Creating a marketing communication strategy can seem overwhelming nowadays. With so many channels and communication methods, both traditional and digital, it can be hard to figure out where to start. The important questions to ask yourself when devising and implementing a marketing communication plan for your business is what function do you hope your plan serves? How are you intending to market your product or service? What’s the purpose of your communications approach?
With the potential answers to those inquiries in mind, let’s look at some typical functions of most marketing communication:
√ Selling — The ultimate goal of your marketing communication approach is to sell something (a product, a service). How are you going to do this? What is it that you want your potential customers to know?
√ Promotion — Promotional campaigns build brand awareness. Your consumers cannot find you if they don’t know you exist.
√ Public Relations (PR) — Tying into promotional campaigns, PR communication is meant to trumpet not only your good or service, but your company as a member of the community and a place where customers feel good investing their resources.
Now, it’s time to focus on how to best execute the tactics of your plan. Let’s take a look at the different kinds of marketing communication tools that may fit your company’s needs:
Blogs — Blogs allow you to market your product or company on your own website by discussing topics relevant to your customer base. By allowing your consumers and potential customers to engage more intimately with your website, you can also help increase your SEO and social media presence
Long Form — Long form content can generate more likes and shares from potential customers on social media, assuming they find it engaging and/or pertinent to your product or service, as well as their own lives
Case Studies — When done well, case studies can demonstrate how your goods and services can make a real-world impact and add value for your customers
Social Media — Facebook alone has over 2.3 billion monthly users. Depending on your product and branding voice, utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. to market your company is the easiest way to increase reach and customer engagement
Email — According to the Data and Marketing Association 99% of consumers check their email every day. Finding a way to collect a robust email list, while offering your customers something of value so they don’t confuse your messages with spam, is a great way to maintain customer relationships
Not every company needs to engage in each type of marketing communication. The key is to find the methods that work best for you as you strive to acquire customers, while promoting both your brand and your company’s culture. By doing this, you will not only maintain existing customer relationships, but also discover how to best reach new consumers.