Businesses are constantly looking to improve their marketing tactics to match the ever evolving digital culture, but let’s not forget the core advertising strategies that have worked from the beginning of branding. Fads are slotted in just about every industry, marketing being no exception. While they are exciting and new, many fall short of our expectations due to the lack of data to prove effective. Here are three notable concepts that have been around for decades that can be applied in today’s markets as well.
Thought Leadership
The power that Youtube and other social platforms hold over audiences and your potential consumers is only growing in strength. The ability for brands to reach their desired demographic is simpler than ever. For one, the price of social adverts is extremely lower than traditional campaigns. Take into consideration, the average 30 second Super Bowl commercial runs around 5 million dollars. This disruption in how we go about advertising has simultaneously altered the level of standards for content. Anyone can build a quick Facebook ad in a matter of minutes with a spend of $5 dollars per day, but the creative plug is what will be the competitive factor to stand out. In order to stand a chance amongst the sea of competitors, brands must not only increase the level of content but also have relative meaning and intention behind what they share.
Just like tobacco companies back in the 1930s, marketers should question how to establish a bandwagon effect. Today this is equivalent to a video going viral. The content portrayed to the audience doesn’t necessarily need to be immaculately polished but instead act as guidance to the next trends, putting emphasis on your product.
Comprehensive Content
Longer, more in-depth content is starting to make a comeback, and many B2B marketers are sighing a relief. Even though a 1,000 word blog post may take more time to write, there are significant benefits. Microsoft did a study back in 2015, documenting that viewers’ attention spans were less than a goldfish. This can arguably be the consequence of the lack of quality behind the content consumed.
For brands this means that their audiences are eager to learn something new. For influencers this means their followers are craving to know more about them personally. Time is not an issue if the quality of information provided is there. Google also is a strong advocate for more beefy articles, as one of their main priorities is quality behind every search. This is in some ways a reflection of how society used to treat reading a newspaper, the idea of lounging in a chair while catching up on the latest news in print. If the read is enjoyable, the time spent consuming it is well worth it for the audience.
Long-Tail SEO
If money is giving your marketing team’s the biggest headache, its better to focus on outsmarting the competitors than outspending. Long-tail SEO is a great solution. Identifying long-term keywords that are relevant to your content includes low competition, low search volume, but high conversion rates. It may seem like an intimidating tactic on the first run, but the individuals that do search any of the keywords are by far stronger lead generations.
The long-tail strategy comes across as more genuine and less like a sales pitch. The way traditional sales teams have been successful is by selling to potential consumers without them feeling like they are being sold to. Focusing a little bit of attention on what a target demographic is interested in will quickly improve your brand’s SEO.
Much inspiration can be taken from how marketeers successfully advertised dating decades back. The definitive answers of great marketing tactics lie in the core concepts of innovative yet creative thinking, authentic information, and an intentional purpose for every content.
Jonas De Cooman is Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Spott.ai, a content marketing SaaS platform that allows users to make any content (pictures and videos) interactive, enriched and shoppable. By processing it once, it becomes interactive across all platforms: your own websites, social media channels, third party websites, interactive video player platforms and even physical assets, such as paper magazines and boarding. The Spott.ai dashboard benchmarks performance of every unit of content on all platforms based on views, clicks and baskets. User profiling is available on request.
