Digital Marketing: One Channel Won’t Do It

by Andrew Schulkind

At the risk of sounding like a broken record – I’ve discussed similar ideas recently here – you’re never going to maximize your return on your digital marketing investment if you rely on a single channel. Your website can’t do it alone, social media can’t do it alone. Ditto for email, direct mail, trade shows, webinars and anything else you can think of.

The Sum of the Marketing Parts

First and foremost, to get that real bang for our digital marketing buck you have to use multiple channels in a way that makes the sum of the parts greater than the whole. That might mean one channel amplifying another. Or one channel that encourages a prospect to dive deeper into a topic on which you’re an expert. Those relationships can take many forms but the common attribute is that the two channels working together complement one another. One channel adds strength where the other may be lacking and vice versa.

Don’t Put Your Eggs in One Marketing Basket

Just as importantly, you have to acknowledge the pace of change, not just in the digital world but in the marketing world more broadly. Facebook’s current troubles already have some advertisers reconsidering their commitment to that platform. That doesn’t mean the audience will necessarily abandon their Facebook feeds, but they might. And if that’s your only means of connecting with them, what will you do next?

Monitor Marketing Channels and Platforms

That doesn’t mean you should try to stay active in every channel you’ve ever heard of – and that your super-hip pre-teen tells you about. It means you have to hand select a small range of channels and monitor their health and effectiveness closely. Sure, there are occasional bombshell’s that you just can’t see coming. (If Louis C.K. was your spokesmodel …) But a slow fade is much more common and much easier to detect and react to. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

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