golden Rules of Social Media

Golden Rules of Social Media Source: http://rebekahradice.com/golden-rules-successful-social-media-marketing/

  1. Create specific social media objectives – Give your organization a clear understanding of where you are going with your social marketing.
  2. Inbound is not enough – Social Media will not fulfill your overall digital marketing objectives on their own. Digital Marketing Managers need a well-rounded mix of inbound and outbound strategies to fulfill your overall digital marketing goals.
  3. Good content – make sure you create engaging relevant content.
  4. Strong call to action – your social media content needs to clearly express what you want your followers to do after they consume your content; otherwise, you are wasting your time and your followers time.
  5. Always add value – make sure your content adds value to your brand.
  6. Never forget that social is a two-way street – Once you make a post, followers will make comments, and you should take comments seriously and respond to them timely and sincerely.
  7. Peer-to-peer sharing is the best way to get your message heard – Social media creates an open dialogue with your followers, and it gives brands and Digital Marketing Managers the capability to create engaging experiences and relationships with followers.
  8. Most important! Don’t take yourself too seriously – participating in social media gives Digital Marketing Managers the chance to give their brands a personality and be likable. However, don’t go off the deep end, you need to have some decorum.

If you follow the above golden rules of social media, you can avoid the following pitfalls of social media:

Pitfalls of Social Media Source: http://www.socialsamosa.com/2012/04/social-media-pitfalls-to-avoid/

  • Don’t brag – yes, you want your content to add value to your brand, but you don’t want to sound conceited.
  • Don’t be afraid to try social marketing – just because social marketing is different doesn’t mean you should avoid it. By creating objectives and a plan, social media can appear less daunting.
  • Don’t be afraid of social media because measurement is difficult – there are ways to measure the impact of your social media. Plus, social marketing extends your brands reach that will impact your bottom line indirectly.
  • Don’t use social media sites as advertising opportunities – Social media is a chance for you to give your brand a personality and truly connect with current, past, and future customers. Traditional advertising methods will not allow you to connect with your followers.
  • Don’t assume every social media site is good for your brand – Not ALL social media channels will work for ALL brands. For example, if you are a B2C company, Facebook may be a better fit. On the flip side, if you are a B2B company, LinkedIn might make more sense. (Remember this is just an example and not proven to be true)
  • Don’t create social pages and think you are done – If you can’t create a relationship with a new person in one day, what makes you think you can create engaging ongoing relationships with your target audience in social media if you don’t update your pages or posts regularly? However, keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you should be on social media all day every day.

General Rule of Thumb: Use social media sites as one digital marketing tactic in your digital marketing toolbox to extend your reach with your target audience, and use it where it makes sense for your brands to build relationships and create engaging experience with your current, past and future customers.

Source: Marketo’s Definitive Guide to Social Marketing

Additional Articles for Social Media Networks:

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Next Week’s Social Media Update: Creating a Social Media Army to Help Reach your Target Audience

Learn More about Digital Marketing Manager, Cindy Plough