It’s been a really interesting couple of months for me.
Back in April, I was laid off from my former employer, which has since sold or traded about 1/3 of its media properties. So let’s just say I consider myself lucky to have been put out to pasture before the biggest — and most unexpected — axes fell.
Up until April, I had always worked in media — local newspapers, national magazines and local TV. But having worked in a digital role since 2006, I had been immersed in content marketing tactics and social media for many years, leading the charge at past jobs for things like a cloud-based social media dashboard and engaging directly with the community.
So, my switch to digital marketing for a specialty foods company was a no-brainer, and a great fit for me, as I love to eat as well. (Who doesn’t?)
Over the last two months, since starting my new position, I’ve been researching marketing tactics and software. Here is what I’m most excited about for marketing tactics.
Inbound, or Permission Marketing: The first term, popularized by Hubspot; the second, by marketing god Seth Godin. This is essentially marketing to people who want to be marketed to for your product or service, whether that be through opt-in emails or through searching on Google or Bing.
Relationship Marketing: Somewhat tied to inbound marketing, relationship marketing is a focus on customer retention and satisfaction. In digital channels, this is done through a combination of social media, public relations, SEO, content development, and app development.
Content Marketing: Pretty simple — the creation and sharing of media content in order to acquire customers. I’m excited about this one, to say the least. Content marketing inspires business and advocacy from customers. This dovetails pretty nicely into…
Social Media Marketing: The process of getting attention and website traffic through social media channels. A big part of my strategy.
Influencer Marketing: Identifying and marketing to influencers, be it journalists, bloggers, or other trendsetters with an audience of their own. I’m excited about launching some initiatives along these lines, and already got started by supplying samples to a recent blogger conference.
Loyalty Marketing: Growing and retaining customers through incentives. For a specialty foods company, this means mainly loyalty cards, and having our coupons available on these, as well as having our consumers come back for our brand again and again.
I’ll next cover some of the SaaS (software as a service) providers I’ve been exploring as I decide on tools for my digital marketing strategies.
Digital Kristen 