Three Must-Have Elements of an Adaptable Tech Marketing Strategy
As a tech marketer, you likely have multiple priorities: build brand awareness, generate enough leads for the sales team, develop messaging that resonates with your ideal customer, and create a loyal audience base — and that’s just to name a few. To get it all done in time and under budget, a marketing strategy is essential.
In simple terms, a marketing strategy is a plan to achieve your marketing goals. A solid strategy can be the difference between a sought-after brand and an unknown one. Some companies reuse the same strategy year after year, but given how frequently things change — the economy, audience attention spans, and customer priorities — last year’s strategy might not help you meet this year’s goals.
Instead of throwing out the entire playbook, adapt these three core components of a marketing strategy — people, proof, and positioning — to your current business goals.
Here’s how.
People: Target the Right Personas
Whether you’re elevating your brand or growing your business, knowing who to target is the first step in any successful marketing strategy.
More than 70% of consumers expect personalized experiences from brands, and 76% become frustrated when they don’t get it.
Personalization might look different in business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) scenarios. B2C personas tend to have more individual needs, such as household goods or intimate items. To effectively target and serve B2C personas, a deeper understanding of their demographics (age, gender, location, etc) is essential. B2B personas, on the other hand, have pain points related to their careers or job roles, so their firmographics (industry, company size, role, etc.) are key to targeting them.
For both B2B and B2C personas, knowledge of their psychographics (attitudes, aspirations, motivations, etc) allows you to get into your audience's mind and speak to them based on their values.
After all, to give people what they want, you have to know what they desire. That also means understanding if your content needs to educate, nurture, or convert them to customers (84% of people will bounce if you try to sell to them before they’re ready to buy).
Learn more about your ideal audience by researching:
Their role: Your customer’s day-to-day responsibilities determine what kinds of content they find valuable. A thought leadership article on building an innovative product roadmap, for example, is more likely to appeal to a Chief Technical Officer than a junior developer.
Their challenges: Relevant content gets to the heart of your audience’s pain points and offers a solution. People with high-level needs (e.g., the bottom line) are less responsive to in-the-weeds solutions (e.g., listicles and “how to” articles)
Their awareness levels: Audiences who are new to your product need more nurturing than those who are already familiar with your offering. Tailoring content to their awareness levels allows you to meet them where they are and provide content that aligns with their needs and goals.
Where they spend their time: Your distribution strategy and communication channels are essential for getting in front of the right people. Choose channels that allow you to be visible while providing content that meets your audience’s expectations.
Targeting the right person is key to creating relevant, valuable content that resonates with and engages your ideal audience.
Position: Stand Out From Your Competitors
As your audience reads your content, there are some unspoken questions in the back of their mind: Why you? How are you different? What makes you the real authority on the solution their customers need?
The answer lies in your positioning.
Your positioning animates your marketing strategy, informs your messaging, and guides your efforts to stand out from the crowd. When you nail your positioning, you differentiate yourself from your competitors and create your own lane.
To create content that shows off your unique positioning, study your competition to understand what’s already out there — and how you can do it better.
Know your competitors: Start by figuring out alternative solutions to your offer, which sometimes includes DIY options where the customers do it themselves. Doing this gives you a comprehensive view of the sandbox you’re playing in and shows you where you compete best.
Dig into their solutions: Have a better understanding of your competitors than they have of themselves. Once you understand how they frame their solutions, you can reorient your strategy to position your business as a superior choice.
Analyze their content strategy: Audit your competitors’ content strategies to understand how they build a message around their solutions and discover gaps in their content marketing and customer journey.
Learn customer expectations: Presenting the best solution to your potential customers requires understanding what they expect out of a solution. Get into their minds to figure out what they need, and you’ll be able to align your marketing to meet their expectations.
The goal here is not just to present your solution as something different but also as preferable. Your ads, content marketing, SEO, and other marketing tactics will tell the story of why you’re the right choice.
Proof: Use Data To Build and Refine Your Marketing Strategy
Gone are the days of guessing what your customers want, how your campaigns perform, and what your customer journey looks like. Competitive tech companies use data for more targeted marketing.
When used to guide decision-making in your business, data helps ensure that what you’re doing is aligned with what resonates in the market. And given how frequently things change, data helps you keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on, keeping you up to date on your efforts and industry best practices.
You can use both qualitative and quantitative data to inform your marketing strategy. For example:
Data analytics provide an in-depth look into how your campaigns, content marketing, and paid ads perform against goals. The data can also show you where there’s room for improvement.
Voice of customer data from customer interviews and online reviews gives you direct insight into the minds of your customers. You’ll discover what’s been working, what more they need from you, and which messages resonate best.
Competitor intel, like the kind mentioned above, provides insight into what your competitors are doing, how you measure up, and strategies for improving your marketing efforts.
Armed with the right data, you’re more likely to create content that will have the greatest impact on your business and appeal to the right customers at the right time.
Even as the tides of business change, leaning on these three core components can help you create an effective marketing strategy that can weather any storm.
At Comma, we can help you create a successful content marketing strategy that stands out from the crowd and engages your ideal audience. Schedule a free 20-minute consultation to learn more!
