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Everything Is Connected

One thing I think a lot of brands underestimate is just how connected all of their marketing really is.

It’s easy to think of social media, ads, email, the website, content, SEO or eCommerce as separate things. They may live in different platforms and get handled by different people, but from the customer’s point of view, they’re all part of the same experience.

And what happens in one area can have a pretty big impact on everything else.

When the right pieces are in place, they start helping each other.

Good organic content doesn’t just create likes or engagement. It can build awareness, introduce new people to the brand, and create audiences that can later be reached again through paid media.

Prospecting ads can bring new people into the mix, while retargeting keeps you in front of people who have already watched, clicked, visited or shown some kind of interest.

Email can continue that relationship. And the website or landing page has to give all of that attention somewhere useful to go.

When it’s working well, there’s a compounding effect.

But it works the other way too.

AB Strategy Marketing Field Notes 002 cover: “Everything Is Connected” by Anton Bass, over a photograph of Niagara Falls and a hot air balloon.
“It’s easy to look at things one piece at a time: ads, social, email, website. But your audience doesn’t experience them separately.”
“Your customers experience one journey. Not separate marketing channels.” Text appears over a waterfront park photograph.
Examples of connected marketing: a great ad can lead to a website that loses people, a social following doesn’t automatically create customers, and content without a system can lose momentum.
“Every piece affects the next.” Organic content builds awareness, ads create opportunities, email continues the conversation, and the website turns attention into action.
“When something isn’t working, the problem may not be that thing. It could be somewhere else in the chain.” Text appears over a waterfront photograph.

You can have great ads sending people to a website that creates friction or doesn’t convert.

You can build a strong social following without having any real system for turning that attention into customers.

You can spend money finding new audiences while completely missing the opportunity to stay in front of the people who already know who you are.

Sometimes all the tactics are technically there, but they’re not really supporting the same objective.

That’s why I don’t like looking at one marketing tactic in isolation.

If something seems to be underperforming, the problem may not actually be that particular thing. It could be somewhere else in the chain.

For me, that’s another big part of strategy: stepping back far enough to see the whole picture and understand what role each piece is supposed to play.

What are we actually trying to accomplish?

What do we need in place to get there?

And how do we make sure the time, attention and money being invested in one area is helping the rest of the system work better too?

Because when everything starts supporting everything else, marketing becomes less about doing a bunch of things and more about building momentum.

— Anton Bass
Founder, AB Strategy