(Newswire.net — April 20, 2020) — The marketing profession involves more than promoting a particular brand. Marketing is about analyzing trends and using those trends to develop a strategy to build relationships with others. While it may be true that virtually anyone can read numbers on a spreadsheet, it takes a skilled professional to be able to construct a powerful and effective narrative.
Azary Matanov is a skilled marketing professional based in Toronto, Ontario in Canada. He shares what he believes it takes to become a successful marketer.
Focus on the Goal
The first step to create a marketing strategy is to settle on an overarching goal for the campaign. Are you trying to generate more interest and awareness in your brand? Is there a particular audience or market you are trying to attract? Is your main goal only to generate sales from consumers that have invested in your product or services in the past?
Knowing your goal is the best place to start when you are creating a strategy, says Azary Matanov. There is no sense in creating a strategy if you don’t know what you are trying to achieve. Keep in mind that goals should be specific, attainable, realistic, time-bound, and measurable. How do you determine these metrics? That’s where data comes in.
Use Data to Create a Strategy
In order to create an effective marketing strategy, you need to analyze past results as well as past and current trends. The type of data will vary. For example, says Azary Matanov, it is worthwhile to look at your past social media campaigns or posts to see which ones have garnered the best traction and responses. It is also important to analyze past email marketing efforts to see which have generated the most interest. From there, you can see which efforts translated to sales and create new strategies based on these results.
Tell Powerful Stories
It is often said that in order to be an effective marketer, you need to be a good storyteller. Azary Matanov says the key to being a good storyteller is to create narratives that resonate with audiences and that aren’t necessarily about the product or services you offer, but what your brand represents. For example, in 1978, an advertisement for the Apple II personal computer displayed only a photo of an apple and the words “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Emotional marketing is equally effective. A successful example is Always’ #LikeAGirl campaign the resonated with women everywhere. A study showed that out of 1,400 successful campaigns, the ones with emotional messages and content performed twice as well than those with rational content. Marketing campaigns that combine both rational and emotional messages are also effective. These campaigns all have one thing in common: they tell stories that connect the brand to consumers.
Furthermore, telling good stories that resonate with audiences can go a long way to building relationships with them. At the end of the day, building relationships with consumers is the ultimate goal for marketers.
Adapt to Change
An important quality for any successful marketer to possess is the ability to adapt. Like many industries, marketing is constantly changing and evolving. There are new technologies and strategies that must be employed in order to reach consumers. For instance, says Azary Matanov, think of the rise of advertising in general. When the industry was new, marketing tactics were confined to print advertisements in newspapers and magazines. Today, there is the notion that society has become desensitized to advertisements because consumers see them everywhere they go. This leads to the usage of different marketing tactics including product placement in movies and television shows and new social media apps like TikTok.
The most successful marketers are resilient to change and even anticipate change at every turn. They keep up to date on the newest technologies, tactics, and strategies so that they are prepared to pivot when need be.
Azary Matanov on Experimenting
When all else fails, experiment. It is hard to be original when you are competing with so many other brands and businesses that may offer the same types of products and services that you do. If you want your brand to stand out, says Azary Matanov, you need to try new things that others before you have not.
Yes, there is the chance that testing a new strategy may not work. But taking risks is ultimately how you build a strong brand. This is evident in many different business feuds throughout history, like Blockbuster versus Netflix or Nike versus Adidas. So, perhaps the most important thing that you can do to be a successful marketer is to take risks and experiment with new tactics.