These are exciting times in inbound marketing, with new strategies and tactics being developed faster than ever before. However, this means that “what works” for building a brand, increasing lead generation, and growing sales is changing rapidly too. At our Colorado Springs inbound marketing agency, we stress the importance of data-driven marketing and of staying on top of the tactics that are driving results, both for your company and for other marketers.
4 Content Marketing Tactics that Have Run Their Course
Is your content marketing strategy evolving? It should be if you want to stay relevant with your target audience. To that end, here are four techniques we feel are no longer delivering the way they used to and should probably be retired:
- Relying solely on static content. Make no mistake… blogs, e-books, and other static content still has, and will always have, a place in your marketing strategy. But, people today want to engage more deeply with brands, and the way to enable that is by providing interactive content. If you aren’t connecting with your audience through surveys, quizzes, animations, calculators, and other engaging content, you should be.
- Sending generic emails. If an email is to have any hope of being opened and read, it has to be personalized. Time-strapped recipients no longer have any interest in combing through an email to see if there is anything of interest to them. However, if you use the data you’ve collected to understand a person’s wants, needs, and interests, and you send an email tailored to them, you will definitely get their attention.
- Spending too much time and effort producing polished videos. It’s been clear for some time now that people crave video content. However, creating a video that has high “production values” is time consuming and expensive. A better approach—and one that consumers have fully embraced—is producing simpler, unrefined video content that shares valuable information without all the glitz. Not only is this what your audience is looking for, this approach lets you publish content much more quickly and at a much lower cost.
- Using marketing automation like a sledgehammer. Marketing automation tools like HubSpot (full disclosure: we are a HubSpot certified agency partner and LOVE the platform) can help produce exceptional inbound marketing results. However, marketing automation tools must be used with a level of finesse and understanding if they are to produce the best outcomes. Too often, organizations implement HubSpot and “put the pedal to the metal” on all its features and subsequently find themselves fishtailing all over the place, often irritating prospects in the process. The key is to treat your prospects and customers the way you'd want to be treated, i.e. if your behavior would irritate you, it is certain to irritate them.
Get an Objective Opinion of Your 2018 Marketing Strategy
As we move further into 2018, the best way to ensure your inbound marketing strategy is still relevant going forward is to get an objective opinion from an outside source, retire any tactics that have become outdated, and refocus your resources on strategies that will produce results. Inbound marketing teams at our agency locations in Colorado Springs, CO, Springfield, MO, and Olympia, WA, can help! All it takes is a quick call to get the ball rolling. Let’s talk!
