You are probably starting on the first steps in your 2021 marketing plan. Knowing what to focus on is vital, because you can’t afford to misplace money in a strategy that doesn’t make your business profitable. Fret not; we have gathered 2021’s top strategies to consider, and to implement into your business to make this your most successful year yet.
While it is known that digital marketing is on the rise, it is important that you are not investing your entire budget in digital. Integration enables you to create more touchpoints in your customer’s day-to-day activities than ever before. Integrated marketing is a method of creating an experience for consumers to interact with your company in a seamless manner. It is an attempt to combine every marketing aspect such as advertising, social media, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing so they all work together as a whole. This ensures that all communication with your customer is consistent across all channels, while providing the maximum impact.
With integration, you should be looking for ways to improve your marketing through the customer’s viewpoint and intent, not just from what products you are trying to sell at that moment. To figure out your customer’s intent, you need to understand the Four Pillars of Intent-Based Marketing:
- Who are your buyers? What identifies them?
- What are your buyers doing? What are their interests?
- Managing and modeling intent data. Build your ideal customers’ characteristics.
- Acting on purchase intent insight. Change your marketing activities based on intent insight.
After understanding these pillars, you have a better insight into what your customers are actually asking for, and you are able to effectively earn their business faster while spending less.
A general marketing rule is that you have to see an ad seven times to remember it. While you may assume that your money is best spent on digital ads because millennials are dependent on technology, you may want to reconsider. Millennials are not constantly connected, but when they are, they are so used to online ads being pushed into their subconscious that they have adapted to ignore and mentally block them. Studies show that almost half of millennials ignore internet ads, email ads, and text ads.
Print is becoming a huge player in motivating millennials to purchase products. Many millennials need to feel a real, emotional attachment to the brand to feel invested. Studies show that digital marketing and advertising works, but it will not fully satisfy your customer’s emotional needs. With the integration of print, you are able to connect with your target customer from every aspect, and allow them to have a personal connection with your brand. They are able to hold, feel, and pass along the information you are sending them.
The addition of print and digital into your integration strategy allows both to build off of each other. This provides trackable data, advanced reporting, and ultimately helps you reach your target audience more efficiently.
With the use of digital advertising in addition to the use of direct mail and newsletters, you will be able to make your customers feel truly engaged with you and therefore more likely to buy in to your brand. If you have a great integration strategy, you have the first crucial step to achieving your company’s marketing goals in 2021.