Modern Marketing Techniques That Will Knock Your Socks Off

Every year, more businesses find their way online and tap into the power of digital marketing. Standing out from the crowd requires a lot of creativity and determination. Modern marketing techniques make it easier than ever before for small businesses to reach new audiences and keep current customers engaged.

Learn how to tap into the power of technology by paying attention to what top brands do to reach the masses. You also should try new ideas and keep track of return on investment (ROI) to see what benefits your brand the most. Keep the things that work and lose the ones that don’t. Here are the things you should try along with a few examples of how others are tapping into the power of current marketing strategies. 

1. Create a Plan

Solopreneurs sometimes throw a bunch of promotional strategies at the wall to see what sticks. Unfortunately, this can waste time, effort and be less effective than moving forward with a plan. In a McKinsey survey, around 83% of CEOs felt marketing was the main driver for company growth. 

Before diving into the exact techniques you might use, create a chart of things you’d like to try. Divide your efforts up by what you expect to be most effective for your industry. Some of the options you can select include:

• Blog content 
• Product specials 
• Social media posts 
• Video content 
• Contests and giveaways
• Influencers

When you have an idea of how much time you’d like to spend on each element, you’ll better be able to adjust your budget and find the right tools for the job. 

2. Choose a Brand Persona

Each company has a distinct personality. The company takes on some human traits, such as being fun, strong or serious. One example is Nike with their strong, driven “Just Do It” campaign. When you think of Nike, you immediately think of athletes and boldness. 

The key to finding your personality is considering your typical customer. What do they care about? Are they serious or full of fun? Apply their personality traits to your brand persona. Harley Davidson does a good job of this. Their ads focus on freedom and strength, which appeals to their buyers.

3. Know Your Customers

Massive amounts of data are at marketers’ fingertips. From demographics to psychological information, businesses know their buyers in the modern age. They also expect a personalized experience if they give up details about their lives. 

Around 62% of people state they must have a personalized experience to remain loyal to a brand. Use tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) data analysis to break your audience into segments and send highly targeted offers they’ll be most interested in. Greet them by name, conduct split testing for effectiveness and adapt as technology changes. 

4. Engage Your Audience

Understanding who your users are is only the first step in modern marketing. You must figure out what interests them and try new things to engage them and get them discussing, liking and sharing your posts. 

Companies are trying new ways to reach their audiences. Starbucks encourages their customers to share an image of them with a favorite company drink with a hashtag. 

Megalicious cookie creates posts on Facebook and Instagram to draw their followers in and reach new ones. The post above addresses their audience directly and has a fun, lighthearted tone perfectly suited for a delicious cookie bakery. 

Social media is the perfect opportunity to respond to users, ask for their feedback and get to know them better. 

5. Know the Trends

Your head of marketing should spend time every day looking at what is trending on social media and in forums. What are people talking about? Be sensitive to concerning issues and never use them for your own gain. However, lighthearted fun offers the perfect opportunity for a marketing promotion. 

Tap into a holiday, seasonal special or fun new trend others are jumping into. Is everyone wearing flare bottom cropped pants? Stock a few in your store and ask who loves them. Tag a few people you know wear them often. 

The better you know the trends, the easier it is to come up with fun topics your audience will enjoy. Clothing retailers can tap into favorite movies, music and literature. You can talk about more than pants and shirts. 

6. Utilize Influencers

A trend we’ve seen grow significantly in the last decade is utilizing influencers for sales. Statista reported on the saturation of social influencers for companies with more than 100 employees. In 2020, 64.5% of companies utilized influencers. By 2025, the number will hit 86% and keep growing. 

The key to working with influencers is finding one whose audience matches your target. They should promote complementary products but not work for your competitors. Their audience should be highly engaged with their posts by commenting and sharing. 

7. Tap Into the Power of Emotion

One thing that never changes in the marketing world is the importance of tapping into people’s deepest emotions. Start by thinking through their pain points. What is a problem they have that our brand can solve?

One example is of Bryant University students learning about sales teaming up with a local nonprofit to get challenging dogs adopted to loving homes. They started by researching the average person who adopts a shelter dog and creating a profile for them based on why they might be looking for love and companionship and their need to do something good. 

They used positive and negative perceptions to tap into emotions and create descriptions for the dogs. For example, they wanted to get past the stereotypes some people have about pitbulls so they described Asher as a lover and not a fighter. The team sold the pros of each dog to help them find the right owner match. The dogs they worked with found new “furever” homes. 

Once you know the issues, think about the emotion driving the pain point. Brainstorm and come up with creative solutions that benefit you and your audience.

Modern Marketing Techniques of the Future

As the world movies into higher technology use and computers think more like humans, expect marketing to change in significant ways. At the same time, things such as human emotions and desire for personalized experiences will remain the same. The more companies can tap into new trends, the better they’ll be placed to keep an edge over the competition.