Top 10 Tips for Building an Effective Upstream Marketing Campaign
As an online business owner, you may be familiar with downstream marketing campaigns and the importance of getting customers to purchase your products or services.
However, there's another aspect of marketing that many companies ignore: Upstream marketing. I have an initial guide on upstream marketing here.
Upstream marketing is similar to downstream in that it involves promoting your product or service to prospective customers; however, the difference lies in how you reach out to them.
In addition, upstream marketing can be done over time, as opposed to immediate sales opportunities like those seen in downstream campaigns.
This makes it an excellent way to build relationships with new clients by providing quality content to help them make informed decisions about purchasing from you.
You've come to the right place if you're looking for inspiration and actionable best practices for your next upstream marketing campaign.
Here's a list of 10 ways to maximize your efforts.
Build relationships.
Upstream marketing is about building relationships with people.
It's not just about getting them to buy stuff or pushing products or services on them.
Upstream marketing is about establishing trust, respect, and loyalty through transparent, and authentic communication that helps build long-lasting relationships between you and your customers.
This means that before you start developing any content for your upstream campaigns–whether in the form of an email newsletter or blog post, you need to ask yourself some crucial questions:
Who am I talking to?
What do they want from me?
How can I provide value that makes sense for both parties involved (you vs. the reader)?
Ask questions, and listen.
https://twitter.com/WiFiMoneyPrtfsh/status/1657025043048677378
The first step to building an effective upstream marketing campaign is listening.
Listening means paying attention to what your customers and prospects are saying.
It's essential to get into the habit of reading through reviews on your website, looking at social media posts from people talking about your product or service (or competitors), and monitoring industry news that could impact your business.
Ask questions: If you see something that raises questions in your mind, ask them! Do some digging into why someone had a positive experience with your company and how they were able to get value out of what they purchased from you--you might find that there's room for improvement in some regions of the customer experience journey or maybe even discover new ways for the company as a whole to improve its offerings over time through product improvements or additional services offered by third parties (like software updates).
Be ready to act decisively when you find opportunities.
When you're ready to act, ensure you have the resources to seize the opportunity.
If not, it may be too late by the time you build or scale.
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