Every year, there are marketing practices that are either completely new or have been revamped from their original creation. Marketing is necessary for virtually any business. However, it can be difficult to understand which marketing trends are worth paying attention to, and which will be gone by this time next year. Marketing in its simplest form is about identifying your brand’s audience and then engaging with them. Using a marketing strategy that your audience doesn’t respond to, no matter how popular or trendy, Â is a waste of money.
Before you hire a marketing agency or purchase a new marketing service or tool because of a hot new trend, it’s a good idea to dig a little deeper and determine if it will fit your marketing needs. So without further to do, here is a deep dive on the 5 smart marketing practices for 2019.
Email Marketing
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Email marketing seems ancient, but it continues to be an effective way to communicate with audiences, making it one of the most effective marketing practices for 2019. What makes email marketing useful to this day? A large majority of Americans still use it.
To get the most out email marketing, keep your messaging personal and precise. Tell your recipients why you’re reaching out and what you’re offering. Also, don’t try to email everyone in your customer list with the same message. Different people are at different points in their buyer’s journey with your brand. There may even be folks in your audience who aren’t the final buyers but serve as important influencers for buyers. Utilize the information available in your customer list to create email campaigns that will resonate with the reader.
Download the Turn Up Revenue & Engagement with Guest WiFi ebook
Smart Tip: In the email marketing game, it’s all about getting into the inbox and avoiding the SPAM folder. Â and what you can do to prevent to get the most out of email marketing.
Social Media Marketing
This one seems like a no-brainer, but there’s still a fair amount of small businesses that are not utilizing social media marketing despite it’s proven worth. Social media gives you a large pool of tools to utilize when you want to engage with your audience. Images, videos, hashtags, paid advertising, online reviews and written content are just some of the resources you can use with social media marketing.
Being on social media is also great for reaching out to a younger clientele. But, before you launch your strategy, determine who your audience is. Baby Boomers, Millennials, and Gen Zers are all on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, but each audience uses these platforms differently.
Smart Tip: After spending an adequate amount of time on social media, find out which platforms your audience prefers when engaging with your brand. Test the waters and find out where you need to be spending most of your time.
Proximity Marketing
Proximity marketing is digital marketing set to a specific physical space. This growing trend gives you the ability to communicate with guests who come within the boundary of a designated area. You can create personalized and well-timed digital messages that are sent to the smartphones or other available devices of your guests.
What makes proximity marketing so unique is that you are marketing to people who are already visiting your location. Take advantage of this opportunity by sending guests marketing content that rewards them for their patronage or informs them of products your business offers they might not have known of.
Smart Tip: You can also use proximity marketing to advertise and market to those who are near your property but aren’t necessarily visiting. A well-crafted social media ad or geofenced Google ad can be the key to entice nearby dwellers to make a stop at your business. Just remember to create a proximity marketing boundary that reaches out past your physical location.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is performed when an influential person (Hollywood celebrity, YouTube star, Instagram star, etc.) publicly endorses your product on their respective social media platform. A big reason that influencer marketing is so popular right now is that it can help grow a business’s social media following.
It’s simple really, an influencer has a large social following. Social followers listen to what influencer says. Influencer tells followers to shop your brand and follow your social accounts. And just like that, you have more customers and more followers.
Smart Tip: Influencer marketing can get ridiculously pricey depending on the type of celebrity you want to endorse your product. Try to find an influencer who is local and wants to work on building a lasting influencer campaign with you. Using a one-time influencer can get you results in the short term, but working with someone local can create a stronger trust with people and shows integrity for both parties.
Bonus Smart Tip: The FTC requires that paid influencer messages be clearly identified as such so as not to mislead customers. This is easily done by adding the hashtag #ad or #sponsored to the post. Failure to do so can land your brand in hot water, so make sure your influencer posts are on the up and up at all times.
WiFi Marketing
Do you offer free WiFi to your guests? With WiFi marketing, you’ll change that amenity for your guests into a marketing utility. A WiFi marketing platform creates a branded login experience for your guests. This WiFi login page can be designed with a look and feel that resembles your website. If you have competing WiFi signals around your property, WiFi marketing also lets guests know which WiFi signal is yours with a specific Hotspot name.
WiFi marketing is one of the newest marketing practices that provides strong marketing versatility. An intuitive WiFi marketing platform can perform email collection, social media engagement, email marketing, integrate with existing email marketing platforms, and acts as a boundary if you decide to perform proximity marketing.
Smart Tip: Want to learn more about your guests and gain valuable input from them? Choose a WiFi marketing platform that comes with a survey and form builder feature. Showcase questions and surveys to your guests as they sign in to your WiFi to gain insightful data that can improve the overall operations of your business.
Are you ready to start using some of the top marketing trends for 2019? With GoZone WiFi’s Marketing4WiFi platform, you’ll have access to some of the most popular marketing tools out there. Email marketing, proximity marketing, and even social media engagement are all possible with GoZone’s WiFi Marketing platform.
