September 2017 - Rottman Creative

Holistic Digital Marketing Part 2: Platforms and tools

Once you’ve outlined your holistic digital marketing strategy, it’s time to choose the platforms and tools that will propel your organization toward your goals. A combination of retargeting, email marketing, segmentation, and automation is effective for reaching members and finding new prospects.

Retargeting and Prospecting

Depending on your goals, you can use retargeting to reach existing members (a.k.a. known users) or lookalike audiences based on your current member profile (a.k.a. unknown users). You can focus your efforts on a single platform, such as Facebook, or use web retargeting for a potentially broader reach.

To achieve results for web retargeting, you will likely need to enlist the help of a partner, such as AdRoll, for sufficient purchasing power. For many associations, Facebook offers more affordable solutions and better results.

Facebook Retargeting

Facebook is the most popular social media platform (with nearly 2 billion users!) and it offers great potential to reach your target audiences and convert users to members and attendees. With Facebook’s custom audiences and lookalike audiences, you can segment ads, measure conversions, and optimize campaigns. New features, such as audience insights, offline events, analytic reports, and product catalogs offer additional opportunities.

Segmentation

Before you launch any campaigns, consider segmenting your list into broad categories. Segmentation contributes to holistic marketing because you can use it to tailor your messaging based on what the individuals in your audience need to hear.

For your retargeting efforts, segmenting increases the relevancy of your message and boosts response as a result. For email marketing, segmentation leads to higher opens, clicks, and conversions. How much higher? MailChimp estimates that segmented email campaigns see a 14.31% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click rate than non-segmented campaigns.

To take advantage of the benefits of segmentation, first define your segments. Consider categories such as first-time and repeat attendees, members and prospects, stage of the buying cycle, age, demographics, or location. Aim for no more than three audience segments (any more than three can be too complex to manage). Then, on a per message basis, determine whether each promotion goes to a specific segment or your entire audience.

Holistic SEO

Another component of holistic digital marketing is your search engine optimization. While SEO of the past was centered around keywords and backlinks, today’s SEO is all about relevancy to the user. It is increasingly content-driven. For best results, your content should be integrated with your other digital marketing efforts, such as your social media marketing, web retargeting, and email campaigns.

Marketing Automation

Integrated marketing is made infinitely easier with a marketing automation platform, such as Informz. Marketing automation can help you segment your list, personalize messaging, schedule ongoing campaigns, and track results with real-time reporting. Holistic marketing is customer-focused, and marketing automation provides insights and tools to personalize your efforts based on customer needs.

Measure for Success

As a best practice, you should continually evaluate performance and make adjustments based on actual campaign metrics to ensure your desired outcomes are being met. Below are three digital marketing KPIs that are especially relevant to associations.

Conversions—new members, subscriptions, class enrollment, etc.
Expanded brand awareness—number of ad impressions, site visitors
Engagement—clicks, email addresses submitted, inbound inquiries

Your specific KPIs should be based on your organization’s goals and objectives. Click here for the full list of 12 KPIs every association should measure.

Digital marketing offers a wealth of possibilities that support holistic marketing. With the right tools in place, you can segment your list and customize your message based on deep audience insights. You can track campaigns, messages, and offers as well as where each individual is in the buying cycle. Most importantly, you can access advanced data and analytics to guide your efforts today and next year. As a result, your audience enjoys a seamless customer experience—they get what they need when they need it. At the same time, you gain loyal followers who rally around your cause and sustain your organization into the future.

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How to Maximize your Outcomes and Budget

Holistic Digital Marketing Part 1: Strategy

Why You Should Market Holistically for Long-Term Sustainability

What is Holistic Marketing?

What do associations need to do to inspire members?

How to Maximize your Outcomes and Budget

Holistic Digital Marketing Part 1: Strategy

Digital marketing offers endless possibilities to get your messages in front of members and prospects. It’s tempting to jump on the latest trend, platform, or technique to cast a wide net. The result, however, can be a hodgepodge of offers and images that don’t support your core value proposition and don’t speak to individual customer journeys. Poor ROI and low engagement are the inevitable outcomes with this approach.

A better idea is to take a holistic approach to your digital marketing. Holistic marketing looks at the big picture of your brand and how all the pieces work together. It inspires and engages your audience through consistent, unified messaging that meets people where they are in the buying cycle. Holistic digital marketing will tell you where to focus your online efforts to maximize your resources, budget, and outcomes. Here’s how to get started.

Take inventory of your brand ecosystem

Before you can take a holistic approach to any marketing—digital or otherwise—you must take inventory of all aspects of your brand. Consider your digital platforms, such as your website and social media feeds. Add in your organization’s assets, like your events and membership. You will also need to consider your audience and segments as well as your budget and the timing of your initiatives.

Establish Objectives and KPIs

Before you ever brainstorm a campaign, establish objectives and KPIs to measure progress. These will help you know where to focus your energy and budget. In addition to your attendance, membership, and retention goals, your digital marketing objectives might include click-though rates, reach, impressions, and conversions (ex: downloads, purchases, form submissions).

Analyze Past Performance

Take a look at your past digital marketing initiatives and try to extract key insights. Was there a particular offer or message that resonated with your audience? Did a specific platform gain more traffic than others? Which information piece was downloaded most? Were there any flops? Knowing where you’ve been can help you determine where to go next. Quantify results whenever possible (ex: cost per click, lead, or conversion).

Examine Your Audience

Next, take an in-depth look at your audience. Besides the standard audience analysis (who are they, what do they care about?), holistic digital marketing requires a few additional questions.

How do people access your content and messages?
(ex: mobile vs. social, Explorer vs. Chrome)
Which social media platforms do they prefer?
What communication formats do they prefer?
(ex: email, social, SMS, direct mail)
What are they actually reading?
(ex: blogs, whitepapers, microsites, event info)
What insights can you gain from available data?
(ex: age, geography, demographics, member/non-member, etc.)

Give the People What They Want

Tailor your efforts based on the answers to these questions. If your audience prefers a mobile experience, your website design must be responsive and optimized for mobile users. If they spend more time on Facebook than Twitter, don’t worry about advertising on Twitter. If they convert more often over email, allocate additional resources to email.

Optimize Your Budget and Timing

Choose digital strategies based on how you can best move people along their customer journeys within your available budget. Time your initiatives with the buying cycle as well as your organization’s calendar and other industry events (ex: conferences, course offerings, changing regulations, membership renewal deadlines).

Maintain Consistency

Whichever strategies you settle on, keep in mind that holistic marketing is a 360-degree approach to reaching your audience. Its success depends on consistency online and off. To build trust and recognition among your base, your digital assets should match your real-world assets—not only in look and feel but in voice and personality as well.

Monitor Performance

Track KPIs over time to gauge the success of your digital initiatives and timing. Did you meet your goals and objectives? Make adjustments as needed—in real time if possible, or use your findings as benchmarks for next year.

Holistic digital marketing makes it possible to reach your audience with the right content on the right channel at the right time. It helps you get the most out of your budget while minimizing staff time and resources. What does that look like in practical terms? Tune in next week for Holistic Digital Marketing Part 2: Platforms and Tools.

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NOT ANOTHER SNOOZELETTER.

Holistic Digital Marketing Part 2: Platforms and tools

Why You Should Market Holistically for Long-Term Sustainability

What is Holistic Marketing?

What do associations need to do to inspire members?

Why You Should Market Holistically for Long-Term Sustainability

What is Holistic Marketing?

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
— Aristotle

Imagine how effective your marketing would be if all your channels worked seamlessly together—reinforcing your core brand message and promoting key campaigns to engage and inspire your audience. A holistic marketing strategy can achieve this precision. It thinks through each aspect of your marketing and figures out how all the pieces work together. As a result, you’ll provide a meaningful, consistent member experience that rallies people to your organization, drives engagement, and ensures a loyal long-term following.

4 Components of Holistic Marketing

Effective holistic marketing includes four essential components to help you see the big picture of your brand: relationships, integration of all brand touch points, your internal team, and marketing performance.

Relationship marketing

Given the overwhelming amount of marketing noise your members and prospects face every day, you need more than a slick website or a great offer to win their trust and loyalty. Relationship marketing helps you build meaningful engagement with current members and establish rapport with prospects. It requires you to reach people where they are and provide relevant info, connections, and tools that will meet their individual goals and challenges. Sure, this takes time and effort, but the payoff can be huge.

Cultivate relationships and people will join, attend, and engage because they’re internally compelled and inspired to do so—not because you’ve pushed them or “sold” them on anything. Connect with people on multiple levels: as individuals, based on what they do, continuously over time, directed towards an outcome, everywhere they are (marketing mix). Do this and you will have a steady supply of brand ambassadors who roll up their sleeves to further your industry and organization.

Integrated marketing

Most people aren’t ready to join your association the first time they hear about you. They need time to get to know you, explore your offerings, and understand your value. Individuals undergo a journey from awareness, to attending your events, to joining as a member. Eventually, they might also become loyal long-term followers.

Integrated marketing means giving members and prospects what they need when they need it to continue on their customer journey. Integrated marketing is about more than just splashing the same slogan, identity, and colors on every marketing channel. It weaves a coherent story through everything the brand does. No matter where someone encounters your organization or where they are in their customer journey, they should get the same seamless brand experience and the same authentic brand story.

To achieve integrated marketing, align your message, communication, and brand images across all marketing channels—online and off. Use marketing automation technology to facilitate this process and to create a cohesive marketing plan instead of silos.

Internal marketing

Internal marketing means all departments within your organization are aware of the marketing plan, work to support it, and have access to spreadsheets, calendars, communications, timelines, and budget. Everyone on your internal team must understand your overall vision as well as your individual promotions, standard messages, and current offers. Your team should be deeply familiar with the full range of your offerings and how members benefit from each one.

When your whole team knows the big picture and works toward a common goal, everyone wins. Your members and prospects get a consistent brand experience that meets their needs, and you save time and money by streamlining your efforts.

Performance marketing

To know what’s working you must track marketing performance and measure progress toward your goals. Key performance indicators are measurable values that show you how effectively your association is achieving key objectives. Establish KPIs and measure campaign performance to inform next steps, make better decisions, overcome challenges, and achieve your overall mission. KPIs maximize your budget and staff resources while generating better results. They help you use real-time data to make smart decisions for your marketing and your long-term sustainability.

Establish your goals first. Then assign objectives and KPIs. Once you define these parameters, you can begin brainstorming the individual strategies and campaigns that will propel your organization forward.

Why do you need holistic marketing?

With holistic marketing, you can go beyond simply promoting your organization and your offerings. You can rally your base to join together, form a movement, and further your mission. Holistic marketing is a surefire way to inspire and compel people—rather than push them or convince them. While it takes a little more work up front, over the long haul you’ll have a much easier time meeting registration, membership, and retention goals. As an added benefit, you’ll save time and money by integrating your efforts and streamlining your internal processes.

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NOT ANOTHER SNOOZELETTER.

How to Maximize your Outcomes and Budget

Holistic Digital Marketing Part 1: Strategy

Holistic Digital Marketing Part 2: Platforms and tools

3 Components of Holistic Email Marketing