I know I don’t need to tell you that in order to build a successful marketing strategy, you need to understand your audience. Typically, your prospective customers will include several buyer personas, each needing its own unique messaging. Maybe some of your buyers are more conservative and safe, while others are looking for innovation or a coolness factor. You will need to adapt your marketing message differently to each of these audiences, but if you focus on three key areas, you will see a boost in brand awareness and sales.
1. Be clear about who, how and why you serve.
Market-leading brands have success because they have a clear story about what their company does and how they do it. They repeat this information over and over again, building a reputation about themselves and their products with customers (both B2B and B2C).
For more tips on developing your brand message, check out 7 Questions to Define (or Redefine) Your Brand.
2. Develop content that addresses the questions of your audience.
Make sure you keep track of any questions your customers are asking so you can develop content to address them. Ask your sales or customer service teams to dig deep to understand the challenges of customers and prospects. Gather feedback from reviews or surveys. All of these responses provide you with ammunition to develop content that addresses pain points and missed opportunities. And the content you develop to address questions can be anything—blogs, videos, ads, case studies, etc. Just make sure you are constantly doing this.
Looking for a place to gather feedback immediately? If you’re online, you are leaving a digital footprint. Part of that footprint is your digital reputation. Read Listen Up! Learn What’s Being Said About Your Company to get a quick rundown on monitoring your online reputation.
3. Drive traffic, demand and awareness with paid media.
Compliment your inbound marketing with the support of paid media. Inbound marketing offers valuable educational content to your audience through things like blogging, videos and email and social media content marketing. But adding dollars behind this strategy can boost your hard-working efforts. Before you dig into your advertising budget, make sure you have a clear brand message so all of your marketing is consistent and tells the same story. Then, map out your funnel, add paid media to help fill the funnel and watch the results!
If you are one of the thousands of companies dealing with supply chain issues, and you are worried about marketing products you can’t make fast enough, read The Case for Staying off the Sidelines, to see how important it is to stay in front of your audience with brand awareness marketing.
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Hardware Retailing, published by the North American Hardware and Paint Association (NHPA) offers nearly 34,000 readers with how-to management and new product advice every month. Hardware Retailing offers a range of digital and print advertising options to help you get your message to key buyers in both the retail and wholesale markets. And, the revenue generated from advertising is reinvested to produce education and research for the independent home improvement channel. Download our media kit for more information.
