Marketers need to look beyond their website. Here’s how.
For the last two decades, marketers have been told again and again that a website is the ultimate marketing tool. But with the rise of the digital transformation, your business site is no longer the be all, end all of your marketing efforts. In today’s landscape, customer experience reigns supreme—and satisfying the consumer requires a lot more than a high-quality website.
By 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator for global businesses. To get ahead of the curve, marketers are embracing strategies that give customers the multi-touchpoint experience they demand. Enterprises now use an average of eight channels to engage their customers. SMBs are also diving into multichannel marketing, utilising everything from social to email marketing—and even video— to engage today’s savvy customers.
Simply put, it’s time to look beyond your website. Here are four simple ways to start doing just that.
Embrace email marketing
Why are so many business embracing email marketing? Research shows that email marketing delivers more ROI than social media or paid search. In a recent study, 80% of SMB marketers said they believe email marketing helps them improve customer acquisition and retention. Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing channels, and gives your team the power to adjust your strategy based on key analytics like click-thrus, actions and more.
Tap into video marketing
It used to be that video campaigns were only for big-budget enterprises. But with the rise of video marketing, SMBs are using video to drive engagement and ROI. About 90% of users report that seeing a video is useful in their decision-making process.
Fill your YouTube channel with engaging, informative content, explore video ads, and repurpose your videos across your other channels. Incorporating video into your emails can boost click-thru by 200-300 percent, and having a video on your landing page can increase conversion by 80%.
Ramp up thought leadership
Thought leadership essentially boils down to the practise of formulating and sharing insights into the issues facing your buyers, and then creating a dialogue that positions your company as a trusted source. Savvy CEOs, managers and content teams are creating more thought leadership content than ever, and for good reason: thought leadership builds trust, relevance and brand loyalty, especially for B2B businesses.
Although creating meaningful thought leadership content continues to pose a challenge for SMBs, Forrester’s simple four-step approach is a great starting point. Once you create this content, look to publish it beyond your own website. Industry publications provide a valuable platform for boosting visibility amongst a wider, yet relevant, audience.
Dive deeper into social media
With the rise of customer experience, savvy brands are beginning to see social media as not simply a channel, but a way to engage authentically with customers and prospects. By providing a mix of engaging and informative content, your social channels will steer away from pure advertisement and deliver the customer experience savvy consumers demand.
Multichannel marketing has given rise to exciting new ways to provide a high-quality customer experience. However, without analytics even the savviest marketers could fall short on transforming this 360 experience into ROI. Book a free 30-minute marketing audit to see where your efforts stand now, and where your MCM strategy could use a boost.
