Marketing Technology Types to Grow Your Brand

Is your brand a part of the future? Of course, assuming you use the right marketing technology. There are many new technologies that can help your brand get a leg up on the competition and late adopters will be disadvantaged as tools allow marketers to work easier and smarter. In this article, we will explain 6 basic forms of marketing technology and recommend some of the best products in each segment. Marketing tech will allow your brand to be recognized as a major industry player and claim additional market share, as well as nurture leads and plan releases ahead of time.
1. Analytics ToolsThere are many products in marketing tech that can be used for analytics. At ISO Developers, we currently utilize Google Analytics.
Analytics tools, free or otherwise, allow your company to record figures and track the success of marketing efforts. Numerical data and representations will help you make informed decisions, as well as adaptions to current marketing plans. In addition, this data can help you in planning for future initiatives and developing projections to determine investment risk.
Some important aspects of your analysis may include:
exit rate/bounce rate – what groups are most likely to click off my page? Is it related to mobile functionality? Look for ways to improve the experience for your users, by A/B testing factors that may negatively influence exit or bounce rate.
audience demographics – these include age, gender, rerethnicity and any other demographic factors you can connect to your average reader. Once you know your audience, you will be able to write better posts that generate higher engagement.
audience location – this will let you know where to advertise and will give you a better understanding of the culture and diversity of your audience.
link traffic – allows you to see where your traffic is coming from. Google Analytics can sort by search engine and monitor current marketing campaigns. You can also find social media inbound traffic to target your campaigns under Acquisition – Overview – Social – Overview.
Google Analytics has so many capabilities for tracking and understanding marketing efforts, that I could easily spend the whole day talking about them. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough room to cover all that in a single blog post – feel free to share any marketing tech you use for analytics in the comments section below!
2. EMSEMS stands for Email Marketing Software or Email Marketing System. There are a lot of options out there for email marketing and they will provide you with a different bundle of features. In my experience, I have used ConstantContact, myEmma, and MailChimp. All three EMS will start you off with a template. You can import and export contact lists and have detailed data on email campaigns to make improvements for users. This includes factors such as open rate and clicks.
As a bundle of services, I found it easier to manage a campaign within an EMS than through spreadsheets offline. This is primarily because of the customer management functions that allow you to record customer emails and the automation of email data collection. Compare services for each EMS before looking into purchasing.
In general, it is common to experience minor glitches when working with a template in an EMS. Each EMS also offers different service levels but they all have the same basic capabilities to send email and help you manage your campaign. For the aforementioned, the service levels and pricing can be found at the respective links: ConstantContact, myEmma, MailChimp. If you prefer a low-budget, ConstantContact has a 60-day free trial and MailChimp offers a free subscription package. They are all well known EMS software that consistently rank well online.
3. Data on LeadsLead data can be obtained from a number of ways. Analytics will help you to get a good idea of some aspects of lead generation, depending on which marketing technology you choose. Hubspot is one of the most notable products for lead generation and is used by many companies to learn more about where people click on your site and who they are.
In addition, inbound marketing is a great way to gather information on your leads. A few years ago it was espoused as one of the best ways to gain leads, but some sites have since opted out because they don’t like the psychological effects of pop-ups. Personally, I see the value in inbound marketing and believe that it is generally beneficial with a clear call-to-action and a sufficient audience. A lot of successful inbound marketing initiatives utilize promotional giveaways, newsletters and freebies. Incentives will bring more users to your email list.
There is one other HUGE aspect of inbound marketing – mobile optimization. I have been to too many websites on my phone where inbound marketing popups prevented site navigation and forced me to exit the site. One mobile optimized inbound marketing tool is Privy. Privy is east to integrate for WordPress, has a simple editing system and re-sizes when opened in a mobile browser.
4. Content DiversificationMarketing technology products are not the only form of marketing technology in the future of today. There are many options for types of content, including: writing, photographs, illustrations, videos, and more. Gifs and infographics are gaining popularity on social media; they allow for you to easily gain the readers attention and in the case of the latter, to inform quickly.
There are also other graphic formats that are gaining popularity, such as time-lapses, drone videos, go-pro recordings and 3D videos. Finding ways to utilize these new content formats will be advantageous for brands, as most companies will be slow to adopt, opting instead for traditional marketing practices. Bjork’s 3D video for Stonemilker shows how the format offers new opportunities for multi-tasking on film and allows more creative use of space. Consider ways to leverage new visual formats and create a distinctive, memorable brand.
5. Customer ManagementCRMs, or customer relations management systems, are generally included in EMS. This makes it easier to run marketing campaigns and popular CRMs may also have the option of integration with an EMS. For instance, Privy now uses EMS integration and has CRM functions as a tool for inbound marketing lead generation. Using a customer management system will allow you to keep track of your customers without using a spreadsheet and simplifies the ease of finding data. CRMs group together categories of data so that it is easier to segment and process your customer information.
There are many different kinds of CRM and they are increasingly being integrated with other applications. For instance, Gmail records contacts for every email you send and thereby has function of a CRM. Companies dedicated specifically as CRMs will also record emails, but will include more features such as contact profession, phone number, company, and email segment. CRM segmentation allows you to send messages to different audiences and allows you to tailor your marketing message to different groups of consumers. CRMs can be a powerful tool and become increasingly valuable as your company scales up and there is a larger amount of data.
6. Social Media Add-onsUsing software and application add-ons for social media allows you to prepare and schedule posts, as well as analyze progress and your audience. We recommend you utilize all built-in analytical data on social media such as Twitter Analytics and Linkedin Insights to get a more rounded perspective on your audience. This will also allow you to find keywords and new areas that your audience is interested in. Built-in analytics vary in usefulness and breadth of information. It is advisable to record information, as some of these platforms do not allow you to look back very far in your account data.
We strongly recommend a tool for planning and releasing posts as well. One service that we have found especially helpful is Hootsuite. Hootsuite allows you to plan posts, geo-tag them for seo, adapt your message to different platforms, and pick a time for release. Hootsuite allows users 3 social media accounts for free and will automatically post to sites other than instagram, which will require an additional user approval. Overall, it is very effective for any form of social media management.
Marketing Technology PotentialWith the vast selection of options out there, remember to keep in mind your customer.
What does the viewer want to see in my message and where is the best place for me to place it?
Once you know your social and marketing channels, look for places to improve. Use built in analytics, track your progress and plan for the future. Marketing technology can be an effective way to distinguish your business and can aid you in developing better content that gets you leads. At the end of the day, marketing tech is intended to make your life easier. You just have to figure out the best way to use it.
Don’t understand your social or marketing channels? We can help with social media marketing!
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info@isodevelopers.com