We’re in the home stretch of 2021 and we congratulate you on another successful (albeit challenging) year.

Last week, we outlined three more of our favorite marketing strategies that have led our clients to success in 2021 and will assist in kick starting 2022 on a high note.

Check out part three of our holly jolly strategies below and check back with us next week for part four of four!

Content Marketing

Content has quickly become one of the premier marketing tools for businesses. Working to produce and distribute content of high-quality that in-turn builds trust and establishes value in a brand is a long-term marketing play that will pay dividends.

Small businesses don’t need to invest large sums of money in order to authentically share their story. A successful content marketing campaign is built off of content that is valuable and relevant. Creating captivating and inspiring content grabs the attention of consumers and in turn, gains your organization more business.

Recently, the Times Union Media Group launched its Brand Spotlight campaign to assist our partners in highlighting elements of business of their choosing. Through a custom story, organizations can highlight products and services, their people, or community engagement initiatives, to give a few examples.

The Times Union’s Brand Spotlight affords businesses more control over the message and the story they can tell through multiple channels. Through a print advertorial, a digital advertorial on TimesUnion.com, social media promotion of the story and native ad positions on TimesUnion.com, a company’s custom content will reach different subsets of people, expanding overall reach. Brand Spotlights include metrics that paint a full picture of how a campaign performed. We track not only total impressions, but clicks, click-through rate, and the total time on the page.

While content reigns king in the world of marketing, effectively distributing the story is a vital when it comes to generating engagement on the story. That’s where our next marketing tip can help.

Native Advertising

While storytelling may come naturally for an organization, the know-how when it comes to distributing it in the best way can be a challenge. Creating captivating and inspiring content grabs the attention of consumers and when shared properly, gains your organization more business.

Content distribution through native advertising is often a remedy to the challenge of creating authentic marketing collateral and effectively sharing it with a target audience. By definition, native advertising refers to paid content that blends in with its surroundings. Essentially, native advertising is the vehicle to promote your organization’s sponsored content.

Native advertising is largely a non-disruptive advertising method that leverages data in order to share your organization’s story within or on media outlets that relate to your organization’s mission and your audience’s interests. This is vital in the success of a native advertising campaign. Not only do you want to pick a publisher that reaches your target customers, but you also want to choose a platform that works with your content. If the site isn’t relevant to your brand, product, or service, we suggest moving on to find something more suitable.

You should also consider the ad’s actual placement and where it will appear on the publisher’s site across all devices (desktop, mobile or tablet). When placed correctly and targeted to your company’s ideal audience, the return on investment can be significant. Someone who views a native ad is 18% more likely to purchase your product or service than someone who views a display ad. Native advertising extends your content distribution and captures the attention of your target audience better than traditional marketing avenues, leading to increased engagement and more conversions.

Marketing Automation

Our final essential marketing tip for the week is a tool that can be an invaluable resource in saving time, reaching more prospects and growing sales revenue. You guessed it – we’re talking about marketing automation.

By definition, marketing automation is the process of using software to automate marketing activities. In recent years, marketing automation has become quite the buzzword within the advertising realm. While its usage among small and medium sized businesses has seen an uptick over the course of the past 5+ years, the first marketing automation tool was developed by Unica in 1992. However, it wasn’t until the mid-2000’s that the industry truly began to take shape.

Recently, eMarketer asked US Retailers which technologies they planned to increase or decrease their spending on. 48% of respondents planned to increase their investment in marketing automation – the highest ranked marketing technology. As marketing automation technology continues to improve not only due to increased competition, but also as a result of organizations’ need for additional tools to continue seamless integration between marketing and sales, small and medium sized businesses are poised to benefit.

In fact, it is estimated that 44% of marketers see a positive return on their marketing automation investment in just 6 months and 76% of companies generate a return on their investment within the first year. During a time in which lead generation is considered one of, if not the most, important marketing goal (61% of marketers believe this to be true!), implementing a marketing automation strategy and utilizing a platform that can help your organization identify prospects and add them to your sales funnel is crucial.

If you are not overly confident in your marketing abilities, attempting to gain market share and gain new clients is challenging to say the least. Searching for new leads on your own is a great start but does not maximize the use of your time and can lead to slow overall growth. Partnering with a local media company provides you with advice, ideas and channels for promotion in an efficient fashion.

Get in touch with us today to learn more and deploy a comprehensive, effective marketing strategy. And, check back with us next week for part four of four of our top holly jolly essential marketing strategies!

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