The trouble with marketing is that, in order to talk about any individual strategy, you have to extract it from the overall marketing plan and talk about it as if it’s the only strategy that works.
It can be confusing. People could easily misunderstand and try to succeed with that one strategy rather than a balanced mix.
Can we rely only on direct mail, social media, SEO or content marketing?
A high-performance marketing plan is direct, it’s social, it’s optimized, and it relies on well-written content. It isn’t just one strategy but a careful integration of them all.
This month, following the release of Google’s Penguin updates, I’ve been talking about content marketing. After all, that’s the marketing strategy most impacted by new search algorithms.
But I want to emphasize this important fact: Content for content’s sake isn’t enough to build a business. You need to pull every marketing strategy into your mix, then fine tune it until it gives you solid results.
So how do today’s hottest marketing strategies complement one another? Let’s look at three of them: content marketing, social media, and good old-fashioned push marketing.
Content Marketing
You can use content marketing in every phase of your sales process:
- Articles and case studies can attract new prospects or move them off the fence to make a purchase.
- Blog posts can turn strangers into prospects and prospects into loyal fans.
- Special reports can reward people for opting into your list or add value to a direct response offer.
But content is only as valuable as your readership, so after you hit “publish,” you have to promote it. That’s where the rest of your marketing mix comes into play.
Promote content with emails, direct mail, search engine optimization, and social media posts that tell people your content exists and how they can get it.
Social Media
Done right, social media can seem like a substitute for your entire marketing plan. But like content marketing, it works best when integrated.
Social media — Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn, for example — is perfect for connecting with your peers and prospects, and creating a fan base that wants and needs your expertise.
It allows you to:
- Share useful tips.
- Interact with people.
- Curate information.
- Promote your content and products.
What you have to remember is that social media isn’t a stand-alone strategy. It’s merely a medium for getting your message out.
Push Marketing
You can’t have a business without a product or service that sells.
Content marketing spreads the word about the product and your expertise. Social media builds a community of fans who like what you have to say. But neither of these strategies drive sales. For that, you must rely on push marketing.
Old-style push marketing depended on direct mail and advertising. These days, it’s mostly done through email, online ads and sales pages. But since we live in a social world, push marketing can’t dominate your mix.
And that takes us back to content and social strategies: They allow you to connect with people without always trying to sell to them. They help people know, like and trust you, which makes it more likely that once they’re ready to buy, they’ll buy from you.
One final note…
These strategies aren’t your only choices when creating your marketing plan. They’re simply the ones I focused on today.
To know which strategies will be most effective for your business, you’ll need to test different ideas until you find the ones that work best. If you need help with that, let me know.
