Creating a new website or updating an existing one takes a village of people with a variety of brand, digital marketing and technical skills.

The website will often be the first touch point a prospect has with an organization. The value propositions have to be clearly stated, the branding has to reflect the company culture, the Calls-to-action have to be clear and prominent, and the  design has to have an easy-to-use interface, and the pages have load quickly.

And that's just the beginning. Check out this blog from HubSpot,  80 Things to Check Before, During, and After Launching a Website.

One person should be responsible for coordinating the team of specialists and to ensure the website is reflecting all these aspects of the website and he or she should be a key member of the marketing team.

Intent data is a type of intelligence that provides marketing and sales teams with visibility into which  companies are actively researching specific key words. When research on a particular topic is higher than usual, it's a very strong indicator that one or more people at a specific company are researching a topic that has been established as one of the relevant key words.

When prospects need a solution to a problem, they will go to Google and conduct online research to find a solution. When sales and marketing teams have that knowledge, they can tailor their sales and marketing strategies to target directly to those companies.

Having that knowledge and knowing that people from your prospect accounts are doing this research  gives sales and marketing teams the opportunity to sell and market to those accounts early in their stage of their buyer's journey.

And targeting sales and marketing efforts during the "education" stage of that prospect's buying journey is key. It gives the marketing and sales teams an opportunity to market to those companies before their competition does.

A successful content strategy not only features relevant key words, but it also tells a story in a way that attracts, engages and delights prospects, through each stage of the buyer's journey.

The stories should be tailored to specific personas and evolve along with the customer's experience, beginning with awareness, moving into need and eventually vendor selection.

The most successful content strategies take the following into consideration. They're:

• aligned with the company's value propositions
• featuring relevant key words
• presented as storytelling
• tailored to specific personas and stage of the buyer's journey
• executed across topic clusters and pillar pages
• promoted across marketing channels
• executed in a way that it can be measured and analyzed

Whether it's paid or organic social media promotions, you have to "hangout where your prospects hangout." To get the highest possible return on your marketing investment, you have to target your marketing dollars like a laser beam.

Don’t try to guess where you should be marketing. Do the research and find out where your prospect personas are “hanging out” online.

You can look at where your competitors are marketing. You can ask your customers where they hangout. You can look at your customers’ (or best prospects) Linkedin page. What groups are they are in? Are they on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Spotify? Who are they following?

And look beyond the basic social media platforms. Think about industry associations, trade groups and events that your prospects are involved with.

According to Neil Patel, email marketing has an ROI of $38 for every dollar spent, meaning it deserves a place in every marketer’s toolbox.

The days of purchasing email lists and sending cold emails are coming to an end. While GDPR is not a requirement in most U.S. states, most of the major e-mail automation platforms do enforce rules to prevent marketers from spamming.

Email marketing metrics are also becoming less reliant.

• Emails are only considered open in MS Outlook if the recipient downloads the images
• Apple has new rules in place that don't register opens
• Bots are opening emails and clicking on links and creating havoc on campaign analytics

Your email marketing strategy should be designed to invite contacts to follow your blog or opt-into your campaigns. Your email marketing KPIs should include a goal of generating X number of "opted-in" contacts. Those contacts will be the warmest ones you have, the ones most likely to purchase, and you'll be GDPR-compliant.

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Retargeting campaigns remind your website visitors of your products and services after they leave your website. After visiting specific web pages, you can use these tools to retarget your web visitors and present them with visual banners or text ads which they'll see on other websites.

You can also upload a list of email addresses to a retargeting campaign on a social media site such as Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter. These social media platforms will find users on that network who match that contact's characteristics, and present them with your ads.

This can be a very effective tactic in the marketing strategy. After all, if someone has already been to your website, they must have a good reason and they should be considered a strong 'suspect.' Why not spend your marketing dollars targeting them?

You've seen ads with words like "Presented by, Sponsored by, Powered by." These are all examples of sponsorships. These are easy to recognize in offline marketing. You see them everywhere including at trade shows, sports events, TV shows, etc.

Digital sponsorships are a fantastic way to get your message in front of a very targeted audience. It takes time to build up a large group of followers, so why not ride the coattails of a social media influencer or sponsor a Podcast with followers that meet your target audience perfectly (Know where your prospects hang out...)

“Sponsorship works differently in relation to the consumer than do other forms of advertising and promotions in that it engages the consumer differently by bestowing benefit on an activity (e.g., sports or the arts) with which the consumer has an intense emotional relationship.” (Meenaghan, 2001).

For this reason, the return on the marketing investment goes beyond just a financial return. This makes it harder to measure which is why this marketing tactic is often overlooked.