How To Make Marketing More Actionable

The nature of the marketing industry is constantly changing. The best practices and current trends that we all hear about in marketing circles those things change more frequently than any human can keep up with.

If you’re trying to stay on top of your work and keep up with the ever-changing landscape of the field, things are likely getting pretty hectic for you.

Fortunately, there are a few ways to make your life easier when it comes to having an actionable marketing plan. Here’s how you can create a strategy for your business that doesn’t take over your life:

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Takeaways
1. Emphasize Clear Calls-to-Action
2. Tailor Marketing Messages to Specific Audience
3. Implement Practical and Achievable Goals
4. Use Action-Oriented Language in Content
5. Monitor and Analyze Metrics for Effectiveness
6. Incorporate Interactive Content for Engagement
7. Foster Two-Way Communication with Customers
8. Continuously Optimize Strategies for Results

Table of Contents

Think Of Marketing Like A Funnel

The funnel is a useful image to use when thinking about your marketing process. It shows how the different parts of your sales funnel work together to convert prospects into customers, and then those customers into repeat buyers.

At the top of the funnel are all of the people that are aware of your brand, but haven’t interacted with it yet. In this case, they’re referred to as “prospects” or “leads.”

At this stage in the process, they don’t know much about what you do or what makes you special they just know that there’s some kind of product or service out there named after your company name (which might not even be an actual product).

The next step is getting these leads through various stages until they get to a point where they’re ready to buy from you:

A prospect becomes a lead by signing up for something like an e-mail newsletter or free webinar series that teaches them about what makes your business unique;
A lead becomes a customer by buying something from you (either online via an e-commerce store/website);
And finally, once customers consistently place orders with their credit cards over time that’s what it takes before we call someone a “repeat buyer.”

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Define Your Sales Process

If you don’t have a defined sales process, this is the first step you need to take to make marketing more actionable.

The definition of a sales funnel is pretty straightforward: it’s a visual representation of every touchpoint between you and your customer from first engagement through conversion.

This means knowing what stage each prospect or lead is on in the purchasing journey, where they fall within your marketing funnel, and how much time has elapsed since their last touchpoint with you (the “funnel length”).

Once this information is gathered, it can be used as benchmarks for future optimizations so that you know if things are getting better or worse than before.

This will also allow us to identify which channels are most effective at driving leads and therefore should be prioritized over others

Nail Down Your Target Market

It’s all well and good to be excited about your product, but you need to know who is going to buy it, or at least use it. Are you selling a product for dogs? Or is there a larger market for cats? Do you sell something that goes on the internet or is purely offline? Who are your competitors?

Are they bigger than you? If so, how can they help promote your brand (or vice versa)? What kind of influencers might be interested in what you’re doing do they have high-profile blogs or large followings on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter?

What kinds of partnerships could benefit both parties can they provide testimonials or endorsements while also providing some additional business opportunities (like sales)?

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Create Buyer Personas

When you’re writing content, it’s easy to get caught up in the details and forget about the bigger picture. You think about what you want to say as opposed to who needs to hear it.

For example, let’s say that you’re writing an article for a website about dogs.

You might be tempted to start with a long list of fun facts about dogs but if the reader doesn’t own a dog themselves, they probably won’t care! Instead of spending time on those fun facts, focus on how they can best serve their particular needs.

In short: buyer personas make marketing more actionable by helping marketers visualize their ideal customers so they can focus on them instead of other distractions like irrelevant content or channels that aren’t right for their brand.

Create Content That Speaks To Both Your Buyer Personas And The Sales Funnel

The key to effective content is to make it relevant to your buyer personas and the sales funnel, as well as to the business goals and marketing objectives. If you’re stuck thinking about what sort of content you should produce, start by asking yourself questions like:

What do my buyers need?
What’s their biggest problem? Why is that problem important?
How can I solve their problem with this piece of content? Or, how can I show them how solving this problem will make their lives better in some way (or save them money)?

And then think about how each piece of content will fit into your overall marketing strategy: does its message align with what you’re trying to achieve for your brand or company as a whole?

For example, let’s say one of our fictional buyers has been looking for information on how to use social media effectively at work we could create an entire series such as “How To Use Social Media In Your Job Search.”

This would be useful because it teaches them something they need right now (how best to apply social media tools while searching for a job); it also provides value by helping them find employment faster than they would have otherwise;

And finally, these articles could rank well on Google because they’re useful information that anyone could benefit from reading (which means more traffic).

Find Out Where Your Buyer Personas Are Online

To understand where your buyer personas are and how they behave, you need to know what they’re doing online.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

Where are my buyer personas hanging out? Are they frequenting forums, commenting on blog posts, or answering questions on Quora? Find out which sites make up the bulk of their activity. These will be places where you can reach them with content that resonates.

What do my buyer personas read? A lot of marketing focuses on “building awareness” but what does this mean exactly? Awareness is a vague goal that doesn’t tell us much about actual actionable behaviors (like signing up for a newsletter or making an appointment).

Instead of focusing so much attention on awareness, find out what kinds of things your buyers read and share most often to create better marketing strategies that lead directly toward actionable goals like conversions and sales.

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Optimize For Search Engines

Your goal is to drive the right traffic to your site, so you’ll want to make sure that the keywords people are searching for are represented on your website in a way that makes them click and visit.

If you don’t optimize, you could be losing out on potential customers who would otherwise find your brand or product but just can’t quite get there because they were looking for something else entirely.

Keywords should be used in several places throughout your site:

In The Title Tag

If someone is searching for information about how to build a marketing plan.

Then using “marketing plans” as one of several words in their title tag will help ensure that this person finds your blog post about making marketing plans instead of another site’s blog post about making furniture (an unrelated topic).

In Meta Description Tags

This describes what a page will provide visitors when they come across it within search results, so including related keywords here can help boost click-through rates (or CTRs).

For example, if someone searches Facebook ads and clicks through Google results onto one of our posts about managing PPC campaigns efficiently, we want them to see something like this:

“Learn how our PPC experts manage Facebook ad accounts all day long without getting burned out by our step-by-step guide!”

Streamline The Buying Process For Prospects

When a prospect is ready to buy, they should be able to do so with minimal friction. Friction includes making it difficult for your prospects to contact you or understand how much your product costs.

You should also make it easy to get a quote, demo, and free trial. These are all great tools that motivate people to become customers faster than if they had to wait for an in-person meeting or sit through a sales presentation.

The more ready-to-buy prospects you can capture at the top of the funnel (i.e., before they become leads).

The better off your business will be down the road when these same people are ready to buy from you again as repeat customers or refer others who are also likely candidates for buying from you as well.

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Make Promotion Easy For Customers And Clients

You can make marketing more actionable by making it easier for customers to find you, buy from you, recommend you, and return to you.

Make it easy for customers to find your website by optimizing the SEO of your website and putting relevant keywords in the title tag of each page.

Make it easy for customers to buy from your site by having a clean checkout process with as few steps as possible. For example, don’t ask them if they want paper invoices or email receipts just assume they will want both unless otherwise specified.

Don’t ask them if they want standard shipping or expedited shipping just assume standard until otherwise specified.

Don’t ask them if they want their product shipped immediately or delivered later; just have the default option be immediate shipping unless otherwise specified (and clearly state that there is an additional fee).

Give Prospects And Customers What They Want To Read

Listen to what your customers are saying.
Listen to what your prospects are saying.
Listen to what your competitors are saying, and take note of the same things they’re doing that seem effective (or not so effective).
Listen to what your sales team is saying about the product/service, and use it as a guidepost for where you should focus development efforts going forward.
Listen to what your marketing team is saying about the product/service because they’re using language and jargon that may be different than the language used by others in the company.

And this could be indicating one of several things: a lack of clear messaging; internal inconsistencies;

Or perhaps there simply isn’t an overarching plan for how all these moving parts will fit together over time (and this could lead some people into thinking that just having more content might fix everything).

Measure Everything You Can

The purpose of measurement is to see how much progress you’re making, so it’s important to know what you want to measure and how exactly you’re going to measure it.

It’s also good to know if any things have been measured before so that you don’t end up redoing something that has already been done successfully by someone else. The benefits of measuring are:

You can see what works and what doesn’t work in your marketing efforts (you’ll know which parts should be changed)
You will be able to make better decisions about the direction of your marketing campaign if all information regarding different aspects of the campaign is available at any time

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Have A Social Media Policy

Having a social media policy in place can help guide your employees and make sure that everyone is on the same page.

A social media policy should be reviewed often, enforced consistently, and clear and concise. Additionally, it should be updated regularly to reflect changes in technology or company policies.

Finally, if you’re going to have an employee handbook that includes a section on using social networking sites (and you really should!).

It’s important to review these guidelines with legal counsel before publishing them even if they’re just informal guidelines that are never seen by anyone outside your organization.

It Is Important To Keep Marketing Actionable

If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you know that I am a big advocate for actionable marketing.

It is important to keep marketing actionable and not just about creating awareness. The majority of consumers don’t even care about brands anymore; they just want things that solve problems or meet their needs.

If your brand doesn’t create value and solve problems, then there’s no way anyone will buy from you anyway.

Conclusion

Action is the operative word when it comes to marketing. When you spend time, money, and effort on your marketing, you want to know that it’s all going to be worth it.

The only way to ensure that you get a return on your investment (ROI) is by making sure that your marketing is actionable.

This means you need to make sure that your marketing efforts are targeted at the right people, with content they will find useful and a buying process they won’t have trouble navigating.

If you follow these steps, there’s no way you can lose! We hope this guide has helped give you some ideas on how to make your marketing more actionable. Good luck!

FAQs

How can I make my marketing strategies more actionable?

To enhance the actionability of your marketing strategies, focus on setting clear and achievable goals, segmenting your audience effectively, and incorporating strong calls-to-action within your campaigns.

What are some key components of an actionable marketing plan?

An actionable marketing plan should include well-defined objectives, a detailed analysis of your target audience, a clear timeline, specific tactics, and measurable metrics to track progress.

How do I create actionable content?

Crafting actionable content involves providing readers with valuable information they can apply immediately. Use actionable language, provide step-by-step instructions, and offer practical tips or solutions.

Why is it important to have actionable calls-to-action (CTAs)?

Actionable CTAs encourage users to take a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or downloading a resource. Clear and compelling CTAs guide users toward meaningful engagement with your brand.

How do I ensure my marketing tactics remain actionable?

Regularly review and update your marketing tactics to ensure they align with your goals and continue to resonate with your target audience. Monitor key performance indicators and make adjustments as needed to maintain their effectiveness.

Costantine Edward

Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.