5 Strategies for Building a Successful In-House Marketing Department
As a new business owner, you’re eager to start selling your products and services. Rather than outsourcing your marketing projects to an agency, you want to maintain an in-house marketing department. Here’s how to expand your marketing expertise, figure out your specific audience, and incorporate the right marketing channels into your strategy.
Advance Your Education
Before you set up your marketing department and begin crafting your strategy, it’s important to develop an in-depth understanding of different marketing techniques. You may want to go back to school for procedures calling for a bachelor of business degree in order to enhance your marketing knowledge. You could choose to major in subjects like business, accounting, management, communications, and more. If you don’t have the time to attend classes in person, consider enrolling in an online program so that you can balance entrepreneurship and studying.
Identify Your Target Demographic
You could design a marketing campaign that sounds brilliant on paper but fails to attract any new customers if you don’t target the right audience. Prior to launching your strategy, take some time to determine your target customer and the general audience you want to reach.
You’ll need to answer some questions to sketch this profile. What key characteristics do your customers possess? Where do they tend to seek out information, and which platforms and channels should you utilize to connect with them? Why should they buy from your company over your competitors? Nailing down the answers to these queries will help you develop your overarching strategy.
One way to learn more about your target demographic is to survey them. You might consider sending an email out to customers who subscribe to your newsletter and ask them about their consumer habits. You can ask them to complete a PDF that is password-secured, which ensures their information will be protected. If it’s easier, create your survey in Microsoft Word and then use a PDF file converter to upload the file as a PDF. Offering a discount on a future purchase is a good way to incentivize your customers to complete your survey.
Prioritize the Right Channels
When used in regard to advertising, the term “channel” refers to any medium or platform you can use to transmit marketing messages and materials to loyal customers or potential new customers. But with so many possible channels, where should you focus your energy? The Ascent recommends leveraging channels like search engine optimization, content marketing, email newsletters, social media, and offline advertising. Offline marketing channels can include everything from flyers posted on telephone poles or coffee shop bulletin boards to billboards. You can always expand to new channels later on, but if you try to spread yourself too thin at first, you might not get the results you really want.
Tailor Your Messaging
A marketing message can be summed up by what you say and how you say it. Your messaging in social media captions might differ from your messaging in content marketing materials.
How can you put out successful marketing messages that persuade customers to purchase your products? Chron states that you need to highlight a couple of key benefits of your offerings without overwhelming your customers with information, differentiate your business from your competitors, use words that evoke strong, positive emotions, and emphasize any new features of your products.
Assess Strategy Effectiveness
You’ve put the wheels into motion on your marketing strategy - but how can you ensure that it’s actually driving the results you want to see? You need to measure the right key performance indicators on an ongoing basis. You will definitely want to monitor the return on marketing investment, lead conversion rate, cost per lead, conversion rate by marketing channel, and customer lifetime value. You’ll also need to look at metrics related to social media marketing, email marketing, and website traffic to conversions.
If you want to keep your marketing projects in-house, you’ll need to lay the groundwork for a strong strategy. You can get started by taking marketing courses and outlining your target customer. Soon, you’ll be ready to spearhead your first campaigns!
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