By Ed Pierce, FMW Brand Acceleration
While virtually all fleet service providers’ marketing teams are charged by management to increase brand awareness, influence their target audiences’ perceptions, and generate leads, management also insists on budget control, performance metrics, and a suitable ROI.
Only by developing an effective mix of tactics can a marketing team perform what might best be described as a high-wire marketing balancing act. A precipitous fall from management’s good graces is only as far away as a breakdown in anyone of the myriad marketing channels:
- Marketing may do a great job of improving awareness with a new website or a new product launch, yet a shortfall of new leads can sabotage overall success in a sales relationship-driven B2B industry like fleet.
- The costs associated with such promotional activities as Google Ads or LinkedIn ads sold through ad auctions or trendy digital video production costs can quickly squeeze budgets and prematurely curtail planned campaigns, negatively affecting aggregated results.
Succeeding within Your Means using Long-form Content
The Curated Content illustration below depicts the waterfall effect of curated content. Re-purposing content to meet the needs of specific tactics ensures the utmost cost-efficiency in a number of ways:
- Research, SME involvement, copywriting, and review processes are less complex and time-consuming
- Messaging is more consistent, reinforcing key points, advantages, and positioning
- Message delivery is more frequent with a more immersive effect for better retention
Simply put, the creation of long-term content provides the fodder for a waterfall of social network posts, thought leadership blogs, editorial contributions, print and digital collateral, presentations, speakers bureau notes, webinar materials, exhibit signage, video storyboards, email blasts, website content, and more.
Program Metrics
At the start, I mentioned the need to meet management’s expectations regarding performance – qualitative and quantitative marketing plan results. When trying to make an effect with your online activity and sales, a solid digital marketing strategy clear marketing analytics are essential.
There are certain difficult questions that must be answered while developing a digital marketing strategy or a marketing campaign as a marketer.
- Am I successfully contacting my target audience?
- Do they acknowledge my CTAs?
- Should I concentrate on a distinct group of demographics?
- Am I getting the ROI and conversions I want?
For a marketing campaign to achieve the desired outcomes, knowing the answers to these questions is essential. But since numbers don’t always tell the whole story, it’s generally the measuring aspect that proves to be challenging. Additionally, they may not always assist you in demonstrating true value for your company in terms of sales and returns. There is good news, though!
Measurement practice has changed significantly in recent years. There are many tools available to help you track and evaluate your digital marketing activity, in addition to some really educated digital marketing and website analytics experts.
Next month, we talk about five common marketing measures, keeping in mind that the metrics you choose to measure will depend on your most essential company goals. These can act as a baseline against which you can gauge the effectiveness of your marketing activities, and in turn, they can serve as evidence that you are carrying out your duties effectively.
Feel free to call me at 484-957-1246 or send an email to me at [email protected] to share your experiences, ideas, and other comments about fleet marketing.
