For all of the current economic woes, few things have been more constant than marketing and advertising. There are no signs that this will decrease anytime soon. Marketing is a big business and it's only going to grow bigger. One reason for this is that marketers need to keep growing the list of data points about their target audience in order to grow their customer base as well. Another important reason is that a global digital economy needs an effective marketing tools to power it- that includes data-mining techniques, predictive analytics, and intricate website optimization techniques.
A final reason is that brands need to make sure they have a full-spectrum approach to marketing. If your entire marketing budget is allotted to just one channel, chances are that you're not doing enough in terms of cross-channel promotion. Branding can't be limited by the sales cycle or channels – you need to offer customers new and exciting experiences and content delivery. The company's existing products (if there are any) have to be part of the mix as well. In a down economy, it's important to keep the sales pipeline active while increasing the effectiveness of your current activities.
Here are some ideas that you can use to start right away:
Start using a content management system (CMS) :
A CMS is a digital way to store the content for any kind of marketing campaign. This can be about your product, its features, and the ways it can help your customers. It's also a good way to share knowledge and information about what you're currently doing in your marketing campaigns – and what you plan to do in the near future. It's not just an easy way to manage advertising materials in one place – it's also an opportunity for advanced data mining procedures. You can easily see which content is getting the most responses, then adapt your strategy accordingly.
Use SiteCatalyst to see how you can increase your traffic:
SiteCatalyst is one of the most powerful analytics tools that you can use to gather valuable data. It's a big part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud and it gives you real-time information about where your visitors are coming from and what they're looking for on your website. This will help you better understand how to improve your conversion rates, as well as find relevant data points that you can use in other digital activities.
Use Adobe Analytics to monitor customer behavior:
Adobe Analytics is also integrated with SiteCatalyst so that you can get the most out of their functionalities. We already know that people are busy and don’t want to spend their time learning the Adobe Analytics platform. So to make it as easy, efficient, and insightful for us as possible, the best way to do this for them is by giving all the insights aggregated so that people can see what their customers are doing in one location.
Also, the Adobe Marketing Cloud is an integrated platform that can help you get a 360-degree view of your customers, then create a comprehensive marketing plan based on this data. From real-time analysis and predictive analytics to competitive intelligence and optimization techniques, there are tons of opportunities for you to capitalize on more sales.
Start using Adobe's social media marketing tools :
Social media is a powerful way to connect with your customers – it gives you an opportunity to showcase the best of your brand and products, as well as engage in conversations with potential customers. The Adobe Marketing Cloud has everything you need to build and manage a social media campaign that can maximize your results. This includes tools that allow you to track and analyze your content, respond in real-time, join the conversation and build relationships with influencers. This can all be done right from one place, so there's no need for complicated data management techniques.
Global data marketer and analyst firm IDC predicts in an upcoming report that global spending on social media marketing will grow from $1 billion in 2011 to $4.4 billion by 2016. Marketers are spending more money on Facebook-owned social media marketing platform, Facebook Ads, than any other DSP (demand-side platform).
In my opinion, the first step in growth marketing is to understand the essence of it. We need to identify why there are so many companies moving into growth markets and why they're doing that. This helps us to see that growth marketing is not as much about selling more products but finding out what people want and then trying to deliver that to them with the help of advertising and other methods.
There are many other data mining tools that you can use to help promote your products, but these are the examples show you a good way to start immediately.