Marketing Business: A successful marketing campaign is a lot like a stock portfolio; it needs to be diversified. It is highly recommended that no company spend very heavily in one area of marketing. It is not a pretty situation when a company implements a marketing tactic only to discover the marketing initiative losing to a competitor or the plan flat out not working. This would leave the company in a situation in which they would have to start their marketing strategies all over and, again risking failure.
To properly diversify your marketing portfolio, consider the following tactics and, subsequently spread your marketing budget throughout these areas.
Public Relations - despite the fact that, in some companies, the PR team is separate from the main marketing group, in smaller organizations, the two must be intertwined. Therefore, a portion of the firm's marketing budget should be invested in getting the company's name "out there." Additionally, a good PR campaign can brand a firm properly and position the company in a good light to their target client.
This is not to mention that the better PR firms in the industry can assist with things such as product differentiation.
PPC or Pay-Per-Click - regardless of industry, nearly every aspect of business (B2B or B2C) is done online. Part of any company's marketing and advertising budget should go towards obtaining clients via Google or Bing searches.
The fastest way to gain a presence on the search engines is the Pay-Per-Click advertising that major search engines provide to any company that wishes to advertise to its target market via this method. The Google advertising platform lends itself to a bidding platform.
Therefore, any interested company can either hire a SEO firm to manage this for them or they can do it themselves. In most instances, SEO firms do not charge too much for managing a PPC campaign.
Generic SEO or Search Engine Optimization - generic SEO or search engine optimization is a route most companies may want to explore when allocating their marketing funds. Generic SEO is, for lack of a better description, a way to have Google rank your site highly enough in what are called the "SERPs" (a.k.a. where you rank when people Google certain keywords) that gives your organization a free PPC campaign of sorts.
Company Branding, Logos, etc. - personally, I am not too big on any organization spending large amounts of money to have someone else brand their company when they know their firm and, hopefully competition better than a regular consultant. Conversely, this is a marketing facet that any company should allocate some fiscal resources towards.
Event Marketing - event marketing is the act of bringing potential clients together via a particular event whether it come in the form a free information session or some kind of party. For a small business, hiring a company to take care of their event marketing can prove to be excessively expensive, but if done properly, it could also be money well spent.
Trade Show Marketing - trade shows are a great way for any company to market their business and to meet potential customers. In conjunction with spending part of their marketing budget on the trade show itself, every company needs to find a marketing vendor that is going to make their booth or table stand out from their competition.
It is recommended that all firms engage in this form of marketing as it can lead to quick prospect generation and subsequent sales. When it comes to closing a deal, face-to-face interaction is better than a voice on the phone.
Social Media Marketing - on a personal basis, I don't recommend that most companies engage in social media marketing because there is not much direct ROI in implementing a s.m. plan. However, if a company is very focused on allocating some of their marketing budget via this avenue, they should find a top-notch social media consultant or vendor who knows what they are talking about and has a great track record.