Let’s get this lifecycle marketing party on and poppin’! But first, in order to do so, people have to know about a brand. A big area of Marketing in general is initially driving people to a site and/or physical store through awareness strategies and tactics. Eyes are needed on sites and feet are needed in stores for most businesses to stay in business. Some of these efforts include:
- Organic Search
- Organic Social Media
- Paid Search
- Paid Social Media
- Referral Programs
- Events
- TV, Radio and Print Media
- Public Relations/Press Hits
- Influencer Marketing
- Content Marketing Partnerships
If a company doesn’t actively and ongoingly spread the word and capture the interest of their intended audience, then visits to a site and/or in store will be low to nonexistent. Not many will sign up for email, sms or other lifecycle marketing tactics, which limits what we are trying to do here in learning more about the lifecycle marketing field.
Let’s dive a little more into a few of the areas mentioned above.
Organic Search
Have you ever pulled up Google or Bing or any other search engine and typed in a question, thought or product details? After hitting enter, a slew of search results turn up. Some of them say ‘Sponsored’ while others do not. Those not labeled as ‘Sponsored’ are called organic search results and are “free”. And sites with the most relevant info pull up on the first page. To be successful in organic search, efforts are focused on ranking higher in these results. As most people’s interests don’t last long. It is highly doubtful someone will look 50 pages in to find a site buried in rankings.
To tackle efforts to rank better organically, Search Engine Optimization is a strategic tactic in marketing that “complements content marketing efforts by optimizing your content so it’s more easily found by your target audience.*”
Paid Search
Also known as pay-per-click or PPC is the ability to advertise on Search Engines themselves. “Instead of organically optimizing your content, PPC allows you to create a search result and pay for it to show up alongside organic results, theoretically increasing your chances of being found by searchers.*”
PPC shows up in similar organic search results on Google, Bing, etc. but they are listed as ‘Sponsored’. And every time you click on one of these sponsored results, it costs the company money and where the term pay-per-click comes from.
While it isn’t free, PPC is a quick way to get a brand in front of more eyes quickly.
You Made It
To put a bow on this for now, in order to run a successful lifecycle marketing program, awareness efforts are needed to attract the intended audience to a site and/or store which should include many strategies listed above and others. Cold-calling is even in play here too!
Look out for more to come soon related to driving awareness as you continue to learn about Marketing and explore the Lifecycle Marketing field.
*Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-acquisition
Up Close & Polished 