There are numerous lucrative career opportunities in the multi-trillion-dollar marketing and advertising industry. But it’s tough to figure out where to begin for those wishing to start a career in marketing.
It’s even tougher for businesses who are trying to capitalise on this industry for the better of their brand. There simply are too many articles, books, videos, and more. And, to be honest, far too many dull ones.
That’s why today we’re going to cut to the chase and have compiled for you a list of advice on inbound marketing based on experience and research. These pieces of advice will go from general to specific.
Without further ado, here’s the nitty-gritty of marketing for beginners!
Marketing for beginners: Know your audience
It’s crucial to first determine the audience you’re aiming to attract before you start publishing. Do your research by examining the characteristics of your audience, including their location, line of work, age, gender, interests, information sources (who they follow for advice), and, most crucially, their issues or pain points.
This will assist in determining the kind of content you should produce to attract customers to your company. And of course, the platforms on which you should market to them. Readers really have no motive to engage with your content if you’re oblivious to this.
Typically, your potential clients are looking for a solution to a problem. Humans are genetically programmed to use the least amount of work possible to achieve the most benefit while addressing an issue.
Your role as a business owner is to demonstrate the most efficient approach to address that issue. You’ll be well on your way to increasing traffic to your website and social media platforms once you put this into practice.
Pay close attention to your competitors
A good suggestion when first starting out is to look at what your top competitors are posting and observe what is working for them. Pick just 5 to get started. Visit their Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles now that everything is accessible to you. And of course, have a look through their websites.
Look for any trends you may identify. Pay close attention to the kinds of photos they publish, the captions they write, how often they post, and when. Create a list of the content categories with the highest engagement after you’ve done this. For a couple of weeks, try to follow that procedure, and then record your findings.
This is just the beginning. To determine what will be best for your company, you need to continuously adjust your process.
Marketing for beginners: SEO is king
The moment you immerse yourself in the world of marketing, you’ll realise how important search engine optimisation or SEO is. This domain engulfs a wide range of strategies and tools that people can use to gain more traffic online.
You see, there are only two ways to gain traffic to your website. You either rely on organic traffic from SEO or social media, or run paid ads. In the case of SEO, whatever tactics and tools you employ will help you get a better position in search results.
That way, whenever someone searches for something you offer, you can be one of the first sites that show up for them. So, when done properly, SEO can guarantee more attention from people on the web.
But the beauty of it all is that SEO is not just about getting you more traffic on your website. It also has a direct effect on the quality of your leads. After all, the people who are being directed to your website are the result of unpaid traffic. That means they more than likely are interested in whatever you have to offer. More so than your average visitor from an ad that’s been shown to them like 3 times that day.
As for the tactics that fall under the umbrella of SEO, there are many. There is technical SEO, content marketing, link-building, and more. We’ve thoroughly covered most of these tactics here at Rockstar Marketing, so don’t shy away from reading our articles about them.
SEO is accessible to all, and everyone should take advantage of it. And if you happen to do so but still feel like you need a push, then paid marketing is your friend.
Leverage paid advertising
As the name suggests, paid advertising is advertising that you – hey, surprise! – pay for! There are a bunch of different platforms where a business like yours can pay to advertise themselves. You have Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn; you name it.
The image above shows you an example of paid search marketing. You’ve surely encountered such advertisements in the past. The bold Ad tag at the beginning of the result is an indicator of that (duh).
Anyway, in the case of Google search results, ads can either appear at the top of a search results page or at the bottom. And you can get up to 4 different ads in the same space at once (either top or bottom of the page).
Paid search is a useful tool to quickly and surely increase brand awareness as well as reach numerous potential customers. Similar to SEO in this manner, Google allows you to target specific keywords as well as specify the audience you want to reach.
But, as we’ve mentioned above, paid advertising isn’t exclusively paid search. It also includes other formats of advertising on platforms other than Google. The moral of the story is; in the world of marketing, paid advertising is something that you should definitely pay attention to.
Marketing for beginners: Have a plan of action
You now have a fundamental understanding of the subject. Therefore it’s time to develop an action plan for you and your team. Who will be responsible for creating the content, producing the reports, administering the blogs, revising them, posting the content, etc.?
It can be beneficial to set up a detailed schedule for every platform you’ll use. The kind of information you’ll be posting, the date, and if it was finished can all be listed here. You may then quickly cross them off your checklist as you go.
There are a lot of expensive solutions available, but if you’re on a tight budget, creating a Google spreadsheet will work just fine. Making a plan will boost your likelihood of really following through, and you’ll be well on your way to producing engaging, regular material for your audience.
Create the right captions
Captions are crucial in the world of marketing for beginners. You can find them in social media posts, ads, emails, and more. The general advice concerning caption length is “the shorter, the better.” Try starting each with an action verb to engage your readers. Character limits apply to the majority of social networking platforms. Make sure your captions fit properly. This will be crucial when posting the same material across numerous platforms.
We prefer to keep captions to 3–4 sentences in length in most cases. With a limit of 280 characters, Twitter is frequently the shortest. Although Facebook and LinkedIn get a longer maximum, there will be a “read more” tag when it exceeds that length. Make sure you grab the reader’s attention right away.
Adding hashtags to the bottom of your captions could be extremely helpful because they allow you to expand the audience that sees your content. That specific hashtag makes it simple for anyone to find your material. We advise limiting them to four or five per post and adding them to the conclusion of your caption.
Create the right copy
Copy is quite crucial in the world of marketing. You can find it in social media posts, ads, emails, and more. The general advice concerning copy length is “the shorter, the better.” Try starting each with an action verb to engage your readers. Character limits apply to the majority of social networking platforms. Make sure your copy fits properly. This will be crucial when posting the same material across numerous platforms.
We prefer to keep copy to 3–4 sentences in length in most cases. With a limit of 280 characters, Twitter is frequently the shortest. Although Facebook and LinkedIn get a longer maximum, there will be a “read more” tag when it exceeds that length. Make sure you grab the reader’s attention right away.
Adding hashtags to the bottom of your copy could be extremely helpful because they allow you to expand the audience that sees your content. That specific hashtag makes it simple for anyone to find your material. We advise limiting them to four or five per post and adding them to the conclusion of your copy.
When to post content
Each platform will have a “best time for posting”. For instance, the industry you belong to has an effect on this. Determine the best times by conducting some Google research.
Find others who are in the same line of work as you and observe when they publish new content. Examining the Google Analytics page for your company will provide you with yet another approach to solving this problem. If you don’t have one already, we strongly advise setting one up. You can use it to see when the vast majority of individuals will be active.
Check the insights tab on the LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook pages of your business. How many people interacted with your material when it was uploaded can be found in it. Be aware that the best time to post content on Facebook may not correspond to the best moment to post it on, say, LinkedIn or Twitter.
Marketing for beginners: Post frequency
Generally speaking, the more posts you make, the better. But in an organised and meaningful way. Although we have seen some businesses post multiple times a day, don’t fret if you’re a growing business. We advise sticking to biweekly blogging for the time being until you’ve established yourself and built up a library of quality articles.
The greatest strategy is always to prioritise quality over quantity. Don’t worry too much about it; as your company expands, additional chances will present themselves that will interest your audience.
Use a tool that enables you to schedule your updates across many social media accounts when publishing to multiple websites. By doing this, you can spend more time creating valuable content for your audience and less time micromanaging.
Use compelling images
The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” is one you have probably heard before, and it’s true. Before reading the content of your article or social media posts, this is what readers will first notice, particularly when it comes to blogs.
Every social media post should ideally include an image. According to studies, Facebook posts with images receive a 37% higher level of engagement. So make use of it; it’s simple.
In general, your image should be clear, match the theme of your text, and be able to grab someone’s attention. This is further emphasised by the fact that processing visual information takes up more than 50% of the cortex, the surface of the brain, which explains why people are drawn to beautiful things.
Moreover, make sure to choose the appropriate image size for every site where you plan to post. If you don’t, you face the danger of having your images cropped in unexpected locations.
Always check your proportions to avoid confusing the viewer with an incorrect size.
We typically advise using Sketch when an image requires a little bit of fine-tuning. Many product designers use it as a design tool. Another tool that functions quite similarly to Sketch is Figma. The latter sees wide usage amongst big companies, so that ought to tell you how good it is.
Rely on editors
Obtain a second set of eyes to assess the work of your team before publication. Utilise a third editor if one is available.
They might notice any typos or grammatical errors. Making sure your articles are error-free is crucial because you are speaking on behalf of your business. We can’t emphasise this enough. Multiple times, an editor has picked up on something that we mistakenly overlooked. Grammatical errors might make you appear unprofessional if your audience picks them up.
Marketing for beginners: Explore!
Finally, don’t stop researching. Like other professions, marketing is a dynamic field. What may have been effective a year or even a couple of months ago may no longer be effective right away.
In light of this, we advise staying current on the newest marketing strategies by reading blogs, online publications, and newspapers, participating in webinars, having team brainstorming sessions, signing up for marketing courses, or even going to marketing-related conferences.
Maintain a constant commitment to learning more. You should occasionally experiment with various content types to see how much interaction you can generate. Ask yourself why it succeeded if it did, and vice versa. It’s okay to think outside the box as long as it has to do with your business.
If you don’t wanna do it, we can handle it for you
Marketing is an integral part of every business, but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. That’s why agencies like ours exist. Book a discovery call with us today, and we’ll show you how we can take care of all your marketing needs.
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