There are so many aspects of digital marketing, including SEO, social media, email, retargeting, web development – the list goes on. With so many components, businesses often focus on digital marketing incrementally, rather than looking at the bigger picture or working towards a wider marketing strategy. When marketers fail to focus on big-picture questions about the vision, mission and value of their brand, they become stuck and implement ‘fine for now’ strategies without any overarching goal in sight.
If you want to engage in marketing that works now and in the future, your business needs to be strategic and coherent across all relevant channels – and this requires a healthy dose of foresight.
Here are three reasons you need to consider the bigger picture:
Agility
When you have the bigger picture in mind, your business is more agile, timeless and adaptable to change. After all, the digital marketing landscape is always evolving, and businesses that don’t evolve with it are left behind. For example, think of one of the hugest companies around today – Facebook. If Facebook’s marketers weren’t as forward-thinking as they are, they could have been left behind when users started to migrate to Instagram. Instead, Facebook predicted this migration and responded by purchasing Instagram (as well as plenty of other potential competitors). By taking a macro view of their target audience and the wider digital marketing sphere, Facebook was able to turn a huge potential threat into an incredible opportunity, and as a result, the company is now more successful than ever.
Part of seeing the bigger picture is also making sure that your brand doesn’t get stuck in a social-only mindset. If your social media actions aren’t connected to broader business goals (for example, funnelling customers through your website or encouraging them to download your ebooks), your ROI will remain elusive and your social media – even if successful – will become an end unto itself. Like, comments and shares are great, but they are pointless if your social media posts don’t inspire further action. All successful brands have one thing in common – they don’t limit themselves to one standalone marketing method.
In the end, being prepared for change is crucial for marketers – if you’re not constantly learning and adapting, you’re losing.
Customer Connection
The ways that customers connect with brands and make purchases involves numerous touch points (i.e. interactions with your business) on various platforms. For example, a customer may stumble across your website, then head to your Instagram, then browse your Facebook, then follow your YouTube channel – and that’s all before they make that first purchase. According to recent studies, the optimal number of brand touch points is 10; however, this figure is growing.
If you want to connect with your target audience on a long-term and ongoing basis, your customers need to receive clear and frequent messages about your brand on various platforms. To achieve this, your brand needs a multi-channel, multi-faceted marketing strategy that accounts for various digital touchpoints.
Consistent Branding
If you focus on every marketing undertaking as a separate entity, you won’t be able to see the bigger picture and your content will be inconsistent. This is a problem, because consistency is a major component of a positive customer experience, which in turn is one of the most powerful competitive differentiators.
According to a recent study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), promoting a consistent message across multiple channels can increase purchase intent amongst consumers by 90%, and increase brand perception by 68%.
Your customers experience your brand as a whole – if you run each of your marketing channels in an isolated fashion (and thus provide customers with unclear, conflicting and inconsistent brand messages), your bottom line will suffer.
To successfully pull off a forward-focused and consistent multi-channel marketing strategy, you need to make sure that your brand and your content are coherent across all online (and offline) channels. To do this, you need to be able to look at your brand as a whole.
Looking ahead is vital if you want to grow your business. Seeing the big picture will allow your business to identify threats, connect with customers, adapt with the times, encourage purchases and create a seamless and coherent brand.
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