Marketing

Adam's Marketing Insights

I’ve created a new social post with a tailored landing page targeted at specific demographics, it is getting liked and shared organically, and appearing at the top of Google and I’m seeing a lot of leads roll in from my website. So what? Where are the conversions to sales? This is where most marketers, especially the new digital centric marketers, get stumped.

Today, marketing seems to be all about digital, SEO, making videos, TikToks, with the main self imposed KPIs something as basic web traffic or likes and shares of a post.

I want to flip that on it’s head, and look at what is really important in the world of marketing.

Why do we do marketing or communications for our business or organisation?

The answer is sales. More customers. Or if we are a government body, people acting on what we have to say, and not just liking and sharing.

A like on Facebook does not equal business. Sure enough a like or share on a digital platform can result in a sale when the right person responds to your promotion but why should likes alone be a valid KPI (Key Performance Indicator)?

I was talking to a member of the communications team of a local government council in South Australia a while ago and they were proud of some photos of a Harmony Day event they’d taken. Apparently one of them had over 30 organic likes on Facebook and 4 shares. Would any business owner in the right mind think that likes and shares of photos of their sales team is a good ROI (return on investment) for what they are paying a Generation Y or Generation Z marketer to do?

Sure enough, new marketers (and even well established business operators) think that being up with the latest shiny digital platforms is where they need to be, but I think they are missing so many strategic aspects of marketing that can help them do so much better, and deliver quantifiable results for their business/employer.

No one is an expert until they have done the research. No matter what the person who has been in the industry for years says, or how passionate the creative wizz is about the ad they made, without knowledge behind them, how can they say they are delivering something effective?...
We need to segment the market when we are doing our marketing plans so we can find the most valuable group of people to target later, but it should also come naturally when we are market orientated or customer focussed with developing our products....
Who is your customer? Don’t try and target everyone. Find a valuable segment of the market, and target them well. Make the decision to not target certain segments so you can be more focussed in your targeting to the segments you do target. ...
Positioning is not about what we as a marketer do to the product, it is what our marketing can do in the mind of the customer....
A marketing/sales funnel is the tool to use when deciding what type of marketing content you need to produce, where to position it, and also to see where you are loosing traffic or business....
Ask yourself the question: What type of promotion fits with what you want to say at different stages of the marketing funnel? Remember, advertising is not marketing....
Digital is a marketing tactic, part of a wider marketing strategy, and should not be considered the strategy in and of itself....
Take 10% of your marketing budget and use it for research. It could help you spend the remaining 90% far better and open your eyes to who the customer really is, and what they want....