One of the biggest misconceptions about marketing is that businesses of every size think of it as a channel or different channels to use.

Frankly, this is the wrong mentality.

Why?

Because what happens is business owners inevitably start asking the wrong question: What’s my ROI on this channel? Did the channel make people buy my product or services? Channels that don’t “convert” are then just abandoned.

On the surface, you might ask: “Well, what’s wrong with that? If social (as an example) doesn’t convert, what good is it?”

The problem, of course, is that marketing isn’t about a single channel or channels at all. And some channels’ role (social is a good example) isn’t there to convert. That’s not what it’s good at. But it is good at making people aware of a product, service, or brand, a critical first part of any buyer journey.

The bottom line: marketing, at its most effective, is a system – of aggressive touches, consistent brand projection, and development of authority.

That’s what makes people buy.

It’s not about whether social or any other channel converts. It’s whether you make the right touch at a particular moment across multiple channels to the right potential clients/customers. 

In other words, everything you do in marketing all works together and adds up in the end. If you piecemeal it, you’re likely short-changing it and inevitably losing out to companies that really understand this in your market.

Companies Focus Too Often on Just In-Market Buyers

We’ve discussed quite a bit in this blog about the need for companies to think long-term, not just for immediate results, when it comes to marketing.

Yet, this is what many still do.

Indeed, if you take a look at any company, it’s often the channel that converts the most according to a last-touch perspective that gets the most investment. You can see this in the statistics.

• • According to Statista, about 40 percent of all ad budgets, for example, are consumed for paid search or Google Shopping-related keywords.
  • Email is another example. Some retail companies send an average of 1 email per day. Others may go up to 2 to 3 emails per day.

The focus on those marketing efforts makes sense on the one hand if you don’t look too deeply at what’s going on. Those channels, in a last-touch attribution sense, are often the channels that made someone “pull the trigger.”

But like we mention to clients all of the time: Data can lie to you. And that kind of approach ignores ALL the other touches those companies may have made to get those individuals to that point in the consideration process.

That’s why the better question is: What system should we put in place?

How Does a System Mentality Help Your Marketing?

First, you start understanding how the channels work together. Here’s an example of a typical buyer behavior.

• • Your company posts something on social media.
  • A follower sees it and likes or shares it. (Let’s assume this follower is already a customer or is intrigued by your company enough to follow)
  • Their network sees what the follower posts, and one person is interested and clicks through to the website.
  • That individual who clicks through to the site, looks around, and is generally, let’s say, impressed, but doesn’t buy right there.
  • Then your retargeting ad on Instagram or Google kicks in. The individual who visited the site sees the ad and again clicks on it. Maybe further intrigued. Again, that’s it. He or she kinda considers if now is the right time to buy, decides it’s not, and then leaves.
  • Then, a month or so later, that individual who visited multiple times is thinking about your company’s product or services and then searches for your brand in Google or on an AI platform, or types in your URL directly into the browser.
  • That individual sees the 10% off you’ve given on a first purchase to get on the email or SMS list and decides to do it. But doesn’t buy right away.
  • Your company then sends an email or text to that individual with the 10 percent off offer.
  • That individual saves the email. And a week later, goes back to using it. Clicks on the email and then goes to buy or inquire about a product or service. But then they stop, leave it in a cart, or don’t fully purchase.
  • That triggers your company’s abandoned cart email or SMS message, which reminds the customer that he or she left something in the cart. The company creates urgency to get that individual to buy it. Also, your website’s homepage reminds the individual when he or she comes back since it’s personalized to what they browsed or put in a cart.
  • Finally, that individual buys. Hooray. But it doesn’t end there.
  • Your company sends a confirmation email about the purchase and a guide on how to use the product.
  • And then, your company sends another email to that individual to review the product or service one week later, so that you can increase the number of ratings/reviews for that product, so that others who come to see that product or service will see the social proof that makes them buy.
  • Finally, you use that individual’s social proof in the next ad you run, so others will feel comfortable in taking that step, that it’s a reliable product or service.

This is actually a VERY typical scenario. You see the number of touches it took to get one person to buy something. There were:

• • Social media touches
  • Referral or sharing touches
  • The retargeting ad touches
  • The search engine optimization (SEO) or generative engine optimization (GEO) touches
  • The email/SMS list touches
  • The abandoned cart email touches
  • The post-purchase follow-up touches, including the confirmation and the guide on how to use it. And the request to review the product/services.
  • And then the use of that social proof in your ads.

As you can see, the above is a system. Not a single channel. And the best part? It mirrors how individuals or companies buy.

A System Mentality Helps You Drive Brand Consistency – Visual & Messaging

Here’s one of the biggest problems that occurs when you treat marketing as a single channel (or set of channels). As a business owner or manager of a midsize company, you might end up with tunnel vision, doing unique messaging in email versus what you say on the website. Maybe you try to be funny with abandoned cart messaging because someone told you that it works. But maybe on the other hand, you’re more serious on the website. Maybe your visuals in ads are dark and aimed at promoting elegance, but in email or on the website, you don’t come across that way at all.

When you take a system mentality, you tend to project your brand consistently across everything. Your narrative never changes, and you use every touch point to reinforce what you want the brand to be equated with.

Over time, what happens?

With repetition and some aggressiveness in putting yourself out there, your brand becomes known for that very thing you’re projecting. But it doesn’t happen without system and the brand rigor that goes with it.

Conclusion

As always, don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consultation if you need strategic marketing help. Or if you just want to talk through the different ways we can support your success.