What kind of marketing strategy should you adopt to reach potential clients? Venngage surveyed 100 consultants and freelancers to find out which ones worked, and which didn’t
Creating a foolproof marketing strategy that will land your clients isn’t always an easy task. There are numerous freelancers, consultants, and solopreneurs demanding the attention of a small pool of businesses and customers. To find the best marketing strategy, Venngage spoke to 100 marketers to learn from their experiences. The results are surprising and should aid you in deciding which marketing strategy works best for you.
Traditional media is out
It seems like only a short while ago, marketers were putting out advertisements to coax clients to hire them. But those days may well be in the past. Among the marketers we surveyed, print advertising ranked lowest as a method of attracting clients. The only print medium that was still being employed was business cards.
Another traditional…
Embarking on my marketing journey at university, I learnt about the 4 Ps of marketing. However, since I left the classroom, I've found a disproportionate focus on promotion over the other Ps.
The 4 Ps are fundamental to any marketing strategy and explain the core concept of what marketers do. Any marketer worth their salt should know:
Product
Price
Place
Promotion
However, as important as promotion - or marketing communications - may be, in their book ‘How Not to Plan’, Les Binet and Sarah Carter explain that econometrics consistently show that the effects of the other three Ps are as important for sales and profit. Without the right product, at the right price and distributed in the right places, it makes our jobs as marketers very difficult to promote.
Binet and Carter’s book reaffirmed the importance of these three Ps in my mind and gave me…
Marketers should look to form more diverse, holistic strategies capable of operating on their own schedules rather than being subject to Google's short-term outages, bugs, and penalties
For SEO marketers, Google is an unpredictable ecosystem. One day, the sun is shining and you’re basking in its favour. The next, a hurricane hits and your carefully crafted content flies out the window and is nowhere to be found.
Rumours of indexing issues are at the heart of the latest troubles. Google has admitted a certain amount of delay in indexing and displaying new content, but the extent of the current problem is a mystery at best — just like a lot of Google’s behind-the-scenes activity.
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"The customer journey is crucial and the foundation for the approach towards (future) clients" Arjen Vissers, Managing Director for Marketing and Communications at Aon
Our blog series ahead of the Brand Marketing Summit Europe is now coming to an end, with the third and final interview. In our previous blogs, we spoke to Michal Szaniecki and Bart Visser, both of whom are speaking at this year's summit.
Within the third interview of the series, we spoke to Arjen Vissers about how a marketing strategy with a structured approach that aims to build his brand is his focus for 2019.
Arjen Vissers is the Managing Director for Marketing and Communications for Aon leading strategy creation and implementation. With over 30 years’ experience in marketing, communications and sales in both B2B and B2C industries, Arjen has led a strong focus on digital…
When influencer marketing and branded content work together, both sides benefit in the end
Influencer marketing and branded content: They’re useful tools on their own, but they are far more effective within a strategy that treats them as complementary pieces of a stronger whole. Unfortunately, advocates for influencer marketing and branded content tend to see one another as adversaries.
The first group champions influencer marketing’s ability to give a brand street cred with third-party associations. As little as people sometimes trust brands, an endorsement from an influencer can go a long way toward building audience trust, and for niche audiences and micro-influencers, the effect is even more pronounced.
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Lovers of branded content, however, believe that…
While some word of mouth marketing is completely organic, you can also make a targeted effort to boost word of mouth and get more people talking about and promoting your brand
Word of mouth marketing has always been hailed by marketing experts as one of the most effective marketing strategies, way before the existence of social media and digital marketing in general. There’s a simple reason for that: people trust other people more than they could ever trust a brand.
Think of it this way: are you more likely to try a product if a trusted friend recommended it to you, or if you can see dozens of positive reviews from regular people? Or are you more likely if you saw a few well-placed posts from a brand?
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Chart of the day: Marketers are most concerned with improving email engagement
New research has found that improving email engagement, followed by increasing sales revenue as well as increasing the number of subscribers are the top priorities businesses have for email.
Top priorities have moved from wanting the most subscribers possible to increasing engagement to retain those subscribers and earn revenue from them. Improving the quality of subscribers was also important for just under 4 in 10 participants of the research (38%).
Most businesses said they were successful in achieving their strategic aims for email marketing, the vast majority rated themselves either very or somewhat successful.
The biggest barrier to their success was found to be improving the quality of subscribers, marketers want to make sure they have the most relevant subscribers for the services and…
Chart of the day: 11.1% of businesses budgets is spent on marketing activities on average
Research by The CMO Survey has found that 11.1% is the average budget spent on marketing. As shown in the chart below, 11.1% on average is how much businesses are spending n marketing. If your business is spending less than this, it's worth considering whether there are missed opportunities.
Across sectors, the research has found that marketing spend is mixed, but there are a number of industries that spend considerably more than others. Shown below is the percentage of budget spend on marketing in each sector listed. Energy, healthcare, media and tech industries are leading the highest average marketing spend
Digital marketing also dominates marketing spend across B2C and B2B sectors when compared to "traditional" marketing spend.
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Chart of the Day: The importance of having quality marketing data
Data is the not-so-secret weapon of each and every marketer across the land. Data-driven marketing takes the guesswork out of your daily decision making. Should you place more budget into Facebook Ads, more resource into email marketing or cancel your latest campaign early? It's hard to know unless you have accurate data at hand to inform your decision-making.
In a recent research report, Ascend2 asked marketing influencers "what are the most important objectives of a marketing data strategy?" Leading the way with 62% was improving marketing data quality. This result is encouraging because if you don't have accurate data you could be making worse decisions than if you had no data at all.
In a follow-up question, they asked "What are the most critical challenges to achieving marketing…
