See the whole picture, cover all your bases with 360 marketing

Digital marketing is a lot more complex than putting an ad on Facebook or posting a picture of your brick-and-mortar premises on Instagram.

There’s a lot that goes into digital marketing that businesses that might be completely new to it, might not be aware of. At NEO360, we call those components the “4C’s of digital marketing”:

1. Conversions, which deal with the objectives of your digital marketing, or what you want to achieve, exactly, with your digital marketing efforts. A “conversion” takes place when a potential customer performs a desired action, e.g. click on a link, fill out a form, or make an online purchase. The conversions you want from your customers must first be defined in a carefully prepared digital marketing strategy.

2. Channels, or the different digital marketing platforms available to you for reaching and engaging with your customers such as search engines, social media and display networks. You’ll have to choose which to use, and when for maximum effectiveness, and your choices will depend on the conversions, or objectives you want to achieve.

3. Content, or the information your customers need to help them to choose your solutions at the decision stage of their buyer’s journeys. It takes a collaborative effort to prepare this content. You need an expert on the business’ products or services to provide the raw information, a writer and a graphic designer to package that information, and a media planner to send that information out to the target market.

4. Cost, which involves not just how much a digital marketing channel charges for its use (media cost), but also the cost of creating content (production cost), and implementing and tracking the performance of marketing campaigns (management cost). Digital marketing costs vary between businesses depending on its conversion objectives as well as its overall business goals.

If digital marketing uses one or two digital channels to engage with audiences, 360 digital marketing uses all digital channels as part of a 360 strategy. It approaches digital marketing with the understanding that consumers use different media during different stages in their buyer’s journey.

360 digital marketing is called thus because of the way it covers the entire buyer’s journey, from awareness to decision and subsequent loyalty. It doesn’t just plan for one stage, but makes use of the most effective digital media and content for each stage to guide a customer along towards a purchase or the desired action.

The 360 digital marketing strategy is essential to the success of this marketing approach because of the way it takes a big-picture view of a business’ marketing efforts, versus myopic emphasis on one or two digital channels alone.

But more importantly, this strategy also makes it possible to get the most out of each digital channel used in 360 digital marketing, because it enables marketers to adjust usage of each channel to complement the others as necessary.

Creating a 360 digital marketing strategy requires a thorough understanding of both the buyer’s journey and each of the digital marketing channels. You’ll need to know what buyers are looking for during each stage of their journeys toward finding a solution, and where they’re most likely to look for it.

To understand the buyer’s journey, you’ll have to have a firm handle on your buyer persona. This will give you a clear picture of who you’re talking to and how to talk to them.

To understand each digital marketing channel, you’ll have to know how it works and what it’s best used for. This includes knowing the skills you need as well as how much you’ll have to spend to use the channel effectively, as the strategy does have a budgetary aspect.

Considering how you’ll be implementing this strategy likewise forms part of the strategy, itself. In so doing, it’s advisable to consider any existing resources you might have or whether and how you might have to augment them.

If, for instance, you have a digital marketing team composed of just one blogger and one SEO specialist, a 360 strategy that includes intensive video production, social media posting and display advertising without provisions for extra help might prove impractical.

Like any other marketing or sales endeavour, digital marketing represents a significant investment. It therefore makes sense to get as much as possible out of what you spend on each digital marketing channel, and using a 360 digital marketing strategy is arguably the best way to ensure a good ROI.

Any seasoned business owner will tell you how market conditions are always changing, and any seasoned digital marketer will tell you how there is no such thing as one, perfect channel that performs consistently without fail. Because just as market conditions change, the digital space—with its periodic algorithm changes and technological developments—continues to evolve, too.

This is the reason behind the variable performance of each digital channel, and behind the need to have each channel complement the others. If one channel should, because of these changes, perform below expectations, the others will be there to back it up, and the business’ overall digital marketing communications remains consistent and on point.

A 360 digital marketing strategy gives you the agility you need to reallocate your resources as needed, not just between channels but within each platform as circumstances demand.

The components of a 360 digital marketing strategy may be boiled down to what a business plans to do to reach and engage with its target audience during each stage of their buyer’s journey, and beyond. Resources that are at hand or that will have to be acquired, as well as projected expenditure will also need a place in your strategy.

For illustrative purposes, a rudimentary 360 digital marketing strategy might appear as follows:

a. AWARENESS STAGE:

• Display ads for X months
• Social media posts / ads (questions, e.g. Struggling with this [problem]?)
• Videos on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
• SEO, Blog posts (e.g. topic: [problem])

b. CONSIDERATION STAGE:

• Social media posts / ads
• Explanatory videos on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
• SEO, Blog posts (e.g. topic: about your solution, differentiating factor)

c. DECISION STAGE:

• Social media posts / ads (lead generation)
• Landing page (build email list)
• SEO, Blog posts (e.g. topic: how to buy / book)

* EDM / Email for follow ups

Brand-building is all about quality and consistency across everything that bears your business’ name and anything that your business does for your customer.

It would not do, for instance, for a business to spell their name one way in its ads and another way on its website, or to talk about putting customers first, and then take ages to respond to customer queries.
Brand-building is all about quality and consistency across everything that bears your business’ name and anything that your business does for your customer.

Because of the many “things” with your business’ name on it, and the many contact points between you and your customers, it can be a real challenge to maintain this consistency all throughout your communications and business processes.

Having a 360 digital marketing strategy goes a long way towards simplifying your brand building efforts because of the way it oversees a large part (if not all) of your activities in the digital space.

The effectiveness of such a strategy in brand building is further amplified when implemented by a 360 digital marketing agency. Not only is such an agency already accustomed to adopting a 360 approach, but it also centralises the preparation of all your communications and the execution of all your campaigns to ensure consistency and quality in building your brand.

Does your business need to find more customers? Do your potential customers spend time online? Would your business benefit from having loyal, repeat customers who would be happy to talk about you to other potential customers? If so, then 360 digital marketing is perfect for your business.

Because it’s not so much whether 360 digital marketing is right for your business, but how you put it into practice given what makes your business unique—your industry, niche, buyer persona, location, and product or service offerings.

Your business might, for instance, benefit more from using certain social media platforms than others, or from using a particular design style or tone of voice in its messaging.

While it’s true that some industries are more competitive in the digital space, the steadily growing number of consumers looking for solutions to their various needs online just can’t be denied. Whether or not your business is in one of those highly competitive industries, the growth potential from tapping the digital market is just as undeniably huge.

On top of its obvious advantages in reach, engagement and brand-building, the beauty of 360 digital marketing is its adaptability to a business’ circumstances and capabilities. It can be scaled according to the size of a local, regional or global business, with the interconnectivity of each digital marketing channel used in its 360 strategy growing in complexity and effectiveness alongside it.