What Kind of Marketing Does My Business Need?

I’m often asked, “What kind of marketing do I need?” or some other version of that like, “Do I really need to do social media? Seems like a waste of time. Who’s going to buy from Facebook?”

The bonus for modern marketers is that we have more tools at our disposal than ever and many of them are free. Alas, this is also the greatest challenge.

So what should you use and how do you do it effectively?

I’m going to give it to you straight because it’s the only thing I do and ThinkQuik is not a marketing agency. We’re not trying to upsell you on a higher package.

 

What Kind of Marketing Do You Need?

All of it.

That’s the simple answer. You need a mix of promotional/offline marketing, digital marketing (including social media and email), advertising (although for some businesses that’s Google retargeting campaigns and ads on Facebook, not the Super Bowl), public relations, direct marketing, content marketing, and mobile marketing. Hey, maybe even some event marketing.

At the risk of making some of you feel squeamish, think of integrated marketing as a spider’s web. A spider doesn’t create one sticky strand of a web and hope something will fly into it. It finds the right niche and weaves an intricate design with many interconnected strands, all focusing in on a tight woven center. This way, no matter where the creature lands, it’s caught in the web.

Spiders’ webs work so well not only because of the tightly woven design but because they are transparent. They’re not loud and demanding of attention. They’re subtle, but well connected.

Integrated marketing works the same way.

John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing offers a great definition for it: “Integrated marketing is the combination of marketing tactics to help deliver one marketing strategy and more quickly build know, like and trust.”

Some people have been wildly successful using online marketing only, but to do so, you’re catching your dinner with only one strand of web. Yes, it can happen but it can also go horribly wrong. To reach the largest audience, and be ever present in their minds, you need a strategy that ties together multiple facets of marketing in a tight, coherent message that is more invisible, binding thread than loud, hot air.