Marketing tactics are the actions that a business takes to achieve its strategic marketing goals. Here are our tips for success.
Words like ‘tactic’ and ‘strategy’ have their roots in warfare, but in marketing terms it’s more accurate to look at them like a season of Survivor.
You’ve got a whole heap of people (businesses), living together on an island (your business sector), who use a range of methods to stand out from the crowd, win the challenges, and go on to become the sole survivor (most successful business).
In Survivor, competitors have a strategic plan for success and use a range of tactics to execute the strategy.
While in business you are rarely asked to eat worms or build a hut, the marketing tactics you use will define your marketing success.
Here’s our guide to the most effective marketing tactics.
What are marketing tactics?
Marketing tactics are the actions that a business takes to achieve its strategic marketing goals.
But don’t confuse marketing tactics with marketing strategies.
Marketing strategies are action plans that take you where you want to go; the tactics are the individual steps and actions that will get you there.
Examples of marketing tactics
As a guide, here are some common examples of marketing tactics:
Article creation: Regularly publishing useful, relevant and targeted online articles is an inexpensive way to elevate your brand, promote your offerings, and connect deeply with customers. Article creation supports your sales efforts by targeting existing and potential customers at every stage of the buying cycle.
Social media posts: Social media posting allows brands to publish their own content to consumers across a number of platforms, the most popular being TikTok, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Social media allows brands to connect with customers via commenting, sharing and direct messaging.
Email newsletters: Email newsletters are a form of electronic direct mail (EDMs), and generally take the shape of a regular update. They include business news, promotions and new product profiles. Email newsletters are a great conversion tactic because they remind customers of your goods and services and often include incentives such as special discounts.
Brand assets: Distinctive brand assets are the most powerful elements of your brand identity – the ones that people instantly recognise as you, and what you value and offer. Brand assets can be words, symbols, mascots, or jingles.
Digital advertising: Paid advertising opportunities exist across a number of digital platforms, including social media, search engines, and news and other websites. Digital advertising can take the form of banners, paid or sponsored posts, and transactional collaborations.
Website development: An effective website clearly represents your brand and effectively conveys your unique selling proposition. Users seamlessly move through the website as designed, and effectively engages current and potential customers, and converts interest to sales.
Print products: Sometimes called leave-behind materials, print products are marketing materials that stay with the consumer long after they have left the store, walked back from the mailbox, or thrown away the packaging from an online purchase. They include business cards, magazines, flyers, brochures and coupons.
SEO: Search engine optimisation, known as SEO, is the process of increasing the visibility of your business when people search for products or services related to your business in Google and other search engines. Increased visibility of your pages leads to greater band exposure, as well as sales.
Landing pages: A landing page is a single web page that appears in response to someone clicking through from a Google search result, a marketing email, or a social media post. A landing page usually exist outside your website, with every element of the page dedicated to a singular call to action, such as booking tickets for an event, or purchasing a particular product or service.
Video content: Video is increasingly considered the cornerstone of digital marketing. Consumers love video because it is entertaining, requires less effort than reading, and passes the time on the commute. Marketers use video to better engage customers, explain products and how to use them, or update them on promotions or recommendations.
Photography content: They say a picture tells a thousand words, which perhaps explains the popularity of image-based platforms such as Instagram. A photograph can instantly describe a product and reflect the image you want to have associated with your brand.
Data analytics: Website data analytics give businesses an insight into their customers based on their online behaviour. It shows what they like, what they respond to, how they move around your website, and it tells you who they are: their gender, their location, their age bracket. All this information can be used to inform future marketing activity.
Radio advertisements: Advertising on the radio can take the form of conventional paid advertising slots, as well as advertisements read out by popular broadcasters or marketing collaborations with the radio station.
Television advertisements: One of the most expensive marketing tactics, television advertising is still popular due to allowing brands to connect to customers in their home, and the ability to schedule advertising to particular programs that are aligned with a business’ core offering and audience interest.
Billboards and outdoor advertisements: Billboards are large and dominate the landscape for commuters, who usually are exposed to it daily on their commute or school run. Other forms of outdoor advertising include banners and signage at events and festivals, sandwich boards outside stores, as well as shop signage and window displays.
Direct mail: Direct mail, also known as letterbox drops, is an effective way to target customers outside of digital and traditional marketing methods. This type of collateral often includes printed flyers, brochures, leaflets and catalogues.
Face-to-face marketing: Human contact is a powerful way to market to customers because of the depth of engagement. Meeting a prospective customer in person develops a personal connection that cannot be achieved through digital communication. Face-to-face marketing can include meetings, product demonstrations, shopping centre booths, exhibitions and events.
Using marketing tactics to the fullest
While every marketing tactic can be effectively harnessed, they are at their best when they are used strategically together.
Assemblo is a full-service marketing agency based in Melbourne. We have expertise across all marketing tactics, and we know how to bring them together to best support your marketing strategy.
To find out how we can help your business, give us a call on (03) 9079 2555 or send us a note via the contact form below.