Tokyo, Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel. Kasukabe. Source: Wikipedia, original uploader was Dddeco at ja.wikipedia

Today, Marketers Must Execute Across Many Channels

Marketing today requires that you execute across many frontline channels.

Many of these are competitive fronts are present across the internet and Web. Content marketing, social media, electronic commerce, and other marketing activities that were once stand-alone, now require integration.

Marketing Automation has integrated these activities as online visitors are attracted more effectively through search, social media, effective branding, and other factors now drive traffic to and through websites.

Visitors on your website give your company an opportunity to offer valuable advice and guide the visitor to take action. Often, the action is to accept an "offer" (in the form of freebies, downloads, and instant gratification) as the result of responding to a call-to-action (CTA).

ECM systems are simply tools that enable companies to present valuable information and guide visitors to take an action, an "offer." Content is key to this array of marketing battlefronts because the content is the bait, really the chum. A CTA is the baited hook. A landing page and form that the visitor fills out is a hook that is set.

Ongoing, segmented, lead nurturing programs (emails), advertising retargeting, and regular newsletters are analogous to reeling in the fish. Good content marketing attracts real buyers, which is part of a comprehensive program that includes creating social media dissemination and discussion of content, segmentation of prospects based on buying interest and intent.

You nurture prospects through a buying process.

TAGS: Marketing Automation, Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing, Social Media, Buying Process, Lead Nurturing, Advertising Retargeting, Call-To-Action, CTA