Marketing managers are busy people who must keep an eye on all the marketing efforts being currently pursued by their team. Not all the strategies will be successful, and some will wax and wane at the whim of changes in customers’ expectations for companies, as well as other factors.
Here are 6 strategies that all smart marketing managers need to be aware of.
1. Segment Customers into Different Lists
Whether for email lists, MMS campaigns, or mailing lists to reach out to them, segmentation is a powerful tool that is often underutilized by many marketing managers.
For example, segmenting customers who have previously purchased in the last year from ones that made a purchase long ago is helpful. The former can be provided information on the latest product releases similar to what they’ve purchased in the past. The latter who haven’t purchased in years could be enticed back with a discount voucher that’s valid for a limited time.
Whilst they’ll always be a master list of all customers, by using clever segmentation, marketing messages are often more powerful and response rates are higher. That’s because it can speak more to their needs, and not just the company’s needs.
2. Use MMS Texting to Get Noticed
If you think of MMS texting as only an extension of SMS plain text marketing, then that’s the wrong way to see it.
For instance, a non-profit MMS marketing campaign can include a relevant photo to capture attention and have accompanying text. The photo might be of a photo of a new product they sell to raise funds, with a caption overlayed if desired as well, to maximize the impact.
Unlike with SMS texts, the multimedia effect is more powerful and appears more like a social media Share or chat app message. As such, it’ll be more engaging for people who are now more comfortable with image-based marketing.
3. Don’t Discount Generational Marketing Techniques
Generational marketing can provide clues as to what campaigns will be successful and those that will not be.
Generation X
This generation is now middle-aged, practical, often homeowners, and sometimes married with kids (though this is declining).
They may have more disposable income, if they’re not socking it away into 401k plans with their employer or already funding retirement care home for their parents.
This generation needs to see value in products or services. They’re already heavily weighed down, so value matters to them.
Millennials
The often-maligned Millennials are now a force to be reckoned with. They now surpass the Baby Boomer generation in size given the advancing age of many surviving boomers.
Obviously, they’re far more tech-savvy with the highest adoption rate of smartphones, apps, and online shopping of any other adult generation. They’re also highly focused on accountability for brands, the planet, and getting ahead.
Older Millennials may already have children while the youngest could still be living at home due to the high cost of homes. Millennials shouldn’t all be treated as one. The older ones have different priorities than the younger ones, who are still more focused on experiences than material goods.
Baby Boomers
Still a significant part of the overall population, successfully reaching boomers as a marketer is perhaps the hardest to do.
Many have adapted to using a smartphone or another computing device at home, but they’re not necessarily adept at using it. Others refuse to adapt and still prefer older forms of communication like phone calls, mailers, and the like.
Separating one from the other is beneficial as a marketer because it entirely changes which type of marketing will be preferred.
4. Consider Using Specialized Teams
The specifics of one marketing channel or platform are different from the next. Therefore, a social media manager who manages the marketing messages across four social media channels will be less adaptable compared to having a singular focus. A Twitter expert will find new avenues to explore whereas someone with a split focus may miss many of them.
Similarly, the same goes for email marketing versus MMS or SMS marketing. If the company uses mailers in the post or postcards for that matter, success through direct mail is totally different from other marketing options.
One of the advantages that larger businesses have and should leverage is to create as much depth and breadth as possible within their marketing department. Someone who tries to cover every angle only spreads themselves too thin and the results will always be less than a specialist could produce for the company.
5. Use Retargeting to Get Another Bite at the Apple
All marketing teams should be taking advantage of the ability to retargeting previous visitors to the website. When they’ve previously looked at a product but haven’t made a purchase, they can be reached again with an advertisement on Facebook, Linked In, or elsewhere through a retargeting pixel.
Simply put, retargeting provides another bite at the apple. Many purchases aren’t made the first time or even the second time that the prospective customers learn about the product. Repeated exposure to promotions is required to convince them to sign up, make the purchase, or take another type of action.
Without using retargeting extensively, dollars are being left on the table.
6. Always Look at the ROI
The ROI from different marketing strategies will bounce around depending on the specifics of that campaign. However, they should still fall into a reasonably predictable range that provides some useful jumping-off points for meaningful analysis.
It’s not always necessary to use all available marketing channels. One of the possible downsides to marketing specialists is that should it eventually prove unprofitable to continue using that marketing channel, then their services will no longer be required. However, when the marketing budget is only so large and results are expected of the manager, then it pays to deploy the budget toward the best opportunities.
So, always look closely at the ROI of each marketing platform to spot early when they’re declining in effectiveness. Dropping back the subsequent marketing spend to only the best performing aspects of a declining marketing channel still provides good promotional prospects while watching carefully for any further reduction in profitable results.
Marketing managers have a lot to keep a watchful eye over. Using detailed reporting to get into the specifics and asking meaningful questions about why results are higher (or lower) than expected proves beneficial. That way, smarter future marketing decisions can be made too.