Six Marketing Trends to Improve on in 2016

For your business to grow and become more successful and recognizable, you need to have a strong marketing presence. For many businesses, marketing can seem overwhelming because of all of its different components. That’s where we’re here to help. Having a general understanding of marketing and all of its parts is important, but you also need a starting point. Below are six areas of marketing your organization should focus on to improve your marketing efforts and stay ahead of the competition.

1. Content Marketing. In order to truly tackle content marketing, you need to produce content that has a purpose. Pay attention to your audience. It’s your turn to give back to them. Give them something they are interested in and want to learn more about. In addition, it’s important to remain consistent. This is an area where many people fall short; many businesses spend all of this time generating content, and then fail to deliver when it comes to promoting it. Create a schedule that allows you to organize your information and make sure that you are consistently posting relevant content.
2. Social Media Marketing. As most of the world is now a part of social media to one degree or another, there’s a very high chance your target audience is as well. It’s time to get social—and use social tools efficiently. Once a part of social media, your organization needs to capitalize by sharing content, connecting with your audience and having conversations with others in your industry. As with content marketing, consistency is necessary, especially with the amount of potential customers on social media. Download useful tools that will help you become organized and allow you to schedule future posts, cutting your prep time in half. By being consistent, it will help you to build relationships with your followers and become a thought leader through contributing useful information.
3. Search Engine Optimization. The most important aspect to remember when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) is the importance of producing quality content and back links. Once again, tying back to content marketing (I told you it was important!), it’s vital to create content that your audience is searching for. By creating this content and promoting it on your own website and outside sources through backlinks, your organization will start appearing in relevant searches and it will drive your target market to your website. It’s also important to remember to regularly update content to remain consistent and stay up-to-date with the business community. In addition, don’t forget to incorporate relevant keywords that will lead your audience back to your website, and remember to stay dynamic when posting.
4. Inbound Marketing. Inbound marketing has taken over traditional outbound marketing which involved reaching out to your audience and telling them why they need your products or services. With inbound marketing, your audience comes to you. Your organization draws your audience in and attracts them by sharing relevant content and developing deep connections with them. Sure, it takes some additional effort at the beginning, but once you have your marketing efforts set up, your audience will begin reaching out to you, alleviating the tough work in the end. Inbound marketing and content marketing go hand in hand—it’s your job to consistently deliver beneficial content to your audience, and in turn, they’ll come to you over competition when they’re ready to look for services you offer.
5. Website. In today’s technology-driven world, your organization’s website is arguably its most important marketing tool. As such, the content and design of the website should accurately reflect your vision, services, brand and ideals. A poor or dysfunctional website could cost your organization a substantial amount in the long run. It’s time to take a good look at your website. Does it properly showcase what your organization offers and how you can help serve each target market? Does it demonstrate your services clearly, as well as your competitive advantage? Take a look at your website’s design, content, inbound marketing opportunities and navigation, and see how you can update it to better serve your audience. Also, you need to make sure it’s responsive!
6. Email Marketing. It’s time to give your audience the marketing messages they want, the way they want them. You know what that means, you need to make the most out of your email marketing. So, how can you make sure you get the most out of this valuable resource? Your aim is to send timely, relevant emails that will be opened and acted upon. To do so, remember to keep messages personal, creative, customer-focused and actionable. Email marketing offers a lot of advantages including the ability to make messages customizable and relationship focused. It is also a cost effective way to get your messages out to your target audience, and with all of the email marketing tools out there, emails are a very simple to measure and track. Email is a marketing mainstay that offers a welcome boost to your organization. Give plenty of love to your email list, and give your audience tantalizing content that will establish your organization as one that’s worth paying attention to.

By focusing on these six areas of marketing, you will be able to begin executing more efficient marketing campaigns targeted at the audiences you want. In order to grow your business and support your sales team, your marketing team needs to step up. Begin by educating yourself on these six marketing components and you’ll be on your way to a successful 2016.

What marketing trends is your company planning on focusing on as we’re approaching the end of the year? Any of the ones I mentioned or others? I’d love to hear in the comments below!