Imagine you’re trying to solve a puzzle: If one piece doesn’t fit, you try another. In marketing, this kind of problem-solving works much the same way.
Opting to enlist a number of marketing tactics at once will remain at the top of the priority list for strategists. Why? Because audiences are engaging with multidevice behavior across different channels more than ever before, and that means businesses need to be present across these ecosystems as much as possible.
Why Holistic Marketing Matters
Whether you want to call it holistic or multichannel, this kind of approach to promoting your brand is integral to online success. It doesn’t work so well anymore to try one platform and hope it sticks. With audiences becoming more particular about what kind of content they consume, they’re more likely to choose channels that suit their lifestyles, interests and friend circles. That can range from scrolling through news feeds on Instagram and Facebook to searching product details on Google or catching up on their favorite blog.
Let’s assume that instead of spanning all these environments, you choose to try your hand at one tactic and just go all out on your effort levels. Maybe that looks something like an all-encompassing search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that targets all your products and services. For several months, you may only choose to monitor and tweak your SEO campaign, turning your eyes away from any other strategy. As a result, maybe you happen to skyrocket up search engine results pages, but conversions aren’t what they should be, and your target audience seems to be making more active decisions across social media instead.
Placing your eggs in one basket is risky. By doing this, you’re actively choosing to ignore the fact that your prospects are a thriving community existing on a number of media formats.
Holistic marketing takes in all these channels and combines them to create a well-rounded strategy. All bases are covered, explored and monitored. You keep tabs on all these outlets. If you have a digital marketing team, they’ll have assigned roles for each of these avenues. For brands that can’t necessarily afford in-house resources, this is where an agency can make all the difference.
Assess The Pros And Cons Of Each Platform
Instagram might work exceptionally well for one brand, and LinkedIn for another. It all comes down to your industry, niche and competitor behavior. Assessing this frequently and thoroughly gives you the upper hand and allows you to remain relevant and able to obtain the results you’re after in the digital marketing world.
For example, if you’re an e-commerce brand trying to reap new conversions at the checkout, you might see huge spikes in traffic through SEO. But a deeper dive into your analytics might show that you’re losing significant conversions for your SEO efforts to the Google Ads of competitors instead.
This is because Google is placing an increasing emphasis on ad results, proving crucial for online stores to adopt a more holistic approach to their strategy.
A couple of my clients are great examples of seeing improvements in impressions and rankings but drops in click-through rate because ad strategies were snatching up the attention.
The first client’s Google ranking improved by 9,601 over a year, and their total impressions improved by 189,000, but their click-through rate decreased by 1.3%. Another client’s ranking went up by 3,087 and impressions improved by nearly 27,000, but their click-through rate dropped 1.9%.
In order to make sure you’re on the right track, you’ll need to dedicate time to figure out where your real results are coming from.
Consider Individual And Like-Minded Trends
If there’s anything you need to keep in mind when it comes to digital marketing, it’s that what users search for on one channel will not be the same on another. For instance, looking up fidget spinners might be more popular on Instagram than it is for someone searching for it broadly on Google.
Ultimately, this means you need to develop strategies that are unique to each environment your users are consuming content on. This is also the hardest part, but once you put in the effort, you’ll reap long-term gains that your brand can’t afford to be without.
The good news is, some platforms and media formats work well together, and these days, they’re only becoming more influenced by each other.
For example, it’s extremely common these days for reality television shows — like The Voice, for example — to include social media hashtags, allowing viewers to engage in conversation online. This then has audiences on one platform (TV) using cross-device behavior on another (social media), resulting in a multichannel marketing strategy for the brand.
In the end, putting in the time and effort to develop a holistic marketing strategy will prove far more advantageous than if you were to focus on one channel. Put in the hard yards upfront, and you’ll gain improved, optimized and better-tailored success for your specific niche.