In the fiercely competitive outdoor gear market, innovative marketing strategies are essential for brand growth and customer engagement. Among these strategies, giveaways stand out as a powerful tool.

They are more than just a means to distribute free products; they are a conduit for creating a lasting impression, fostering community engagement, and enhancing your brand’s image. Drawing on the principles of “4 Season Selling,” this comprehensive guide aims to provide professionals in any industry with a deep dive into the strategic planning and execution of effective giveaways.

Yes, the examples used are within the outdoor industry but this will work across the board. 

Understanding the Strategic Value of Giveaways

Giveaways go beyond the mere distribution of free items. They are a potent mechanism for generating excitement, building brand awareness, and fostering a sense of community among your audience.

The strategic implementation of giveaways can lead to increased brand loyalty, higher engagement rates, and an expanded customer base. However, the success of these initiatives hinges on their alignment with your brand’s identity and the interests of your target audience.

Establishing Clear Objectives

The foundation of a successful giveaway lies in its objectives. It’s crucial to have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, gather customer data, or perhaps introduce a new product line? The objectives you set will guide every aspect of the giveaway, from the choice of products to the promotional channels and the mechanics of participation.

Product Selection: Aligning with Brand Identity

The choice of giveaway products is a critical decision. These items should not only resonate with your target audience but also reflect the quality and ethos of your brand.

For instance, a brand known for its durable and high-quality camping gear might choose to give away a premium tent or a set of advanced camping tools. The products should serve as a representation of what your brand stands for.

Leveraging Influencer Partnerships

In today’s digital age, influencers play a pivotal role in shaping consumer preferences. Partnering with influencers who align with your brand’s values and appeal to your target demographic can significantly amplify the reach of your giveaway. This collaboration should be strategic, focusing on influencers who genuinely resonate with your brand and can authentically endorse your products.

Creative Mechanics for Enhanced Engagement

The mechanics of your giveaway should be simple enough to encourage wide participation yet creative enough to foster genuine engagement. Consider incorporating interactive elements like photo contests, where participants can showcase their adventures using your gear, or storytelling competitions that involve sharing outdoor experiences.

These approaches not only engage your audience but also provide you with content that can be leveraged in future marketing efforts.

The Importance of User-Generated Content

User-generated content is a goldmine for any brand. Encourage participants to share their experiences with your products, be it through photos, videos, or testimonials. This content is not only more relatable to potential customers but also serves as an endorsement of your products’ quality and appeal.

Optimal Timing and Comprehensive Promotion

Timing your giveaway to coincide with significant events, such as the launch of a new product line, a major outdoor event, or a seasonal change, can increase its impact.

Promote your giveaway through all available channels, including social media, email marketing, your website, and in-store displays if you have a physical presence. This multi-channel approach ensures maximum visibility and participation.

Adhering to Legal and Ethical Standards

It’s crucial to ensure your giveaway is compliant with legal regulations and ethical standards. This includes clear terms and conditions, proper handling of participant data, and adherence to platform-specific rules, particularly on social media. Maintaining transparency and ethical conduct not only protects your brand legally but also builds trust and credibility with your audience.

Analyzing Results for Future Success

Post-giveaway analysis is vital for understanding its effectiveness and for planning future initiatives. Evaluate key performance indicators such as participation rates, social media engagement, website traffic, and any subsequent changes in sales or customer inquiries. These insights will inform your future marketing strategies and help in refining your approach to giveaways.

Building Long-term Relationships with Customers

View your giveaway as the beginning of a long-term relationship with your customers. Engage with participants after the event, offer them exclusive discounts, invite them to join loyalty programs, and keep them informed about new products and initiatives. This continued engagement can convert one-time participants into loyal brand advocates.

When strategically planned and executed, giveaways can be a significant asset in the marketing toolkit of outdoor gear companies. They offer a unique opportunity to engage with your audience, enhance brand visibility, and drive business growth.

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It’s about creating an experience that connects with customers on a personal level, reflecting the adventurous spirit of the outdoor community.

Crafting a Narrative Around the Giveaway

Developing a compelling narrative or theme around your giveaway can significantly increase its appeal. For instance, if you are launching a new line of winter gear, consider a giveaway that emphasizes adventure and resilience in extreme conditions. This narrative not only makes the giveaway more interesting but also helps in creating a cohesive marketing message that resonates with your audience.

Integrating Social Responsibility

In the outdoor gear industry, social responsibility and environmental stewardship are often important to the customer base. Integrating these elements into your giveaway can enhance its appeal. For example, for every entry, you could commit to planting a tree or contribute towards conservation efforts. This not only incentivizes participation but also aligns with the values of your brand and your customers.

Utilizing Data-Driven Insights

Leverage data analytics to tailor your giveaway to the preferences and behaviors of your target audience. Analyze past engagement data, customer surveys, and market research to understand what excites and motivates your audience. This data-driven approach can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your giveaway.

Personalizing Customer Interactions

Personalization can significantly boost the impact of your giveaways. Use customer data to personalize communication, offering participants tailored recommendations or exclusive deals based on their interests and past purchases.

This level of personalization can create a more engaging and memorable experience for customers.

Creating a Seamless Digital Experience

In today’s digital age, ensuring a smooth online experience for participants is vital. This includes an easy-to-navigate giveaway page, clear instructions, and a straightforward entry process. A seamless digital experience reduces barriers to entry, encouraging more participants to engage with your brand.

Engaging with the Community

Community engagement should be a key component of your giveaway strategy. This can involve partnering with local outdoor clubs, organizing events, or engaging with followers on social media. Building a sense of community around your brand can enhance loyalty and turn customers into brand ambassadors.

Measuring Success Beyond Numbers

While quantitative metrics like participation rates and follower growth are important, qualitative aspects such as customer feedback, brand sentiment, and the quality of user-generated content are equally crucial. These metrics provide insights into the emotional impact and brand perception improvements that result from your giveaway.

Leveraging the Giveaway for Long-Term Brand Building

Consider the giveaway as a step in a larger brand-building strategy. The relationships and insights gained through the giveaway should be leveraged for long-term brand growth.

This could involve follow-up campaigns, targeted marketing initiatives, or loyalty programs designed to keep the participants engaged with your brand.

Innovating and Evolving

The outdoor gear market is constantly evolving, and so should your giveaway strategies. Stay abreast of the latest trends, technologies, and customer preferences. Experiment with new platforms, collaboration models, or giveaway formats to keep your campaigns fresh and relevant.

Reflecting on the Giveaway’s Impact on Company Culture

Finally, it’s important to reflect on how your giveaway aligns with and impacts your company’s culture. A successful giveaway should not only resonate with your customers but also with your employees. It should reflect your company’s values, mission, and vision, fostering a sense of pride and purpose within your team.

Final Thoughts

Giveaways, when thoughtfully executed, can be much more than a marketing tactic. They can be a powerful catalyst for brand growth, customer engagement, and community building. By keeping your objectives clear, aligning with your brand values, and continuously learning and adapting, your giveaways can become a cornerstone of your marketing strategy in the outdoor gear industry.

The post Maximizing Impact with Strategic Giveaways: Enhancing Brand Loyalty and Engagement appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Imagine this: You’re a marketer, and you’re constantly chasing the next big thing. You’re always on the lookout for the latest trend, the newest platform, the freshest idea. You’re running on a hamster wheel of “on-demand” marketing, and it’s exhausting. 

You’re always reacting, never planning. You’re always behind, never ahead. Sound familiar?

Now, what if I told you there’s a better way? A way to break free from the relentless cycle of on-demand marketing and step into a world where you’re in control. A world where you’re not just reacting to the latest trend, but setting the trend. 

A world where you’re not just keeping up, but leading the pack.

Welcome to the world of strategic marketing. A world where you set 90-day plans and watch as your marketing efforts become more efficient, more effective, and more freeing. A world where you’re not just a marketer, but a marketing revolutionary.

In this article, we’re going to explore five ways strategic marketing can set you free. We’re going to show you how to stop reacting and start planning. How to stop chasing and start leading. How to start your own marketing revolution. 

Ready to break free? Let’s dive in.

Meet Hazel & Hems

Hazel & Hems Boutique: the customer avatar is a woman in her mid-20s to early 40s that has an eclectic taste in fashion, wants to stay up to date with the latest trends, and is also sensitive to sustainability and local business support.

Their core product is a locally sourced, polished stone bracelet that is affordable and only sold for limited time periods.

Hazel & Hems was created as a case study for us to explore the process of creating a brand from the ground up and everything that is involved with it. This was a building block for creating our Social Media Mastery Certification and Social Media Bootcamp.

#1. Crystal Ball Marketing: Anticipating Trends and Behavior

Strategic marketing allows you to anticipate market trends and customer behavior, reducing the element of surprise in your campaigns. 

For example, Hazel & Hems, being a sustainable clothing boutique, could anticipate the rise in demand for sustainable fashion due to increasing environmental awareness.

By strategically planning their marketing around Earth Day, they could capitalize on this trend and drive more sales during this period.

#2. The Loyalty Loop: Keeping Customers Coming Back for More

By focusing on customer needs and satisfaction, strategic marketing can improve customer loyalty and retention. 

Hazel & Hems could implement a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers with discounts or exclusive access to new collections. 

They could also use email marketing to keep customers informed about new products, sales, and company news, keeping Hazel & Hems top of mind and encouraging repeat purchases.

#3. The Harmony of Branding: Consistent Messaging Across Platforms

A strategic plan ensures your marketing messages are consistent across all platforms, reinforcing your brand identity. 

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Hazel & Hems could ensure that their messaging about sustainability and boho-chic fashion is consistent across their website, social media, email newsletters, and in-store displays. 

This consistency would strengthen their brand identity and make them more recognizable to their target audience.

#4. Customer-Centric Conquests: Tailoring Marketing to Your Audience

By understanding your target audience, you can tailor your marketing efforts to their needs and preferences, improving customer satisfaction. 

Hazel & Hems, knowing their target audience is environmentally conscious professional women aged 25 to 35, could tailor their marketing messages to highlight their sustainable practices, quality materials, and versatile designs that are perfect for both work and leisure. 

They could also host events or workshops on sustainable living, further aligning with their customers’ values.

#5. Spotlight Strategies: Boosting Your Brand’s Visibility

A strategic plan can boost your brand’s visibility and recognition in the market. 

Hazel & Hems could partner with local eco-friendly events or influencers who align with their brand values to increase their visibility. 

They could also run a strategic social media campaign, using targeted ads and relevant hashtags to reach a wider audience and increase brand awareness.

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For small and boutique salon owners, regular clients are often the heart of the business. From driving sales to influencing by word of mouth, customers are critical for any beauty business.

However, growth is both important and inevitable for a new beauty business. The goal soon becomes maintaining your regular customers while constantly growing the brand.

So, how is a salon owner supposed to make it work?

Turn to salon marketing!

Ensuring outreach and retention happens through targeted marketing and market-focused thinking. Finding the best way to extend that focus is often a major hurdle for business owners. Fortunately, salon owners have plenty of tricks at their disposal.

Here are four of the most impactful marketing techniques for beauty business owners.

Social Media is Key

In today’s hyper-connected world, a business without a strong social media presence is missing out on growth. Most customers use several forms of social media throughout their day.

For success, make your presence known across those social media channels. 

Your business must have a Facebook page. It creates a centralized hub of connectivity for your customers. Plus, Facebook Ads help put the salon’s name directly in front of new customers.

Be sure to target your specific audience. Younger customers are more likely to use Instagram and TikTok rather than Facebook. Consider going the extra step and collaborating with local influencers. Doing so allows:

• A known name to represent your brand and products.
• The salon to connect with hundreds of potential customers.
• The public to see the skills of the stylists.
• An “inside look” into the business, which boosts connections with new and existing customers.

If social media isn’t a forte within the salon, consider hiring a social media manager.

Specialized channels like Instagram and TikTok benefit from a dedicated manager. They film and edit videos and pictures, and they interact with your customers online. 

Think of a social media manager as the public mouthpiece of the salon. Their expertise and marketing knowledge helps ensure the salon has an impactful online presence. 

Focus on Your Customers

Salon marketing is all about showing the business to more and more people. However, that doesn’t mean advertising without a strategy.

Today’s customers are savvy when it comes to marketing. Daily email notices or stale Facebook ads are now a detriment, not a marketing tool.

Today’s consumers want personalized, relevant communication. After all, nearly 80% of customers desire personally-appropriate marketing from a business.

Some key ways to keep the salon customer-centered include:

• Send emails or texts after appointments asking for reviews and feedback. This provides an endless list of what your customers expect. 
• Use birthdays and sign-up days for specialized discounts. This is a perfect way to deliver personalized marketing.
• Delete your generic email blasts. Instead, ensure the emails contain quality, pertinent information that your customers want.

For your in-store customers, gently encourage them to sign up for email and text alerts. It allows your customers to have to-the-minute information, in addition to advanced knowledge on specials, pricing, and even appointment reminders.

Loyalty Programs Build Retention

Social media marketing ensures the salon reaches the masses. Your stylists keep your customers happy through their expertise.

So, how do you get them to stay happy and continue generating positive word-of-mouth marketing?

Provide them with a loyalty program.

Nearly 85% of all customers choose businesses that offer loyalty programs, and a majority feel that those programs are beneficial.

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Points-based programs or accumulated tier models encourage customers to continue visiting. Meanwhile, referral programs help grow your customer base. And since these referrals come from trusted sources, those referred are more likely to remain customers.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to loyalty programs. For example, reward people for their repeat business by providing a free 10th service.

Or, encourage new product discovery through discounts at checkout. Checkout purchasing is already incentivized. Thus, with discounts applied, the customer is more likely to purchase.

As well, don’t feel locked to one style of loyalty program. A referral system and a points system are perfect in the same store.

Consider, too, combining services for different tiers of customers. This creates an even more personalized program with a higher emphasis on loyalty. 

Focus on Local Communication and Outreach

A great way to advertise a salon is to simply “be there” when relevant. Specifically, work to tie the salon to local beauty events. 

A prime place to start is to host open house events. For instance:

• Provide meet-and-greets with stylists for increased customer connection.
• Host product demonstrations (and give those attending discounts or free items).
• Hold charitable events at the salon, such as hair donations or toiletry donations for women’s shelters.  

Charity, in particular, is a solid way to build connections with the community. Match donated items or amounts. Sponsor local events, like charity races or community festivals.

As a sponsor for community events, the salon is always at the forefront of the public’s mind. 

Sponsorship also creates new leads and partnership opportunities, not to mention boosting your salon throughout all available channels at the same time.

Becoming a known name within the community is an excellent way to connect with customers. Highlight the salon’s goodwill through charity and community outreach. Customers love a business that proves it cares about them.

Final Thoughts

Marketing for your salon is all about connecting with the customer. From a strong social media presence to a meaningful loyalty program, customers want the experience to be about them. The best way to achieve that is to cater your marketing to the individual.

Use personalized emails to deliver birthday discounts. Or, focus on customer history to provide specialized sales.

Sponsor community events to highlight the expertise of your stylists. And always ask for feedback from your customers. Understanding what the customer wants is best heard directly from the source.

The post Give Your Marketing A Makeover appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

In modern business, standing out from the crowd isn’t easy. A strong brand-customer relationship is vital, as it drives customer loyalty and engagement. This can be the deciding factor in your business’s long-term success. 

This article will explore the importance of your brand-customer relationship. We’ll explain how the four principles of brand management can help you build and maintain that relationship.

What is a Brand-Customer Relationship?

Your brand-customer relationship is the connection between your business and its customers. It’s influenced by various factors, but is essentially formed through the perception and reputation of your brand. You build this relationship on trust, loyalty, and engagement. 

As well as the quality of the products or services you offer, your company’s reputation is also important. So is the customer’s overall experience with your brand. To put it simply, there are both tangible and intangible aspects to your brand-consumer relationship.  

The tangible aspects include the quality of your products and services, as well as your sales, customer service, and support. We measure and affect the intangible parts of the brand-customer relationship with brand management. 

Why is Brand-Customer Relationship Important?

It’s well-known that customer experience is one of the most critical factors in customer loyalty – and your brand-customer relationship is central to this. A good relationship encourages customer loyalty through engagement. 

Customers who have a positive experience with your brand, and thus a strong brand-customer relationship, are more likely to recommend your company to others and make repeat purchases. This drives higher customer lifetime values and can grow your revenue through word-of-mouth and social sharing. 

In addition, a solid brand-customer relationship helps to differentiate your business from its competitors. Positive associations with your brand make it easier for customers to identify and choose it over others.

The 4 Principles of Brand Management

So, now you know what we mean by a brand-customer relationship. But it probably still seems like a vague concept. Yet, whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re affecting it with everyday business decisions, advertising, and communications. 

That’s why many established businesses have dedicated brand management teams to build consistency across your brand. These four overlapping principles guide brand management strategy. Measuring them will show you the state of your brand-customer relationship.  

1. Awareness

This is how aware your target audience is of your brand versus others in your market. Think of synonymous brands such as Coke for soft drinks or Hoover for vacuums. These are the brands with the highest level of awareness in their respective areas.  

Most businesses won’t become household names, but there are other ways to measure brand awareness. Analyzing organic searches for your brand name, as well as social media mentions, content shares, and so on, can give you a good idea of your audience’s awareness level.

That said, raising brand awareness isn’t just about getting your brand name in front of people. Increasing and maintaining awareness means you must also stand out in the customer’s memory. For brand managers, this means creating a unique brand personality for your business. 

2. Reputation

Your reputation is what customers think about when they see your brand. This might be certain words or emotions they associate with your brand or product or a generally positive or negative sentiment.  

This has a significant overlap with your brand awareness. If you’re not working on maintaining your brand reputation while growing awareness, you can spread negative sentiments and do more harm than good for your brand. 

Building a positive reputation takes time. You can affect it through your communication, service, recruitment, and community projects. Your company culture, mission statement, and guiding principles can also tell external stakeholders about your reputation and values. 

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3. Loyalty

Research shows that loyal customers are five times more likely to make repeat purchases and four times more likely to recommend your business. That’s why customer loyalty is the goal of your efforts to improve your brand awareness and reputation.

Easier said than done? Perhaps. Customer loyalty can be challenging to build, partly because many customers look for different things to get their best experience out of a business. Some customers value convenience and price, while others want on-demand support. 

For example, customers who come to your brand for value might appreciate your customer service measures such as a toll-free number or online text chat for inquiries. On the other hand, those looking for convenience might appreciate a premium-rate line that guarantees instant access to support. 

That means that to increase customer loyalty, brand managers must analyze customer behavior and feedback. Personalization is a major driver of customer loyalty. When you listen to a customer’s needs and make changes based on feedback, you show that you value their contribution to your business.

4. Equity

Brand equity represents your brand’s perceived value. Think of it as the premium customers are willing to pay to access your brand over cheaper competitors. This leads to higher ROI on both new and developed products, as you can incorporate this into your pricing. 

In his book, “Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity”, author Kevin Lane Keller describes four key steps to building your brand equity:

• Establish your brand identity by identifying your target audience. Then, create your brand assets and stories around it. 
• Define what your brand means. You do this by clearly stating your company values and through the projects you choose to support. 
• Analyze how customers respond to your brand. What feelings and emotions does your brand evoke? Direct feedback and sentiment analysis are two good ways to judge this. 
• Build your brand resonance by developing your existing customer relationships. Use your brand management to form deeper emotional connections with your customer base. 

High customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are key indicators that your brand equity is rising.  

How to Use Brand Management to Improve Customer Relations

Now you understand the principles of brand management, let’s look at how to use this in an everyday business setting to improve your customer relations.  

Start With Brand Basics

If you’re new to brand management, the first step to improving customer relations is establishing a clear and consistent brand identity. This means developing a brand strategy, mission statement, and brand identity that aligns with your business’s values and goals.

You’ll also need to make key decisions about core brand assets like your logo design. Simple assets or slogans can be crucial in reinforcing the emotions and values you want customers to associate with your brand. Give these decisions the time and thought they deserve. 

Share Your Stories

Whether we’re talking about your brand’s origin story, mission, or even employee journeys and customer testimonials, sharing these stories will help you make deeper emotional connections with your customers. 

For example, many companies make support content like video tutorials for their products. But one way to make your customers feel more connected to this process is to share user-generated content with success tips and product guides.  

Optimize Your Online Visibility

In today’s digital age, your business needs to have a strong online presence. Optimizing your online visibility can increase brand awareness and reach more customers. 

This includes developing a website and creating social media profiles, as well as covering other basics like listing your brand in online directories and review sites.

Create an Internal Branding Guide

A strong brand identity is not just built by communicating with customers. You also need to ensure that employees understand and align with the company’s branding efforts. You can achieve this by creating an internal branding guide. 

Use this as a reference for all employees to ensure consistency in tone of voice and other branding markers for all departments.

Focus on Your Customer Journey

It’s vital to understand how customers interact with your brand, from the awareness stage to post-purchase. By understanding the customer value journey, you can identify areas for improvement and tailor your branding efforts to meet the needs of your customers at each stage.

Engage Your Customers on Their Terms

Engaging with your customers on the channels they prefer is crucial to building a strong brand-customer relationship. Whether it’s social media, email, phone, or in-person interactions your audience prefers, make sure they can access your brand on those channels.

Personalize the Customer Experience

While we can fit customers into groups and demographics, each one is also unique. By analyzing a customer’s preferences as they interact with your business, you can give them a customer experience that meets their needs every time. 

This can be small, simple, gestures. For example, give your priority customers access to a separate business phone number to speed up their support experience.  

Analyze and Improve

Finally, to truly optimize your brand-customer relationship, you need to analyze your performance and make adjustments as you go. This includes tracking website traffic, monitoring social media engagement and sentiments, and analyzing customer feedback. 

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By using analytics, you can make data-driven decisions to improve customer relations and drive growth. 

Final Thoughts: It’s all in the Details

Your brand-customer relationship goes deeper than your surface interactions with your customers. When we’re talking about subjective factors like emotion and engagement, the little details can make the biggest difference. 

Even seemingly unrelated decisions like your choice of website hosting providers can have a knock-on effect. Does your domain name reflect your brand? Is it instantly recognizable to customers? When we think about it in these terms, it’s easy to see why a choice like this can have repercussions for your brand. 

Effective brand management means you don’t have to fret about the small details of every decision. Having a clear brand strategy and documents like an internal branding guide help ensure consistency, even up to the decision-making level.  

The post Key Steps for Building Strong Brand/Customer Relationships appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Digital marketing specialists are in high demand, making 2023 the year to kickstart your digital marketing career. According to LinkedIn, five out of ten jobs posted on the platform are in the digital space.

But, whether you’re a seasoned digital marketer or at the beginning of your career, you’ll need to showcase the following five critical digital marketing skills on your resume to secure a job in 2023.

1. Digital Analysis

Digital analysis involves tracking and measuring the performance of a digital marketing campaign by leveraging data. It’s the only way you can tell which marketing strategies are working and which ones you need to course-correct.

There are numerous different digital analytics tools out there to help you perform such analyses and optimize your digital marketing strategy. In 2023, you should have a working knowledge of top analytical tools such as:

• Google Analytics
• Hotjar
• Adobe Analytics
• Clicky
• Hootsuite

Digital analysis is key to making informed, strategic marketing decisions, so list these tools in your skills section when you make your resume to ensure that hiring managers immediately see that you fulfill the basic requirements of the role.

2. Graphic Design

Graphic design skills like creating infographics, animations, and visuals empower you to present content in different engaging formats.

Graphic design gives you an additional creative channel to incorporate more visual content in your marketing campaigns. It’s why over 50% of digital marketers say that visual content is very important to their marketing strategies.

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And with more companies looking to integrate visuals into their online marketing campaigns, having basic graphic design skills increases your competitiveness on the job market.

Graphic design skills also come in handy when designing social media presentations to pitch to new clients or to present to an audience at a conference.

Use platforms like Canva, Domestika, or Udemy to brush up on your design skills.

3. Strategic Planning

Given the dynamic and fast-paced nature of online marketing, you must first lay out a strategy before initiating a campaign. Any successful digital marketing campaign is grounded by a well-thought-out digital marketing strategy, and strategic planning involves:

• Setting and defining SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals
• Audience research
• Reviewing past and current campaigns
• Integrating data into your approach

If you’re an experienced digital marketer, use your resume’s experience section to provide employers with examples of fruitful digital marketing campaigns you’ve completed in the past. Make sure to emphasize how strategic planning contributed to their success.

Or, if you’re new to the field, give examples of times when you applied your strategic planning skills in previous positions to achieve positive results. Look at digital marketing cover letter templates online to get a better idea of how to frame your experience in a way that appeals to hiring managers. And, to further strengthen your resume, quantify your achievements by using hard numbers and percentages.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

CRM software helps companies manage all customer interactions across the entire customer lifecycle on one platform. As a digital marketer, CRM software is useful when you look for ways to improve your marketing campaigns because these tools make it easy to identify, categorize, and engage new leads from your website.

Additionally, CRM software enables you to optimize customer data in your possession to personalize your marketing campaigns. Overall, CRM software boosts your digital marketing ROI significantly by enhancing your lead-generation efforts and supporting personalized marketing.

Some of the CRM solutions you should be familiar with in 2023 include:

• HubSpot CRM
• Monday sales CRM
• Pipedrive
• EngageBay
• ActiveCampaign CRM

5. Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising is capitalizing on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to promote brands and their products. This particular type of marketing is growing in popularity each day as social media plays an increasingly central role in our daily lives and transforms the way customers interact with businesses.

Because of this, companies are looking to boost their social media presence and attract social traffic, and that’s where social media marketers come in. Employers need marketers who can design and execute effective social media lead-generation strategies.

Show that you’re able to meet companies’ needs by demonstrating that you’re on top of the latest social media trends and understand how to target different audiences across multiple different platforms.

The post 5 Essential Skills to Include on Your Digital Marketing Resume appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

We’re here to nip that right in the bud. We’ll show you how to avoid disappointing clients by maintaining healthy marketing relationships. These relationships are key to retaining clients and growing your marketing business. 

→ Your clients won’t stick around if they have a bad relationship with you.

→ And they certainly won’t refer their friends if they don’t feel confident in your business.

Let’s break down how you can maintain healthy marketing client relationships, so you can avoid the dreaded ping of disappointment. 

#1: Take Your Communication Skills Seriously

Communication is key in every relationship in your life. When it comes to your client relationships, it’s crucial because people are trusting you with their time and money. Those are two valuable resources that they can’t get back if you mess up. You wouldn’t want to spend 6 months on a subpar strategy just to realize you set the money on fire and have to start with a brand new strategy. Neither do your clients.

That’s where communication comes in. Each client wants to feel like they fully understand what’s going on with their campaigns—even if they don’t know every tiny detail. Communication is the difference between clients feeling frustrated with you and clients tweeting about how much they love working with you as a freelancer or agency. 

Communicate regularly with your clients so they feel confident that they’re spending their time and money wisely.

#2: Set Expectations Ahead of Time

This is where things can get awkward, fast. If you don’t set expectations at the start of your relationship, your clients will be wondering where their traffic is and questioning if they made a good choice by hiring you. This is the type of mess-up that leads to emails like, “What’s going on with this strategy, it’s not working,” and “We need to talk before I pay my next invoice.”

Neither of these are emails you should ever receive. That’s where expectations come into play. Be overly clear about what clients can expect from working with you and write it down in your contract and send them an email reminding them of how long to expect to see results, what you require from them, and what your relationship will look like. This is a great time to add in your working hours and any retainer terms like a 30-day notice before leaving their contract.

Setting expectations ahead of time saves you awkward conversations down the line.

#3: Keep Them Updated on Any/All Progress

People want to know what’s going on with their business—and they deserve to know. If your agency takes a week to respond to client messages, expect to create an unhealthy client relationship. That client will lose their trust in working with you, realizing that you don’t prioritize responding to them (even if it’s just to let them know you’ll need a few days to put together a response).

Instead of keeping them on read or in the dark about what’s going on, send them weekly updates about their strategy. Tell them what work your team did on their content, Facebook Ad Manager, or customer avatar research if you don’t have statistics to show them. It’s the small things that can add up to a healthy client relationship, and keeping clients updated is one of them.

Keep your clients updated with their onboarding progress, what your team is working on, and what results you’ve gotten weekly.

#4: Create a Monthly Check-In to Meet Over Video Chat

Touching base with your clients can change the game. Sending emails or Slack messages back-and-forth works for the day-to-day operations, but every month you need to meet with them face-to-face (or Zoom-to-Zoom). These calls will run on a schedule like: Update on what your agency has been working on, answering questions from the client, action items from each party of what’s needed to move forward.

Monthly check-ins will take time, but they’ll be worth it. Meeting your clients face-to-face reassures them that you’re more than just minions getting them views and conversions. You’re real people working hard on their business. They’ll appreciate you more for what you do and you’ll build a better relationship with them (leading to long-term contracts and referrals!).

Every client wants a monthly check-in to know that their time and money was spent wisely.

#5: Celebrate Their Wins with Them

Clients hired you to get them results. As marketers, it’s our job to drive traffic and conversions. We’re lucky to have a tangible result to point our efforts towards…and an exciting one! When the traffic roles in and the conversions start to add up, send an exciting email to your client. Celebrate with them!

This is your chance to show them that you’re just as excited about their sales as they are. With this excitement, you prove that this is more than a monetary relationship. It’s a relationship based on wanting the best for them, which we can confidently say leads to loyalty and LTV. Your clients are people who want to feel supported and excited when they win. Be the people they get to celebrate those exciting moments with.

Celebrate your client wins to show them it’s not just about the money. You genuinely care about their long-term business success.

Clients Are Just People Looking to Fulfill Their Aspirations

It’s easy to get caught up in the business side of marketing. They give you money. You make them more money. The reality is that your clients are people who have a dream. They dream of being their own boss, building a successful business, and having something to pass down to their kids one day.

And with these aspirations come basic human needs that you can fulfill as a freelancer or agency. Maintain healthy client relationships by being aware of:

#1: The client’s need to regularly hear from you or your team

#2: The client knowing what to expect from their investment in you and your team

#3: The client finding comfort in staying up-to-date with their investment

#4: The client wanting to see the people behind the Slack messages

#5: The client’s desire to celebrate the wins they once dreamt of

Maintaining healthy client relationships has been templated by the many marketers who have made the mistakes you get to avoid. Inside of DigitalMarketer Lab, you’ll get access to The Perfect Client Proposal Template, Client Intake Form, and Fulfilling Your Client’s Needs from your Agency Insider Training that will help you seamlessly build great relationships with your clients.

The post How to Maintain Healthy Marketing Client Relationships appeared first on DigitalMarketer.