The Gold And Silver Rules Of Marketing

15 Dec The Gold And Silver Rules Of Marketing

A company can’t survive without marketing. The marketing department is fundamental in spreading awareness of a company and its services and products. It is the marketing team that jumpstart getting prospective customers into the sales funnel. While the sales department is often seen as the deal makers, it is the marketing team that has the first interactions with prospective leads. Marketers grab people’s attention and gets them interested in learning more about a product, service or company to possibly make a purchase or do business with that company.

Over the years, marketing, like sales has gotten a bad name due in large part from the horrible, annoying marketing tactics of the past.

Today’s marketers are taught to better empathize with their better targeted audience. The golden rule of do to others as you’d have them do to you has become the new mantra in the marketing world. This, however, doesn’t mean all marketers subscribe to this ideology. Some marketers still do the outdated, ineffective and annoying marketing practices of the past that are now largely looked down upon.

Whether you’re a new or aspiring marketer or a seasoned veteran who needs to possibly change his or her ways to have more successful marketing campaigns, here are some of the Golden Rules of Marketing you should pay attention to and adopt and some Silver Rules of Marketing that you need to avoid or stop doing now:

The Golden Rule of Marketing

This Golden Rule of Marketing invites the marketer to step into the shoes of their audience members. Do you like spammy emails, excessive pop-ups on a website or constant phone calls from unknown phone numbers? Chance are you don’t. Your prospective leads don’t either, so why do them?

Instead, sell unto others as you would have sold unto you.

In simple terms it looks like implementing marketing tactics and strategies that build people’s trust and confidence in your company. Appealing to customers’ needs instead of merely playing off their emotions and making your company appear personable, authentic and an authority in your industry are things to consider when implementing Golden Rule Marketing tactics. For each strategy, stop and think if you were a customer, would that strategy compel you to make a purchase or would it drive you away?

High-Quality Content. You may have heard the phrase “content is king” in the marketing world. While it is true that people first interact with your company because they  are looking for something that your website or app offers, simply throwing in targeted keywords and providing thin content with little or no information will cause people to doubt your company’s expertise on the subject. Good, high-quality content will answer people’s question, be easy to read, is a quick read on any device, and is authentic. People nowadays aren’t willing to look around long for what they want and if you provide them with the  attention-grabbing, authentic, and valuable content they’re seeking, they will reward you with website visits and possibly a purchase.

Be Yourself. Nearly every business has an online presence. They are all spouting off how good their brand and products are. After a while this all becomes noise to the consumer who either becomes overwhelmed or complacent. The key in getting people to find your website is to have messaging that sounds out. How do you do this? By expressing your brand’s unique personality and character into all the content you put out. People will come to learn your company on a more personal level and know what to expect when visiting your website or physical store.

Encourage Customers to be Your Advocates. In the old days, word-of-mouth was the way businesses got new customers. While technology has greatly advanced so marketers have more avenues to tell a larger, broader audience about your brand, the same concept of getting people so excited about doing business with your company that they have to share their experience with those in their circles still remains. With all the sales and marketing messaging out there, people are more willing to listen to their friend’s or family member’s experience with a company than the company bragging about itself. Look to build relationships with customers and develop them into loyal customers who can’t help but share your brand with others.

The Silver Rule of Marketing

On the opposite end of the marketing strategy is what’s dubbed the Silver Rule of Marketing. While the Golden Rule of Marketing encourages marketers to empathize with prospective customers and sell to them as the marketers would like to be sold themselves, the Silver Rule of Marketing takes the opposite approach in distancing the marketer from the people he or she is trying to sell to and take on the mentality of “do to others as you would not have them do to you.” Another variation of this rule is “don’t do to others as you would not have them do to you,” implying a lack of action and effort and hoping customers  simply find your business and decide to do business with you. The later two Silver Rules of marketing employ tactics that are ineffective, outdated and rub customers the wrong way.

While in the past these Silver Rule of Marketing tactics promised immediate success and profitable sales, they should be avoided at all cost because they actually don’t work.

Having a Spammy, Hard to Navigate Website. With everyone going online nowadays, one’s website is often the first impression someone will have of a business. Websites that have ugly topography, auto playing media, has a cluttered and hard to navigate appearance, has excessive pop-ups, lack contact information and have poor content are sure ways to steer people clear of wanting to do business with you.

Spammy Emails. Ah, those excessive spammy emails with all caps subject line from an unknown sender that clogs your email inbox. They’re great, right? Not. Sending too many emails to a single recipient, not including an unsubscribe button, sending impersonal, obviously bulk emails and emails which were the result of email list buying without the user’s consent are also big no-nos that will immediately be dumped into the “trash” without being opened.

Excessive Social Media Advertising. Social media is a great way for people to communicate and stay in touch with others, including businesses and their loyal customers. However, some bad social media tactics that hinder this online relationship building include things like untargeted ads sent to everyone, including those who would never be interested in one’s company or services and excessive, spammy follow-up.

Participate in Spammy Link Building Tactics. SEO, or search engine optimization, is important in marketing as it is what’s needed for people to find out about a company or a company’s services or products online. Link building has been proven to be a solid tactics to boost SEO. However, there are right and wrong link building tactics. Some of the wrong link building tactics can get you into serious trouble if you’re caught. It is best to play it safe and avoid the bad link building tactics that include: poor Linking, low quality guest blogging, spammy comments, links from bad sources, and the use of hidden links.

Participate in Spammy Marketing Strategies. Unoptimized popups and overlays, complicated sign-up processes, asking for sign-ups too soon, posting fake reviews, having the appearance of something sketchy or spammy and offering non-free freebies are all ways to corrode customers’ trust in your brand, discouraging them from doing business with you.

Utilize Spammy Mobile Marketing Tactics. Hyping customers up about how high-tech your company is and it new “mobile site” which is actually not optimized for mobile will only frustrate customers who can’t easily read the “mobile site” on their small smartphones. This is a great way to get people to quickly leave your site.

Marketing is about getting prospective customers to take the next step into the sales conversion funnel so they ultimately become loyal, paying customers. Marketers bring about awareness and interest surrounding a company and its products. There are good and bad marketing strategies that are employed to bring this about. There is currently a trend of Gold Rules for Marketing that emphasize relationship and trust and empathy building through great, valuable content and unique company messaging. However, there are some marketers who still employ old-fashioned, ineffective marketing strategies that emphasize a Silver Rule of Marketing.

While email and text messaging are good Gold Rule of Marketing strategies if done appropriately, they can also cause a campaign to fail miserably by driving prospects away and out of the sales cycle. At Aktify, we work with you to carefully target follow-up messaging to “dead leads” that have fell out of the sales funnel and have gotten ignored. Our messaging catches attention and appeals to the customer in a way that will likely bring them back into your company’s sales funnel. To learn more about our products and services, contact us today.