Businesses have many demands on capital and people resources and the reality of that means you can’t do everything to the max, every day of the year.
For this and a number of other reasons, we are sometimes asked ‘What’s the least marketing I can get away with?’. We work mostly in the digital realm so this is written from a digital perspective. This is sometimes called Minimum Viable Marketing (for Maximum Value Return).
It’s our experience that the minimum marketing any business needs to be doing will include this list:
A conversion-focused website
Your website needs to answer the first question that is the mind of anyone who comes to arrive at it. It then needs to keep on answering questions until it has satisfied the visitor, and ideally it will have done one of three things:
- They will buy what you are selling, that is, they will complete the number one ideal goal that your website strives to effect (send enquiry, make a purchase).
- They will ask you to ‘convince me’. This means they will allow them to enter your sales funnel by opting in to your awesome world-class email program, joining you on social media, or otherwise hooking up ith you for the longer term wooing – until they are ready to do #1.
- They will leave the site happy to have become more acquainted with you.
A Content Development team who abide by drop-dead deadlines
Now this is a fancy way of saying ‘someone(s) needs to be in charge of producing content and posting it at regular intervals to the channels you have in market’. That might be a poster on the wall or point of sale, an email newsletter, a blog post, an article, a downloadable lead-magnet or all of the above. Without fresh content that is posted where your customers, prospects and Google can see it, you will be viewed as having ‘checked out’ of the race, and you’ll lose traction all around, and miss opportunities.
A well-managed advertising campaign using the channel(s) best for you
Setting Goals in your Google Analytics configuration and tracking against those is a good starting place to measurement. Combining always-on with campaign activity is important to boost engagement, and engagement spikes pay off for you when you are not ‘on campaign’ too.
Full and complete profiles on the ‘free to air channels’
LinkedIn, Google Business, and all other social media that you have committed to using, as well as any other directories that are relevant to you. Google pays close attention to these and gives you an unfair advantage in the search results if yours is fully complete. Add photos too.
An ongoing program to grow your Google Reviews
I’ll update this as we’ve built a guide to help and it’s in production right now.
Marketing Automation (email marketing)
Authentically voiced, automated, lifecycle messaging to convert prospects to loyal clients. Welcome email, nurture program, re-engagement program, service program, birthday and other surprise and delight ideas, exit surveys, and review requests. Map the Customer Journey and create genuine, proactive communications to support educated decision making in your recipient, and also build their capability for advocacy for you, to others.
If you regard other areas as essential and ‘mvm’ we’d love to hear what your list would read as.
Your Welcome email or series is your first impression. It greatly influences how potential customers feel about your brand, making it one of the most important pieces of communication you will ever deliver.
We evaluated 23 welcome campaigns by local and international businesses to provide you with a list of practical tips and a checklist for developing or improving your welcome email and subscription process.
