Multi-touch Marketing: Part I

Marketing is diverse. Exceptionally diverse. In terms of the professional expertise, application of new technologies and necessary training, there are few fields growing as rapidly as marketing is today. 

Martech tracks technologies available to marketers each year, and has been since around 2011. They put these companies into a graphic you’ll need to employ your zoom function to fully appreciate. Each of the companies they track is a tool, or a resource to reaching your customers. What’s even more daunting is that they’re tracking national and international applications. There are countless other tools and resources available at the regional and local levels.

One thing that hasn’t changed in marketing is the desire for a simple fix. Except in rare cases, such a thing doesn’t exist - no matter how much it may appear that way. A client can say to us, “we’d like to run pay-per-click ads to get more visits to our new product,” and we could set up a campaign focused on that product to get more site visits.

If they get more clicks, has the client been successful? No. Because site visits are not a metric of success. They are, in very general terms, a metric of visibility and - maybe - interest.

Here is a (partial) list of what a pay-per-click ad needs to be successful: appropriate budget for market conditions, an effective landing page that meets Google’s criteria for quality score, good copywriting, conversion / goals tracking set up, an understanding of the  value of a conversion with respect to the value of the product or service offered, time in the day to keep track of all of these things on a regular basis, and ultimately you should be selling more product.

Another thing that hasn’t changed: every client wants is for their marketing to be “optimized.” They want their marketing cost to be as low as possible while still generating the business growth the stakeholders expect. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s the responsibility of our clients to run their businesses as profitably as possible. 

What we as marketing experts espouse, is that success in marketing isn’t an on or off switch. There are too many solutions and tools out there for things to be that simple. Optimizing marketing isn’t a decision about what tool to cut and what tool to keep. Each has a variety of applications, uses, and methods for driving success. You can’t just “set it and forget it” either. Marketing moves far too quickly for that.

Marketing done right is about choosing the right tools to get your message in front of the right people, at the right time, in the right place, and repeating it as often as necessary. 

And in almost no cases, does that mean choosing one tool. In nearly every case, it involved finding the right mix or the right tools to connect your customers to your product or service.

Optimized marketing is, necessarily, an ecosystem. 

Want to learn more? You’ll have to wait for Part II, coming to the next 4C Newsletter.