Author: Sophie Anderson

We could talk about marketing trends all day long, diving into the rise of influencer marketing and AI-driven content creation or the importance of sustainable marketing and data-driven campaigns.

While those trends are undoubtedly important for keeping your marketing strategy adaptable and relevant, there’s one invariable truth: the fundamentals of marketing are unchanging.

Let’s get back to basics and discuss why the right offer priced optimally and promoted to your ideal audience with strategic messaging through a curated media mix can be effective in driving results—without the frills of flashy marketing trends. 

The Unchanging Fundamentals of Marketing 

The foundations of marketing can be condensed into four fundamentals—offer, price, promotion and place. When you implement these key elements into marketing strategies, you’re going to see meaningful results (even if you ignore what’s “trendy” in marketing). 

Create the Best Offer

You’ve likely defined the ideal audience for your products or services, but can you hone those insights further? (Hint: “everyone” is not a target audience!)

What does your audience want? What do they care about? Can you solve problems or challenges your audience faces? What can your company offer to make their life easier and help them achieve their goals? 

These are all questions you need to ask when refining your offers to drive business growth. The answers will build the foundation of your entire marketing plan. This is your opportunity to create value for your customers, foster loyalty and set you apart from the competition, lending to long-term business success. 

To stimulate further brainstorming when creating enticing offers, consider: 

• Has your target audience changed? Have their concerns evolved?
• What are the demographics, psychographics and behaviors of your target market?
• Is there existing competition, and if so, how is your offering different?
• What makes your offer unique?
• Why should the audience choose your offer over competitors’?
• What are the potential challenges associated with your offer?
• Is your offer scalable for future growth?
• How will you collect feedback from early users or customers?
• What is your long-term vision for your brand? 

Set it at an Ideal Price 

The next step in refining your offer is finding the ideal price point. When determining the right price, it’s important to ask yourself two questions: what do customers expect and how are competitors pricing similar products or services? 

While you definitely don’t want to undervalue your products or services, you don’t want to go too high, either, as this could turn off prospects. Instead, aim to align the price of your offer with the value it provides. 

Though these questions and considerations will help you gauge pricing options, ultimately, it’s up to you to determine what you charge. 

Build the Perfect Promotion 

To effectively and concisely communicate your offer to your ideal target audience, you must craft the right message and build the perfect promotion. 

• Understand your audience and what messaging will resonate. For example, you wouldn’t talk to a millennial the way you would talk to a baby boomer because they each have a vastly different set of drivers and concerns. These distinctions could make or break a campaign. 
• Craft a compelling message highlighting the benefits of your offer. Focus on your audience’s needs and how your solution adds value to their lives. Remember, it’s not necessarily about what you want to say but rather what your audience needs to hear.
• Embrace uniqueness and creativity with your campaign, as this will help capture the attention of your target audience and differentiate your brand from competitors. Consider implementing storytelling, user-generated content, giveaways, influencer partnerships and more.

Find the Proper Place to Market

This is your moment—the time when you showcase your refined offer in a way that effectively communicates its value proposition.

During the execution phase of your marketing strategy, there are a few key aspects you need to consider to ensure your promotions are successful: 

• Choose the right marketing channel. Where are your prospects—physically and digitally? It’s important to find the most effective channel to reach your audience. Often, this includes a mix of online and traditional offline channels, like social media, billboards, radio and email marketing. 
• Ensure synergy and consistency across all marketing channels. This helps to create a unified brand experience, reinforces your message and fosters stronger brand recognition.
• Measure and optimize. Develop and track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, conversion rates, sales enablement metrics and return on investment (ROI). Use this data to refine your strategies and optimize your campaigns for better results.
• Embrace adaptability by using the data and metrics gathered when measuring the performance of your promotion. This will help refine your strategy and optimize your campaign for the best possible results. 

Digital marketing is essential, but don’t underestimate the power of human connection. The art of relationship building is still an important component of any marketing strategy. 

Interactions at trade shows, 1:1 meetings, speaking engagements and networking events are all still effective and important ways to gain brand recognition—and they’ll complement your digital efforts to create a stronger campaign overall.

Get Back to (Marketing) Basics

As you navigate the complexities of today’s market, it’s important to recognize that an impactful marketing campaign doesn’t need to be complicated—it can be as simple as tapping into these four foundational pillars of marketing. 

Understand your audience, create a value-driven offer and strategically price and promote it using the right channels and messaging. With the right approach, you can achieve your marketing goals while staying true to timeless principles that drive results. 

If you’re looking for a marketing partner to take the reins and create a customized marketing strategy for your business, contact Giant Voices. We’re here to help you achieve your revenue goals. 

(Hint: if you’re teetering between hiring a marketing professional or a marketing agency, it’s best to hire a herd of workhorses, not a magical unicorn!)

It’s that time of year! As we move into the new year, brands and businesses across the globe assess, analyze and revise their marketing strategies. To help you get a better grasp of what’s likely to come, we’ve gathered a list of growing marketing trends we expect to see take off in 2024. 

AI-Driven Content and Conversations 

Picture this: personalized content that’s practically a mind-reader and tailored just for you. Thanks to increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI), marketing messaging, chatbots and online conversations will move forward with ease, making it seem as though each virtual interaction is designed perfectly for clients and customers. 

While not all businesses will make the jump to fully AI-driven content creation, many will likely start or continue using AI to predict and stay ahead of trends, making content creation more adaptable, fluid and timely. 

That’s not to say humanization isn’t required when harnessing AI-driven content. It can often come across as robotic and inauthentic, which is why incorporating human touch is crucial. 

Customize AI-written content to make it unique, decipher whether an AI-predicted trend is worth your time and investment and analyze AI-fostered online conversations to ensure they come across as genuine. 

Authenticity is Key

As many consumers are no longer swayed by perfection and beautifully curated content, authenticity is likely to be a key driver of growth, engagement and sales moving into 2024. In the era of transparency, consumers aren’t just buying products—they’re investing in brands that they trust and genuinely connect with. 

How can your business embrace authenticity? Expose the human side of your brand, build a strong foundation of credibility and foster enduring relationships with your customers and clients with marketing materials, content and service that represents your company and people accurately. 

Eye-Catching Animated Marketing 

Introducing animation into your marketing strategy offers a unique blend of creativity, innovation and visual appeal that captures the attention of today’s fast-paced and visually-oriented audience. Plus, it’s really fun to make and watch!

Compared to video marketing, which is still an effective tactic, animated marketing is not only more accessible and implementable for everyday brands, it’s also short, sweet and to the point—ideal for younger audiences with shorter attention spans. 

For inspiration, check out this simple, animated graphic Giant Voices posted for New Year’s Day.

Human-Centric Approach

Hyper-personalization will be a key part of marketing in 2024. No longer are we viewing our audience as “customers” or “clients.” Instead, marketers are seeing them for what they truly are: humans that need help solving a problem. 

Coinciding with AI-driven content and conversations, expect to approach each and every client and customer interaction with care, authenticity and a unique solution to their challenges. You can do this by leveraging creativity, humor and emotion within your marketing campaigns—in a way that aligns with your brand, voice and—more importantly—your audience. 

Ethical and Sustainable Marketing

Ever heard of ESG marketing? Also known as environment, social and governance marketing, this strategy highlights how well a brand is meeting its ESG goals, using specific benchmarks, KPIs and reporting metrics. 

With a strong ESG strategy, you can bring attention to your energy and water management practices, greenhouse gas emissions, charitable contributions, workplace diversity, company culture and responsible supply chain management practices. 

Rather than simply talking about ESG in company meetings, bring it to light and showcase your efforts in an impactful ESG marketing strategy, as sustainability will be an important consideration for younger generations during the purchasing process. 

Ethical and sustainable marketing also applies to your recruitment and retention strategies. Ensure that your hiring process is fair, consistent and purposeful, and implement meaningful retention tactics that make your employees feel valued, respected and unified. This will help you build a strong, impactful team that moves you forward year after year. 

Short-Form Video Content 

With the rise of TikTok and Instagram Reels—and, as such, much shorter attention spans—short-form video content is becoming more and more relevant in today’s dynamic online world. 

We expect to see brands roll out easy-to-make, short-form video content on a regular basis in 2024. Everything from quick tutorials and tips and tricks to influencer collaborations and utilizing user-generated content (UGC) with the help of content creators. 

Harnessing the Power of Analytics 

Relating to our earlier mentions of AI-driven content and human-centric marketing, we expect brands to better harness the power of analytics to get exceptional results. 

Deeply understanding your target audience, how they operate, the type of content they enjoy consuming, their purchase behavior and other vital components is crucial for building out a strong human-centric strategy (which, as we mentioned above, will likely be a 2024 marketing trend). 

At Giant Voices, we utilize data to improve everything from social media engagement and email opens to click-through rates, brand experiences and website interactions. Our team truly believes that data is one of the best tools businesses can harness to create growth-driven results. 

Utilizing Influencers and Creators  

In the last few years, influencers and content creators have upheaved and transformed the social media landscape. With more influence and leverage than ever before, online figures have the power to make or break your brand. 

When used correctly and intentionally, influencer marketing can grow your brand’s reputation, following, sales and revenue rapidly. On the flip side, if your product or services aren’t up to par, just one influencer’s strong review can seriously hurt your business. 

Capitalize on Better Marketing in 2024 

By modifying your 2024 marketing plan to integrate one or many of these predicted trends, you can capitalize on better marketing strategies that deliver long-term results. Questions? Reach out to the Giant Voices team. We’re here to help.