Keeping up with new marketing techniques can look like an exhausting task. Here are some important tips on how to keep up to speed on new marketing techniques.
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| New Marketing Techniques |
How to Keep Up with Ever-Changing Marketing Trends
With approximately 33.2 million small businesses just in the US, competition for consumer eyeballs is always fierce. It also means that you must keep your eye on what’s new and what’s working in terms of marketing techniques. If you rest on your laurels with your marketing efforts, you can find that your primary target audience has slipped away into other communication channels.
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Ways to Stay Up to Date with New Marketing Techniques
If you’re worried your marketing has gotten stale, keep reading for some tips on how to keep up to speed on new marketing techniques.
Follow the Big Marketing Blogs
One of the easiest ways for you to keep up with what’s new in the world of marketing techniques is to follow the major marketing blogs. Unlike marketing textbooks, marketing blogs must stay on the cutting edge of what’s happening in the field or they risk losing their audiences.
Just as importantly, these blogs will often direct you to good resources that explore those new techniques more thoroughly. They can even help you find good companies that specialize in that particular marketing technique. While good marketing techniques will eventually make their way into the service offerings from lots of companies, it almost always starts with just a handful of businesses.
Keep an Eye on Social Trends
Business owners often get sucked into a microcosm that centers around their business and home lives. They get out of touch with what’s going on with society at large. For example, Pinterest was a big marketing channel a few years ago. While Pinterest still enjoys a big user base, it’s fallen behind platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp in general popularity.
Other social trends can also catch business owners by surprise. For example, phone calls were once a mainstay of the business world, but Millennials dislike talking on the phone. Phone-based marketing efforts will usually meet with poor results for that market segment. You’d be far better off with business SMS marketing, as Millennials prefer text messages to phone conversations.
Keep an Eye on Tech News
Technology news is often a harbinger of marketing trends to come or current marketing trends. For example, you’ll often hear about tech startups in areas like social media getting massive influxes of cash from investors. Those companies often become trendy new places for marketing efforts.
While it’s not always a guarantee that a tech company with a lot of good press will become a marketing channel for you, it’s one signal to keep an eye on that company and look for opportunities.
Ask Around
No one person can possibly keep up with every shift and nuance in a field as complex as marketing. Beyond that, a lot of current marketing hinges on technology and tools that you may not fully understand. Rather than drive yourself crazy trying to keep up with everything, ask around.
From time to time, talk with your peers about what kinds of marketing efforts they’re employing and what’s working for them. While you may not follow suit, they can often put you on the trail of a marketing technique you didn’t know about. It’s also a good way to test whether your efforts at keeping a finger on what’s happening in marketing are paying off or not.
Solidify the Basics
While new marketing techniques often bring new demands, you still need a solid foundation from which to work. For example, branding efforts tend to hold true across different platforms and marketing channels. After all, your brand story doesn’t change from one platform to another. Neither do your brand colors or your logo. The adjustments are often cosmetic, rather than transformative.
Don’t ignore other basics like SEO and good copywriting. Sure, they may not contribute directly to a new marketing technique. They do, however, help establish you as credible when people arrive at your website or other social media profiles.
Keeping up with New Techniques
Keeping up with new marketing techniques can look like an exhausting task. With both online and offline marketing efforts in a constant state of flux, you can never really know it all. What you can do is keep an eye on big marketing blogs, pay attention to social trends, and watch the tech news. You can ask your peers about their efforts. Plus, it’s very hard to go wrong with solidifying your marketing basics.