As a marketer, it’s easy to get swept up in those trending headlines. To feel the pressure of the bandwagon—and perhaps higher-ups—and pursue every new channel just for the sake of doing so, isn’t always a guarantee. When it comes to the avenues available through digital, this is no exception.
Digital marketing, after all, is simply another overall tactic in your brand’s toolbox. On their own, channels like email, social media, and search can’t fuel your business’ growth. It’s the interplay between them that proves most powerful, in addition to the in-motion strategies beyond digital that help shape company appearance and audience affinity.
Branding and Mission
Cohesion, cohesion, cohesion.
If there’s anything you should aim to achieve when building a brand, it’s consistent messaging that translates across every channel you distribute to. No matter where your audiences encounter you—online, through a billboard, commercials—they should be able to identify what they see as a reflection of what your brand represents.
At an even deeper level, this applies to your brand’s identity.
In order to remain relevant, digitally or otherwise, audiences expect a level of authenticity from the companies they choose to purchase like they never have before. This means that your business needs to spend time reflecting upon both who your audience is and the jobs-to-be-done on behalf of your products and/or services. Doing so allows you to create the framework for a brand people can connect and more importantly, truly relate to.
Customer Service
No matter how strong your branded imagery or digital presence may be, the human touch that is the customer service experience is something that can easily be overlooked and tends to be incredibly undervalued.
It’s difficult to grow a business without giving weight to every single step of the customer journey, whether online or otherwise. And this means considering how their experience unfolds beyond simply the click of an ad online.
A poor customer service experience can set the tone for future purchases, or lack thereof, just as good customer service can turn a negative situation around 360 degrees. It’s for these reasons that Zappos is often praised for their customer service culture, touting this as one of the main drivers in their business’ success.
A flashy logo and carefully crafted copywriting will only get your company so far when there fails to be any personal, thoughtful connection managing conversations behind-the-scenes.
Word-of-Mouth
While it can prove to be difficult to control, word-of-mouth is still argued to be one of the most powerful and effective forms of marketing a brand can hope for.
The advent of social saw many brands collecting versus connecting in the sense that they cared more about showing off as many followers as possible to the world rather than actually conversing with them. And this is a huge opportunity lost when considering that 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of advertising.
Offline, word-of-mouth is something that can be fostered, again, through the overall brand experience.
Having a share worthy mission, customer service team that exceeds expectations, billboards that creatively connect on a personal level with audiences, and more are all ways to foster ongoing conversation. And of course, focusing on perfecting a product in a way that customers can’t live without makes it much easier for them to advocate freely on your business’ behalf.
Employee Advocacy
From a similar angle, employee advocacy can do wonders for the growth of your business. This all starts with the development of a workplace culture that engages your workforce. After all, these are the individuals that keep the wheels turning.
They help steer the course for your brand’s direction, through digital marketing channels or otherwise. They should live and breathe what the brand represents at every step along the way. In doing so, you don’t only ensure profitable growth but the attraction of talented professionals ready to continue pushing business even further forward.
Interactive Marketing
Sometimes experience unfolds best between a brand and their customers IRL (in real life).
Taking to the streets to engage audiences through creative and interactive events, pop-ups, displays, and so on is unique in the sense that we spend so much of our time consumed by screens and constant distractions. When a business makes the effort to eagerly meet their fans on the frontline, it fuels awareness in incredibly memorable ways.
In addition, guerilla marketing tactics such as these give brands public platforms to further drive home their mission. Whether through partnerships with other organizations or clever visual installations, there’s still value to be found in the more traditional methods of advertising, especially alongside areas with heavy foot traffic.
The value of digital marketing for businesses today has been made clear time and time again. On the other end of the spectrum though, are a variety of other personal and tangible aspects of any good marketing strategy that should not be discounted. When all of these aspects work together, they triage up into the makings of a company customers purchase for the sake of not just necessity, but want.
What are some non-digital tactics your business finds ongoing success with? Let us know — send the team a Tweet to @mabblytribe.
