The digital transformation is now state-of-the-art in medium-sized companies. The marketing of many companies is also to be digitized. This often includes the inclusion of online and Web 2.0. But creating a Facebook page or blog is not enough.
I’ve been blogging for some time now and I have regular meetings with some medium-sized companies to exchange ideas. The questions are often pretty much the same: online marketing should be digitized and online channels should offer new potential. In this article I want to share a few tips about what I have learned over the past two years.
Reading tip: Agile Marketing
Content Marketing and Blogging
Content marketing means that you passively advertise with exciting content. This can be, for example, a blog article about the GDPR in medium-sized businesses. Another example could be a blog article about designing the perfect resume. It is important that you offer exciting content that interests your target group (applicants and customers). I usually recommend writing articles on specialist topics on a company blog. I rarely experience that topics related to job applications lead to success in companies. Often, however, applicants become aware of your company through specialist articles.
Tip: I’ll be happy to help you Marketing for your company
The advantages of a blog are obvious: you present yourself as an expert. So choose a specific topic and blog many articles about it. It makes little sense to blog across the board, because then you hardly rank on Google and users love it when you can find all information on a topic in one place. It is important that you show your readers: That is my competence! I have a lot of expertise in this!
Reading tip: Corporate blog
With successful blogs, I almost always experience that the employees blog themselves and marketing helps with spelling and formulation. A busy senior consultant can at least provide key points that the marketing department can formulate for an article.
Examples :
- A software development consulting company blogs about Java, C ++ and agile methods
- A production company for automatives blogs about the latest automotive trends and Industry 4.0
- A data center service provider blogs about the use of the cloud
Social media
Social media is widespread and now every medium-sized company has at least one Facebook page. The process is very simple: you generate content and post it on the networks. You can do this by hand or with a tool.
I’ve also experimented with social media for a long time and believe that on each network, a specific target group will follow your company. I would therefore like to give you a breakdown per network. I picked out exactly 5 networks. I don’t find all the others particularly useful for companies. Companies like Follower24 support.
Examples :
- Facebook and Instagram: background information and presentation of the employer (company parties, etc.) – target group applicants
- Xing and LinkedIN: industry news and helpful articles – target group: business and customers
- Twitter: A mix of both with a focus on current industry news – target group: business
Performance marketing and lead generation
Lead generation means generating a measurable reaction from a user. For example, you have a special website that offers a 30 day trial version of a product. Alternatively, this can also be a page for generating applications, on which an applicant can upload a PDF résumé. So it’s a very simple site that has only one goal: to generate a lead (i.e. a reaction).
Usually you either advertise this particular page on social media or use Google Adwords (price per click). I’ve also seen some companies that optimize these sites for organic search SEO, but this often has little success with commercial offers.
Important : Unlike a blog, these sites are quite expensive because you pay per click. So make sure you have a clear, measurable goal, which is the number of clicks, and optimize the page from time to time.
Examples :
- A special page with upload function for resume (recruitment of skilled workers)
- A special page for a software test version (customer acquisition)
- a special page on a specific topic (e.g. data protection) with a chat window or button: contact us (customer acquisition)
Conclusion
In this article I have briefly summarized the impressions of the last few years and have dealt with three marketing methods. I think all three make sense and are worth a try for you too. Especially at the beginning, you can try it out yourself first and don’t have to go to an expensive service provider. It took me almost a year for my blog to have its first visitors and social media reach. So it means: persevere and don’t give up right away. At the end I will summarize the most important goals of the three methods for you again:
- Content Marketing: Show Expertise (Image)
- Social media: expertise or employer brand (image)
- Performance Marketing: Generate customer contacts (leads)
