ROI is only achieved and then improved if your marketing:
- has a clear goal
- is measured on real business value
To achieve a real ROI then, your business can’t rely on only one marketing tactic. OK, sure you can try – go ahead… we’ll hang out here and wait for you – but I’m 100% convinced it’s not going to get you anywhere. We’ve tried. The results are dismal.
It’s all about integration. But when we start integrating multiple marketing tactics, we come across some problems:
- it can cost more (not to be confused with return – ideally more cost means more return), and
- how do we effectively measure one tactic over another?
We need a clear strategy.
Fear not, my intrepid marketing/boss person. We have a solution that has been working extremely well. It’s rooted in traditional media relations, is all about content creation and will boost your SEO (so I think we hit all the hot buttons). In time, I’m sure you can use AI and Big Data to really excel in this area (2018’s hot buttons).
To make it easy to remember, and even more trendy, we refer to it as POSE. It is the integration of:
- P - Paid Media
- O - Owned Media
- S - Shared Media
- E - Earned Media
Want to know how to implement it? Then read on…
The strategy goes like this:
1 – What are your goals?
This is a conversation for another time, but you need goals. If you do not have goals now, do not pass Go and do not collect $400.
2 – Who is your audience?
You need to know who your prospective customers are. Think closely about your target audience and their personas. Our recent blogs will help you with What is a ‘Buyer Persona’ and How Can It Boost Your Sales? And Buyer Personas to Prequalify Prospects.
3 – Build your content. One of the easiest ways to do this is to first think about the messages:
- Main message
- Secondary message/s
- Sub message/s
Once you have your message, you can actually write stories. We define stories as long form writing that reinforces your messages, but isn’t ready for the outside world yet. That’s because it needs to be tweaked depending upon how you’ll use it (POSE).
4 – Paid Media – part 1. Hold that thought – we’ll come back to this…
5 – Owned Media. Now you have the content, you can use your owned media to distribute this. This includes websites, blogs, newsletters, emails, company magazines etc. This is not going to cost you much so long as you have great processes in place.
The secret, of course, is creating and nurturing your own databases. If you can do this, you have plenty of owned media opportunities. Owned media should be the media with the highest ROI for you.
6 - Shared Media. This is social media – you remember… Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and all the other platforms you love.
Once you have a process, then again this is pretty simple, and shouldn’t cost much.
For example, every time you translate a ‘story’ into a blog, you can write the specific social media you need. So, every time a blog goes live, you have related LinkedIn, Facebook, and (let’s say) three Twitter posts ready to be scheduled.
Some of your ‘stories’ can be social media campaigns.
What’s ROI like here? Well, the cost is low, but really your ROI objectives here are getting a direct contact (not getting clients). You can measure exposure, likes, re-postings etc, but what does that really mean in terms of sales?
7 - Earned Media. Aka traditional media relations. The cool thing about having your owned and shared media going, is it is kind of like a test-bed to what will be successful in earned media. Look, you know how to do PR, so we won’t go on about that.
I’m sure you already have ROI measures in place for media relations.
8 - Paid Media – part 2. Revisited. You can view paid media in two ways. Sometimes you need to pay to promote your shared media. Yes, you know that your social media Facebook posts are only hitting 10% of your followers – so the only way to reach them all (and new prospects) is to pay-to-play.
Paid media is also advertising – be that online or in more traditional media. Both have their places in a successful integrated marketing campaign.
Whatever your paid media strategy, you’ll no doubt be measuring that ROI too.
There you have it. You have the content and you’ll use shared media to distribute it, paid media to amplify it, and earned media to rubber-stamp it.
Want more advice on improved marketing strategies for your business? Give us a call to find out how we can help you.