Why Fact-Finding Might Be The Most Important Part Of Online Marketing

Social media, the website, video marketing, blogging. They can all be strands of a powerful online marketing and brand building strategy. But for those who are just dipping their toe in the waters, they can also seem like a total roll of the dice. How do others know which kinds of content are going to be successful or which will fall on deaf ears? Luck plays a part of it, but the rest is down to having the right information. So let’s look at how you should be informing your next online marketing strategy.

Your customers

Let’s all be aware that no advertising is fundamentally good by itself. It’s all subjective. What works for one person will have no effect, or even a negative one, on the next. So it’s all about knowing your audience. First, in terms of distribution, you need to know which online channels they’re most likely to use. Is it Facebook? Twitter? Youtube? LinkedIn? Depending on your business and your products, you’ll come across different answers. Then you need to think about their lifestyle and what they want. How does your product fit into that? Treat marketing like a conversation. You’re not bouncing ideas out into space. There are people listening to see if you have anything to offer. Find out what it is that they want.

Your competition

You’re not the only one trying to get their attention, either. Rare is the market where you have no competition whatsoever. Instead, you are likely to have at least one or two companies competing for the same space. The key to success is paying as much attention to what they’re doing as you do to your own marketing strategies. For one, you want to watch them because you want to be able to learn what they do right. See what kind of promotions and materials they put out and follow the reaction to see if they have any noteworthy effect. Learn from what they do right and discard what they do wrong. Secondly, you want to make sure that you’re standing out from your competitors. Look closer at what they’re using as the unique focus of their branding and marketing. That way, you can make sure your efforts are going in a distinct direction of your own.

Your results

Of course, for the best possible outcome, you need to look inward as well as outward. In particular, you should be looking at the results you get from different kinds of marketing. Services like Chatmeter can help you look at engagement stats in as much detail as narrowing down regional results. Looking at your results is an important part of seeing what works and where you need to do more work still.

Know the market and know your results in detail. That’s how you inform your marketing. Find out more about your customers and more about your competitors. Others are trying to find what works, too, so use them. Then keep a close eye on your efforts to see which really do the trick. Adapt what you’ve learned and you’ll be heading in a much better direction.