Small Business Marketing Blog: Tips and Tricks to Improve your Marketing Strategy and Management Efforts
How to Use Technology to Enhance Your Digital Marketing & Promotional Strategy
When starting to focus on Marketing, it’s important to spend money and resources on the right areas.
How to Use Technology to Enhance Your Digital Marketing & Promotional Strategy
20 years ago I was wrapping up my final semester at Muhlenberg College. My major...
Computer science. Nerd stuff (and my mom did and still does say that I'm cool)... and my friends still call me Milhouse.
I didn't really enjoy coding and certainly wasn't at the top of the class, so it was time to find something else.
Cut to, 20 years later, I'm in marketing. 21 years ago, I thought that those two fields were on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Digital Marketing & Technology
But in reality, digital marketing and tech overlap on a Venn Diagram.
Understanding systems, UI/UX (CRO), data, reporting, analytics, ad psychology, ad platforms and the overall business are different parts of the brain (but are important to bring a business from great to better).
While I cannot walk the walk in coding at higher than a "B-" level, that's good enough for a chunk of E-commerce and Internet marketing. SQL and HTML and "languages" that I can understand, but I maybe use those twice per year. A couple of the REAL helpful "technology" tools are...
API (Application programming interface) Data Integrations in Digital Marketing
✅ Zapier: Allows for data to seamlessly transfer between platforms without programmers (simply put, it's a prebuilt API). Think of capturing prospective leads in Facebook and pushing them to an email platform for nurturing.
Website Analytics & Tracking in Digital Marketing
✅ Google Tag Manager: Allows for adding snippets of code in the <head> of any website. So useful for analytic conversion events and other "add-ons". Another great use case, adding an email capture pop-up.
And when my "B-" level isn't good enough, I can talk the talk-ish with tech teams. Translating technical requirements from marketing speak to technical speak is an art form.
In short, while I wasn't thrilled with my C.S. degree, the learnings are still shining through.
Feel free to call me a nerd or Milhouse anytime.
How Should I Spend My Marketing Budget?
When starting to focus on Marketing, it’s important to spend money and resources on the right areas.
How Should I Spend My Marketing Budget?
While the answer can vary between industries, I think the below can be applied to the majority of businesses, especially in the B2C eCommerce and B2B space.
70%: SEO
Search engine optimization and thought leadership content for blog posts on the website, emails, and social media posts. There is a huge Venn Diagram overlap with Demand Generation here.
While SEO doesn't directly provide new interested prospects immediately, after 6-12 months, more quality prospects will find your business. With that said, having that relevant, timely content will help support other communications strategies (like email and social media)
10%: A Quality Email Marketing Platform (like Klaviyo).
Email automation and consistent campaigns that highlight thought leadership and the benefits for prospective clients will go a long way. Bonus points for lead scoring based on email and website activities. More bonus points for segmenting your audience into Hot, Warm and Cold prospects and communicating appropriately.
The goal is to own communications with your prospects and clients and not rely solely on social media platforms.
20%: Lead generation
Paid media, like Meta/Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, and TikTok will help to distribute content and acquire new prospects.
This is the faucet that introduces prospects to your brand and services.
Plus, since paid media is almost always performance-based and revenue can be tied back to costs, the profit dollars can roll in after the foundation is set up.
In closing, focus on the fundamentals first, then move on to the shiny object.
What do you think, do you agree?