What does your marketing mix look like? Where do you invest most of your marketing budget?
Is it all sorts of marketing campaigns that take money out of your pocket, or do you focus on building modern marketing assets?
A couple of days ago I bumped into this short interview with HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan on “Why Right Now Is the Best Time to Start Your Business”. The title of the video didn’t particularly grab my attention, instead what made me have a closer look into it was the guest — business advisor Brian Halligan.
What I like most about Brian Halligan is that he often has a different approach to marketing. He doesn’t go with the crowd. When it comes to marketing he definitely has some interesting thinking patterns. This being said, I turned the speakers on and listened to his tips.
Before we dive deeper into the marketing mix topic, let me share with you this YouTube video provided by SUCCESS Magazine. Pay close attention to the tips on how to make the most of your marketing efforts.
Kudos to host Bryan Elliott and his show “Behind the Brand”. Great interview sessions with a lot of high-caliber guests.
How to Use Your Marketing Mix Intelligently
Clever businesses use their marketing budget wisely!
They don’t pour most of their money into buying liabilities. Instead they focus on building marketing assets. Remember, it’s better to own stuff (implying it’s the right stuff) than to rent stuff.
“Most companies when they look at their marketing budget, 90% of it is on campaigns: PPC, radio, television, you name it. 10% is on their people. Mine’s flipped. I want 90% on the people creating assets, maybe 10% on campaigns, where you can get that math to work.
When I say people and assets, its sort of what we were talking about before…
Each piece of content you create is this modern marketing asset that pulls customers in through Google, from social media and from blogs, and from other sites.
And so I want to build those assets up over time. It’s people who create those assets. I don’t wanna rent stuff, I wanna own stuff.
That’s what I advise people. Its the exact opposite of the way marketing has been done forever but I think a proper marketing department actually has a lot of people and a very little advertising budget. – Brian Halligan, CEO HubSpot
Let’s say you like the concept of using your marketing mix strategically and putting your efforts into creating sustainable marketing assets.
The next question you should be asking yourself is:
What can I add to my marketing asset bucket to boost the pulling power of my marketing mix while increasing ROI and onboarding more of the right clients?
***Quick Sidenote: Clever marketing is never about more clients; it’s always about more of the right clients.***
Let’s split the answer to this question into two parts: online and offline.
We want to activate both distribution AKA marketing channels and combine the power of the two.
1. ONline Marketing Assets.
Start a blog and make sure you own the content. Don’t publish all your valuable articles on LinkedIn, Tumblr, or Blogger. Set up WordPress for example and use your website to create high-quality content. Once you’re done with that, use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & Co. to promote your content.
If you don’t want to mess around with WordPress, fine. However, be aware of the fact, that once you publish your content on any of the above mentioned platforms, you no longer own it. Yes, you’re the author, but “they” are the owners of your content.
Now, I’m not suggesting you don’t publish posts on LinkedIn or create instant articles on Facebook. What I’m saying is, be strategic! Have your own blog and on top of that, if your resources allow you to do so AND the tactics align with your overall marketing strategy, publish content on networks you don’t own. Nothing wrong with that.
Next, pick the right social media channels and create compelling profiles. This is a biggie.
I see a lot of small business owners struggle with this one. Everybody is telling them to be on social media and the next thing you know is they sit down to set up an Instagram account to find themselves a couple of months later being in the “wrong place”.
Just because a lot of folks have an Instagram account it doesn’t mean you have to be on Instagram too. If your prospects and potential customers are not on Instagram, why on earth did you pick this channel in the first place?
Adding more and more tactics, activities or social media channels to your marketing mix without having a clear strategy AKA doing the same thing as everyone else does, is marketing insanity. This only leads you to spinning your wheels wondering why you are not achieving the level of success you’ve always wanted.
Therefore, find out where your audience likes to hang out and follow them there. Pick 2-3 social media channels, become really good at them – mastery is key, and only then add a third or fourth network to your marketing mix bucket.
If you’re a small business owner (applies to all sizes of companies too) you have more important stuff to do then send out 22 tweets per day, post 3 times on Facebook, upload 5 pictures to Instagram, respond to 10 irrelevant questions on LinkedIn, set up your StumbleUpon profile and you name it account. Let your social media people do that. Your main focus should be on generating revenue, increasing profits and getting the right clients on board.
Further online marketing assets to add to your marketing mix:
- Podcasting
- Email / Newsletter marketing
- Video marketing
- Slideshare marketing
- Backlinking
- etc.
2. OFFline Marketing Assets.
Offline marketing gets ignored a lot nowadays – especially by newbie marketers who think that all the gold is to be found online. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There is nothing more powerful than meeting a potential client face-to-face, getting to know him/ her and his/ her business really well and closing a deal right there.
Therefore I encourage you to attend trade shows, seminars, workshops, and all kinds of industry networking events to learn how to master customer touch points. Have a look at successful companies such as Apple and their offline approach. Apple excels at customer touch points (applies to digital AKA online touch points too) from product consideration to purchase, to use and after use.
Looking for ways to get to the next level by spicing up your offline marketing mix?
Add print media and snail mail to your current marketing strategy. Yes, you might get some nasty comments from peers saying you’re still living in the land of dinosaurs, but guess what?
Print mail works!
It works amazingly well and part of that is due to the fact that very, very few people and businesses do it. And, out of those who do it, the vast majority is doing it the wrong way.
So capitalize on that one and set yourself apart right from the beginning.
Wrapping It Up
Obviously, there are other modern and traditional marketing assets you can add to the list. Feel free to do so, however, make sure you’re investing your precious time and money into building assets, not liabilities disguised as assets.
If you’re wondering whether your marketing mix is good or not so good, have a look at your results. They will tell you what’s working and what not. Also, make sure you’re in this game for the long run. Don’t be shortsighted. That’s probably one of the most common mistakes people AKA businesses make.
Keep testing and tweaking until you get the results, profits and clients you want. It’s a process that requires you to have the right marketing mix AND proven marketing systems in place; systems that allow you to scale and leverage your own time (the most precious commodity in the universe!) and talents.
[Listen to the audio AKA podcast version of the Marketing Mix Assets blog above. You can download the episode with a click of a button. Have a listen. Enjoy.]
Party on marketing pros; you’re well suited for a bright future within the marketing mix world, and possibly on track to a bit of an identity crisis…
What are you doing to create the ideal marketing mix in your business?
