I’ve worked diligently to cultivate a daring and innovative marketing culture at Mailshake. I believe that setbacks are not inherently negative; it’s the apprehension of exploring the unfamiliar that I aim to eradicate. My core principle is straightforward: Give it a shot. If it proves ineffective, modify your strategy or pursue an alternative course of action. Fail fast. Throughout 2018, we experimented with a wide array of marketing approaches. The majority were unsuccessful, some yielded positive outcomes, and a select few emerged as resounding triumphs.
This tends to be the reality of marketing. It’s precisely why I recognized the need to broaden my horizons and seek insights from some of the most accomplished marketing professionals I know, asking them to share their remarkable successes from 2018. Below, I present the wisdom they imparted. I’m relaying it to you so that you can put these tactics into practice for yourself in 2019. Update!: The Top 19 Marketing Strategies for Immediate Results
1. Cultivating Connections with Industry Peers
Content is inseparable from digital marketing, so much so that almost everyone is investing in it to some degree. This means that achieving visibility and generating results from content has become more challenging than ever. Success demands creativity, proficiency, and perhaps most crucially, a sound strategy. This was a lesson I learned firsthand at Mailshake: At the start of the year, our marketing endeavors, particularly those related to content marketing, lacked significant traction. Instead of waging this uphill battle in isolation, our initial step was to compile a list of all the tools in our domain (SaaS for sales professionals), categorize them (CRMs, proposal software, prospecting tools, etc.), and craft an article featuring them. This provided us with a reason to reach out with a touch of praise and a link to their website, which paved the way for additional collaborative marketing ventures such as guest posting, webinars, and even product partnerships. This initiative evolved into the cornerstone of our marketing endeavors in 2018, serving as a potent reminder that marketing is all about relationships, both with your clientele and fellow marketers in your field. You can adopt a similar approach by strategically deploying your content across multiple levels. Avoid simply writing an article aimed at a single primary keyword and hitting the “publish” button. Identify those who would find value in and benefit from your content. Integrate influencers and leverage their reach to disseminate your content, foster relationships, and unlock doors to other marketing opportunities.
2. Revitalizing Existing Content
Standing out from the crowd in the realm of content creation has never been tougher, but that doesn’t mean we must constantly strive to generate new and improved material. Sometimes, revisiting and updating older content can yield excellent results. “The marketing tactic that delivered the most substantial outcomes for us was simply giving our older content a boost. We integrated Google Analytics with Screaming Frog, and after crawling our website, we were able to structure the spreadsheet and pinpoint blog posts that had remained unviewed for three or more years. We then categorized them by topic, and after evaluating each blog post, we would determine the best course of action: discarding it, merging it with another post, or updating it with fresh content, imagery, and a captivating title. This strategy is something we dedicate time to each month, as it does require effort. However, it allows us to prioritize evergreen content over ephemeral blog posts. For instance, we’ve updated this blog post on duplicate content checkers periodically, and it continues to be a top performer for us!” – Amber Ooley, Thrive Agency
Image Source Eager to implement this yourself? Generate a comprehensive list of all your content using a website crawler that integrates with Google Analytics, such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb, enabling you to gather traffic data as well. Examine each URL manually and assess whether the content should be:
- Consolidated with another post (advisable when you have multiple comparable posts that might be competing with one another)
- Enhanced and refreshed
- Removed entirely Keep in mind that if you have an extensive content archive, this marketing strategy will require significant effort and time. Be prepared to extend the process over several months if necessary.
3. Engaging Through SMS Chat
Live chat has become the preferred communication channel for customers seeking to interact with companies they do business with or are considering partnering with. Remarkably, 30% of customers expect websites provide a live chat option. For those accessing websites on mobile devices, that figure soars to 62%.
The value of live chat is undeniable, but some businesses have achieved even greater success by taking their chats offline. “Our most effective acquisition tactic was actually utilizing our own tool. In the past year, we developed an SMS Chat widget. On desktops, it resembles a standard live chat. However, the key difference lies in messages arriving as texts and replies being sent as texts to the user’s mobile phone. This approach liberates prospects from the need to remain on our website to sustain the conversation. We have several channels for bringing in traffic, all of which generate leads, but SMS Chat has significantly amplified our sales conversions. We promptly respond to leads via text, and they absolutely love it. SMS Chat is also functional on mobile sites, requiring users to simply click a button to initiate a text conversation.” – Kenneth Burke, Director of Marketing, Text Request Implementing this strategy is relatively straightforward. Integrate an advanced live chat service into your website, prompting visitors to provide their phone number and grant permission to receive text messages. Once the conversation transitions away from your website, you’re in a more favorable position to maintain its flow, follow up effectively, and convert a higher number of leads into sales.
4. Forging Link-Building Alliances
Examining search results offers a wealth of information, yet most of us fail to pay them enough attention. Delve deeper, and you’ll uncover your true competitors and glean fresh insights that will help you surpass them and capture a greater share of clicks.
By analyzing the results for specific keywords, you can also identify valuable potential link partners, potentially securing you a spot in the top 10 for high-traffic terms that are overly competitive for your own site to rank for independently. “For us at LiveAgent, the most effective marketing tactic involved identifying high-value keywords using an SEO tool (in our case, phrases like “Live Chat Software”) and examining all the variations and who was listed in the first page of results. We then reached out to all those websites and endeavored to establish a link or partnership. Whether it was a review platform, blog, or magazine, the exposure led to both an increase in traffic and improved search engine rankings.” – Matej Kukucka, Senior Growth Marketer, Live Agent To incorporate this into your 2019 marketing strategy, pinpoint your most lucrative keywords and, using either a dedicated tool or manual search, identify the websites and content ranking within the top 10 for those terms. When appropriate (meaning the site is not a competitor), approach them with the goal of securing placement for some of your own content. Success in this endeavor allows you to appear in the top 10 via a third-party site, even if your own website struggles to reach the first page of Google results for your primary keywords. RELATED: The 20 Best (and Worst) Marketing Strategies of the Year—From a Small Business Perspective!
5. Conducting Laser-Focused Webinars
Webinars, when focused on relevant topics and delivered effectively, can serve as invaluable tools for onboarding new customers. Additionally, they can aid in customer acquisition and retention. “In 2018, we made a significant investment in webinars, and they subsequently became one of our most significant lead generation channels. One key observation we’ve made is that the more specialized the webinar topic, the better the attendance rate. Our target audience consists of dental practices, so subjects like HIPAA compliance, PPOs, and effective phone skills consistently garner enthusiastic responses. Attendees are highly engaged during these presentations and remain for the full duration to participate in the Q&A session. They finally have a readily available resource to address complex questions that directly impact their daily operations!” – Jonathan Bass, Content Marketing Manager, RevenueWell Contemplating the use of webinars for the first time in 2019? To get started, you’ll need a platform to host them on.
Furthermore, you’ll need to master the art of hosting webinars that engages viewers and achieves its aims. Last but not least, effective promotion is crucial to ensure the right audience is aware of and registers for your webinars: actually turn up when you want them to.
6. Leveraging Video Through Guest Blogging
We’re consuming more online video content than ever before. In fact, a staggering one-third of all online activity is dedicated to watching videos. If you haven’t yet tapped into this burgeoning trend, you’re likely missing out on opportunities to connect with your existing customer base and attract new customers. “Without a doubt, our most successful marketing strategy in 2018 was video marketing through YouTube. With minimal investment and time commitment, we concentrated on inbound strategies such as showcasing the quality of our videos through guest blogging and capitalizing on positive word-of-mouth from our clients to drive more traffic to our content on the platform. By employing these tactics, we successfully attracted over 4,000 new subscribers and 668,000 new views to our channel in 2018. This represents an 81% and 89% increase, respectively, compared to our 2017 figures.” – Victor Blasco, CEO of Yum Yum Videos Ready to delve into the world of video marketing? Fortunately, getting started has never been easier. All you need is a reasonably decent smartphone, a bit of on-camera presence, and some basic video editing skills (or a willingness to acquire them). Familiarizing yourself with YouTube optimization techniques will also prove beneficial.
7. Developing Persona-Driven Ebook Marketing
In today’s digital landscape, written content needs to be more than just good or even great—it has to be exceptional. One way to elevate your content creation above and beyond what your competitors are producing is to think beyond traditional long-form blog posts and venture into the realm of ebooks. “At the beginning of the year, our content library consisted of a few generic ebooks on branding and design. While they performed well, they weren’t attracting the quality of leads we desired. We aspired to reach new audiences, and that required us to delve deeper and gain a genuine understanding of their priorities. Our library has since expanded to include 10 ebooks tailored to specific industries, such as franchises and real estate, addressing the challenges and opportunities most relevant to them. For instance, we published an ebook specifically for marketing leaders at colleges and universities titled “Branding in student recruitment.” Prior to writing this ebook, our knowledge of student recruitment was limited, but the research process provided us with invaluable insights into a challenge our clients grapple with regularly. Learning about their experiences gave us a much clearer picture of their day-to-day concerns—and how our platform could help them achieve success. This particular ebook emerged as our most popular one this year, generating hundreds of leads through LinkedIn ads, email nurturing campaigns, and blog promotion efforts. Consequently, we’ve secured more clients from the higher education sector this year than ever before, highlighting the value of a coordinated team-wide campaign that places the unique challenges faced by your target audience front and center.” – Karla Renee, Lucidpress As with all content formats, numerous individuals and organizations are producing average (or even subpar) ebooks.
To replicate Renee’s success, you need to strive for excellence. Your ebooks should be captivating, professionally written, and tailored to a specific audience, all while offering something fresh and innovative. If you can accomplish this, venturing into ebook creation in 2019 could yield significant rewards for both your brand and your business.
8. Optimizing Blog Content
Crafting exceptional, original, and insightful blog content is just the first step. To maximize results, you need to pay close attention to content optimization as well. “We made a strategic decision to optimize our website for conversions. While we were driving a significant amount of traffic to our site and maintaining strong organic search engine rankings, that traffic wasn’t translating into meaningful engagement. We had a wealth of valuable content in the form of white papers, ebooks, case studies, and webinars. Our objective was to bring that content to the forefront and encourage interaction through downloads. We analyzed our top entry pages and developed targeted calls to action for each. By aligning content and CTAs with the keywords driving traffic to those pages and strategically placing the CTA in multiple locations (including links near the top, a CTA image at the bottom, and a slide-in pop-up appearing after the user scrolled one-third of the way down the page), we witnessed remarkable results. Here’s an example from one of our most popular blog posts: 21 Powerful, Open Ended Sales Questions. The outcomes have been nothing short of outstanding. We have more than doubled our site-wide conversion rate, and inbound opportunities stemming from organic search have surged by 32%.” – Erica Stritch, VP of Marketing at RAIN Group Looking to elevate your content optimization game in 2019? While blog post optimization typically begins with long-tail keyword research tools like KWFinder and LongTailPro, it doesn’t have to end there. Explore optimizing your content for conversions as well. Be bolder in your use of CTAs and, when appropriate, let the keywords driving traffic to your content influence how you phrase them.
9. Exploring Non-Traditional Social Media Platforms
When you think of “social media,” platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram likely spring to mind. However, the world of social media extends far beyond these “traditional” channels. “In 2018, we shifted our focus towards less conventional social media sites, such as Quora and Reddit, to test our outreach strategies, and the ROI was impressive. These platforms tend to be more niche-focused, enabling us to connect with our target audience more effectively than on broader platforms like Twitter and Facebook. It functioned similarly to public relations—earned media and engagement rather than paid advertising. We provided valuable advice to individuals seeking software solutions, guiding them towards our site and simultaneously building brand recognition. We identified these potential customers based on the specific subreddits they frequented or posts they had made. While this approach requires more time and effort than using automated responses, the opportunity to engage with such a niche target audience in a more personalized manner has significantly boosted our ROI.” – Mackenzie Jones, TechnologyAdvice Interested in expanding your social media reach beyond Facebook and Twitter?
Image Source
Consider leveraging community-driven platforms like Reddit and Quora, as well as industry or topic-specific forums.
10. Prioritizing User Experience on Your Blog
Modern consumers have high expectations when it comes to their online experiences. If your website isn’t up to par, you can be certain you’re not achieving optimal results. “This year, we made a conscious effort to prioritize user experience. Focusing on enhancing our user experience has proven incredibly beneficial to our SEO strategy in 2018, playing a key role in tripling our traffic. This success stemmed from our increased emphasis on the overall experience of our users, particularly those accessing our site from mobile devices. We revamped our theme to improve its speed and usability, keeping mobile users in mind. Significant attention was dedicated to performance optimization, resulting in a 300% reduction in page load speed, as a significant portion of user drop-offs were attributed to large page sizes. Leveraging user data, we are now able to pinpoint where users are abandoning blog posts and modify the content to include a CTA around those critical points.” – Jeremy Noronha, SEO Manager, Foundr Magazine Ready to make UX a top priority in 2019? Pay closer attention to how visitors navigate and interact with your website. Analyze the pages they exit from and try to understand why. It’s possible they’ve found the information they were looking for, but there might also be usability issues with the page or the site as a whole.
Tools such as Hotjar and VwO provide valuable insights into how people interact with your site, making it easier to identify and address issues that are causing visitor attrition and hindering your sales.
11. Strategically Placing CTAs on Top-Performing Blog Posts
Creating well-written and optimized blog content is excellent for attracting visitors to your website, but what happens next? “Midway through the year, we noticed that five of our blog posts were consistently responsible for 80% of our organic blog traffic. We decided to incorporate two CTAs into each of these top-performing posts to explore whether we could convert some of this traffic into leads or sales. Using Sumo to design visually appealing CTAs, we conducted A/B testing to identify the most effective options. Thanks to our strategic CTA placement, these five blog posts now generate daily sales from our website visitors.” – David Campbell, Marketing Strategist, Right Inbox Interested in driving more sales from your content? When someone lands on your site after clicking a link to your blog post, they will likely consume the information they need and then leave. This is precisely the behavior we want to change. While it’s impossible to “capture” every visitor, strategically implementing CTAs can significantly enhance the value your content delivers. Include CTAs both within your content and alongside it. Don’t shy away from exit pop-ups either. After all, if a visitor is already leaving, there’s little to lose by presenting them with one final opportunity to engage.
Image Source What’s Next? Remember, marketing is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. There are simply too many variables to definitively state that “doing x will yield y result.” To achieve the best possible outcomes, experimentation is essential. If you have any other innovative marketing strategies you plan to test in 2019, I’d love to hear about them. Share your thoughts in the comments below!