Today, a large majority of consumers distrusts advertising, and corporations in general, more than ever before. Today, an average buyer has seen major corporations coax the onset of full-blown financial crisis and spark a major outcry against income inequality. Furthermore, people are bombarded with tons of advertisements every day. Telesian Technology Inc. estimates, that an average consumer sees anywhere between 300 and 700 ads each day. As a result, traditional marketing strategies have become rather ineffective, to say the least.

Podcasting as a Marketing Tool

Two years ago, Serial took podcasting to another level, and while I’m sure you’ve listened to at least a couple podcasts, have you ever considered using a podcast as a marketing tool? And while podcasting is only gaining momentum, many of your potential customers are surely active listeners. In fact, recent Infinite Dial findings have revealed that between 2015 and 2016, podcast listening grew around 23%. And if that’s not enough to make you take podcasting seriously, also think about this – today, more than 20% of Americans, ages 12 and up, listen to podcasts on a regular basis.

And to provide context for what 20% of the country represents, you have to take into consideration that only around 13% of people in the United States have a Spotify subscription, and 21% of them have an active Twitter account.  All in all, there are around 57 million podcast listeners in the United States. There are a couple of elements that make podcasting stand out as a great content tool – it gives you an opportunity to connect to your customers, reach a guest audience and it lends itself to generating multiple revenue streams, just to name a few.
 

Leveraging Big Data

According to IBM research, we create around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day, as a matter of fact, we create so much of it that around 90% of the data in recorded human history has been created in the last two years. The sheer amount of information we have today has completely changed what it means to be a marketer. Look at it like this – big data is the missing link between marketing actions and results. So, despite all of this, why are so many companies still turned off by big data?

The answer perhaps lies in the fact that there’s a huge emphasis on short-term results in today’s corporate world. And this insistence on instant results can prevent companies from making the necessity investments today to lay the foundation for greater results, which may take months to come to fruition. According to Rex Briggs’ research, around 40% of marketing budgets are being wasted every year by thousands and thousands of companies around the world. A big reason why this continues to happen is because of lack of data that prevents insights, measurements and informed decision making.

Email Marketing is Still Here

And so we come to probably the most underutilized and underestimated marketing tactic of today – email marketing. For years, email has been labeled as a “has-been” in the modern marketing world, taking the back seat to newer and “exciting” tactics, such as social media. But from a pure cost-effectiveness standpoint, it’s hard to argue that something is better than email. What’s more, even though Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are more commonly used today, people still use emails to communicate quite a lot actually. Radicati Group estimates that around 2.4 million emails are sent every second, which amounts to 74 trillion mails per year.

But seeing how mobile usage has grown in recent years, today you have to approach your email marketing strategy with a mobile-first mindset. Every aspect of your campaign has to be optimized for mobile – fast-loading and visually captivating emails work best on smartphone screens. Moreover, according to statistics compiled by HubSpot, more than 95 of your site’s visitors aren’t ready to buy your product. That is why you should also try to take advantage of email remarketing. Travel companies, for instance, have known how to increase conversions using email remarketing for years. These companies, as well as eCommerce sites that have a high level of booking and cart abandonment use email remarketing as a way to re-engage customers and encourage them to finish the transaction.
 

 

Conclusion

Stepping outside of the norm and giving other platforms like podcasting and emailing a chance to work for you and your company will definitely prove equally beneficial in the long run. Leveraging big data will also give you a chance to learn more about your consumer base and allow you to make smarter marketing decisions in the future. Finally, the point is, just because something still isn’t popular or widely-used it doesn’t mean that it isn’t effective. Chances are, some of the more underrated marketing strategies and tools are making someone a lot of money – and if you think outside of the box, that someone could be you in the future.

Author:

Nate Vickery is a business consultant and a blogger mostly focused on streamlining marketing and management for small businesses and startups. He is also an editor on Bizzmarkblog.com and a regular contributor on many other business and marketing oriented websites.