Marketing tactics make for a double-edged sword.
One the one hand, the right marketing tactic can help you grow your business. On the other hand, marketing tactics can become a waste of time. So how do you choose the right one?
In today’s guide, we’re going to walk you through different marketing tactics to help you grow your business, but before we do that, keep this important lesson in mind.
The #1 Marketing Tactic of them All
Imagine you’re seven years old.
You just got a new bike with no training wheels.
Instead of letting you ride, fall on your face, and repeat the process until you learn how to ride, your parents give you a training manual called “How to Ride a Bike.”
It has perfect instructions. The guide breaks down the physics of riding a bike with mathematical equations about balance. It tells you how to grip the handles, gain momentum, and maintain balance. There are graphics and illustrations walking you through every step of riding the bike.
You read the manual cover to cover, taking notes, and discuss the process of riding the bike with your parents in detail.
After all of this, you know how to ride a bike, but you don’t know how to ride a bike. The only way to learn how to ride a bike is to ride one. The only way to see if certain marketing tactics work is to try them. That’s why we created a list with many options. You can choose a tactic, try it, and see if it works.
If the tactic does work, double-down. If it doesn’t work for your business, try something new. Also, don’t blame the tactic itself. Many entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that if one strategy doesn’t work, all strategies are bad.
This cynical mindset kills creativity, marketing, and ultimately profits.
Either try the tactics out for yourself or work with a smart agency to handle it for you.
Ready for the tips.
Stick with us…
Run a Content Marketing Campaign for a Year
Content marketing and SEO are the lifeblood for many businesses.
These strategies work if you give them enough time.
As you can see from this chart via Ahrefs, your website pages may need to age a little bit before they rank well on Google.
Some other benefits of giving your campaign time to grow are:
- Insights – You can’t get good data on where your traffic is coming from, which keyword selection works best, or whether you’re creating the right content. When you can compare data quarter over quarter and year over year, you get a birds’ eye view that helps you make better content marketing decisions.
- Branding – Brands are becoming more important to SEO. Google trusts brands more because they’re an easy way to vet the quality of information. Brands take time to build. One of the best ways to build a brand is through smart content marketing, but it requires patience to pull off.
- Certainty – Often, business owners quit on SEO before they know whether or not it’s working. This impatience causes failure and wastes time and money.
Create an Interesting Hook to Get People to Engage
Getting attention is hard in 2019.
Getting people to take the action you want is even harder.
People are getting jaded. They’ve signed up for the email list, gotten the white papers, and end up ignoring marketing messages.
There are some fun and unique ways to get people to engage and take the action you want like signing up to your e-mail list.
Lead Quizzes
Lead quizzes are a fun and interactive way to get people to join your list. You provide a quiz based on your niche and give them the answer in exchange for your e-mail list:
Prize Wheels
Prize wheels let users ‘spin’ for a chance to win a prize you offer. To claim the prize, you have to provide an e-mail in exchange:
Giveaways
Done correctly, giveaways can build your list fast. In this case study for giveaways, WishPond displays 24 different Facebook Ad giveaways with unique offers, copy, and images:
Twist the Knife
Customers often buy products to alleviate pain and solve problems, that’s where the Problem, Agitation, Solution (P.A.S) formula comes in.
- First, you spell out the problem they’re having.
- Next, you make the problem worse by elaborating on the consequences of it.
- Last, you offer your product as a solution
Here’s a great example:
Courtesy of Copy Hackers by Ramit Sethi
Get the Most From Your E-Mail Blasts
Here’s a simple marketing tactic you can use to boost the open rate and clicks for the e-mail newsletters you send out.
What tactic, you ask? Resend your message to people who didn’t open it the first time. Wait a few days, change the subject line, and send the exact same message. Look at this example from my personal blog through my Converkit dashboard:
Spruce Up Your About Page
If we had a dollar for every boring and bland business page that uses copy that starts out like “We started our company 30 years ago from a garage in Wichita, KS […].” we could retire from having an agency.
This speaks to one of the biggest marketing mistakes businesses make. Your website and about page aren’t for you, they’re for your customers. Yes, feel free to tell your company story, but also answer the question “What’s in it for me?”
Your about page is a great place to talk about the benefits of your product or service. Take a look at this example from the about page of my writing coach website:
I open the page by talking directly to the reader. I even sprinkle some PAS formula in there as well (see if you can spot it).
As an added bonus, it’s smart to add a call to action to your about page, too:
Ad Upsells and Downsells to Your E-Commerce Store
Upsells work great because they engage a customer who’s already bought something. Someone who buys something from you is more likely to buy again. Adding an upsell to the checkout process of your e-commerce store can help you get extra sales.
It speaks to the thinking “I already want the product I bought. Why wouldn’t I want this extra cool added upgrade or special tool?”
If they don’t opt for your upsell offer, add a downsell offer, a discounted version of your upsell:
Redesign Your Website
Redesigning your website can give your brand new life.
Haven’t an outdated website with a bad user experience is bad for your brand.
It’s also bad for your search engine performance, because search engines use user signals like load speed, mobile responsiveness, and dwell time as part of their algorithm.
Re-designing and re-building your website solves these problems and gives your brand a new look at the same time.
Via Elcor Consruction – A site redesign client of ours