Mastering Marketing Strategies in the Digital Age: A Better Lifestyle Podcast Recap

Mastering Marketing Strategies in the Digital Age: A Better Lifestyle Podcast Recap

On a recent episode of “A Better Lifestyle” podcast, host Richard Esperance sat down with our CEO, Celina Shands, to discuss the intricacies of marketing strategies in today’s digital landscape. With over 30 years of experience in the field, and owner of three different companies, including one she sold, Shands offered valuable insights for businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the interview:

1. Defining Marketing Terms:

Shands clarified the differences between marketing, promotion, and advertising. Marketing focuses on brand positioning and is continuous; promotion and advertising fall under marketing but are also distinct solutions. Promotion involves tactical outreach, including how a business launches and implements various tactics and strategies, whether that includes in-person events, virtual events, and more.  Advertising is a specific method of reaching ideal consumers who want to buy a product or engage with a brand in a specific way. 

2. Customer-Centric Approach:

Emphasizing the importance of understanding your target audience, Shands explained how combining demographics and psychographics can help create effective customer profiles, which maximizes marketing budgets by finding the right target marketing for narrower consumer profiles. Having a customer-centric approach aids businesses in knowing what people think about who you are and what you do because your brand is all about what people think, feel, and say about your business or your organization. 

3. Brand Positioning:

Shands stressed the significance of developing a unique selling proposition and brand promise. She used the example of the Rate Genius website to illustrate effective brand positioning. Rate Genius has both a consumer and a business offering but differentiates between the two effortlessly on both its website and in its branding and marketing. It is clear what their brand promise is, how they enact it, and why one should be compelled to utilize their services.

4. Marketing Fundamentals:

Understanding your positioning, knowing your products and services, and measuring success through key performance indicators (KPIs) are crucial elements of any marketing strategy. Knowing your budget and what goals you want to achieve helps create these KPIs and the strategies and tactics to achieve them. Confirming where your ideal customers are “living” digitally can help craft the areas that a brand will start with and eventually build out from. 

5. Digital Marketing:

While discussing online marketing, Shands highlighted the importance of consistent messaging across all digital platforms and the value of customer testimonials in building trust. With the advent of Generative AI, and more people utilizing their phones to look at websites and interact with brands, it is imperative to make sure your digital footprint is optimized for a mobile-first world. Further, companies must understand how to use AI tools as compliments to their creativity and strategy.  Shands cautioned about AI’s limitations and emphasized the need for human expertise in tailoring content.

6. Campaign Planning:

Shands recommended running campaigns for 3-6 months, with continuous optimization based on engagement and analytics.  It takes anywhere from five to twelve touchpoints to engage a consumer or a prospect with your organization. When thinking about one’s psychology when one makes a purchase, perhaps a car, one is likely going to spend a lot more time researching that high-purchase item. Compared to an impulse decision, such as chewing gum at the checkout counter. 

7. Common Mistakes:

Various products or services are going to require different approaches. When thinking about advertising, it is important to talk about benefits versus features, which is the opposite of most approaches and becomes a big issue when going to market your brand. Not to mention, understanding one’s competitive analysis and what to mirror, but how to also show up differently. Not monitoring ads regularly and skipping the strategic planning phase are also common pitfalls in marketing efforts. If one is not monitoring, then it’s difficult to understand how to retarget or reposition – or whether to stay with the same messaging – during a campaign. 

8. Continuous Learning:

Given the dynamic nature of marketing and rapid technological advancements, Shands emphasized the importance of ongoing education in the field. Everything is dynamic, so you have to keep up with trends in the marketplace, which takes effort. FCM subscribes to the philosophy of teaching you how to fish because there’s so much in the marketing world that changes daily. 

The “A Better Lifestyle” podcast, hosted by Richard Esperance, continues to bring valuable insights from industry experts to help individuals achieve professional success.