In our “Back to basics” blog series, we’re providing simple tips to help marketers reinvigorate their campaigns by getting the fundamentals right first. So far, we’ve covered marketing best practices and lead generation tips to help marketers grow their businesses. In the final installment of this series, we’ll discuss three critical elements of any successful marketing campaign. Let’s dive in.  

As of last year, there were 8,000 different MarTech solutions, with new technologies and products seemingly launched daily – one in five of these solutions was new in 2020. These new tools are exciting developments for brands that have more mature marketing programs – in theory, they can help brands achieve better results. Too often, though, they are a distraction to brands that have yet to nail the basics, causing many to wonder how they can keep up with the latest and greatest tech instead. 

To engage consumers, you must first succeed with fundamental marketing tactics, including email marketing, web optimization, and mobile promotions. While these are not shiny, new tools, they’re the foundation to any successful B2B or B2C marketing campaign and shouldn’t be neglected. Before deploying more complex tactics, consider how to elevate these elements first. 

1. Email marketing is the foundation of your program 

For any type of company, no matter the industry, consider email the bread and butter of your marketing campaigns. Its popularity alone makes it a crucial channel for you to consider: over 4.3 billion people use email and more than 361.6 billion emails are sent each day, according to research. Our own Acoustic Campaign data also found that email marketing is more popular post-pandemic than it was previously. With a poor email program, you’ll likely miss out on the majority of your target market and face challenges expanding across other customer touchpoints.  

To build a successful email marketing program, three factors should come to mind: deliverability, messaging, and measurement. Your customer database needs to be in good order for successful email marketing campaigns. You might have written the “best email ever,” but if you’re not reaching the right inboxes, your messages are getting stuck in junk or spam folders, or they’re bouncing back, it won’t matter.  

Next, personalize your messages. Customers are constantly barraged by brand emails, so to get their attention, you’ll need to stand out in a crowded inbox – personalization is an important tactic for doing so. Make a positive first impression with a click-worthy subject line, then, in the body of your email, be concise and relevant. Leverage first- and zero-party data to craft highly targeted messages and offers that encourage your audience to make a purchase. Also, consider screen sizes: with the increased adoption of mobile devices, emails are opened more on mobile devices than on traditional desktops. 

From there, you must measure how your marketing campaigns are resonating by testing different messages and optimizing your emails based on these results. Email is not a “set it and forget it” tool. Like all marketing approaches, you must constantly hone your content to stay hyper-relevant. 

2. Web optimization is mandatory for campaign success 

Optimizing a brand’s website is another critical way to build the sales pipeline and grow your business. You shouldn’t just consider whether your website is visually appealing and easy to use. While both are essential, you should also focus on whether you’re guiding customers through the right journey. 

Web optimization means that you’ll want to push your customers towards conversion. For most sites, that’s a sale, but for non-ecommerce sites that can mean requesting information or an account sign-up. Check to ensure that your CTAs are driving customers toward conversion. When they’re about to check out, provide upsell and cross-sell opportunities. Everything should be about creating a good experience, making a sale, and increasing the average order value.  

KPI metrics are essential with web optimization as it can be hard to tell without concrete data just how much your efforts are impacting your performance. Conversion rate, average order value, and unique visitors are three critical metrics to track that will tell you how likely site visitors are to purchase, how much they’re spending, and how many there are.  

Innovators go beyond simple metrics and have deployed a customer experience solution that helps them quantify the customer experience across their digital properties. Tealeaf by Acoustic provides deep insights that enable you to fix issues with customer struggle in real-time, so they don’t abandon your site and you don’t lose out on revenue opportunities. At the visitor, page, and session level, you can see if buttons don’t work, pages load slowly, or any other points of customer experience friction that may cause consumers to bounce. With these insights, you’ll be better equipped to optimize the experience with tangible next steps. 

3. Mobile rounds out the basis for your marketing campaign strategy 

With the right messaging, mobile can be an effective touchpoint between your brand and consumers throughout the entire sales and marketing funnel. Too often, marketers will relegate it as only a top-of-the-funnel awareness tactic or a bottom-of-the-funnel tool to confirm a purchase. But with approximately 6.4 billion smartphone users today, it’s important to consider how to leverage mobile throughout the entire customer journey.  

Similar to email, you can’t leverage mobile if you don’t have customer data. An important step to mobile marketing is growing and honing your customer profiles to ensure you’re reaching the right audience at the right time. To grow this database, you can encourage customers to sign up for text alerts through other marketing channels like email or in-store QR codes. You can also encourage them to download your mobile app for a cleaner experience, enabling you to leverage both SMS and push notifications depending on the person you target. By tapping into a popular communication channel, you’ll meet consumers where they are and create a smoother path to purchase. 

Regardless of the channel or touchpoint you build your marketing campaigns around, the number one focus should always be on the consumer. Understanding the customer journey enables you to deliver engaging and personalized experiences that lead to conversions. 

Want to learn more about how to create an effective marketing campaign? Get in touch with us to see how we can help you achieve success.