The Marketing Ecosystem

Most marketing ecosystems are complex. Understanding your ecosystem and its components is paramount to running a successful website and marketing campaign so you can help your target audiences solve their most pressing problems.

How do you currently direct your people to your website?

This deceptively simple question is actually far more complex than one may think and, for some businesses, could be the secret sauce that will improve your website performance and sales.

It’s a channel thing.

Traffic channels are the avenues people use to access your main digital property (for most people, their website). Not every customer is exactly the same, therefore, not every customer is going to come to your site the same way. In order to really scale your business and ensure you are capturing as many opportunities as possible, you should work to engage your audience where they are seeking information and make it easy for all your target audiences to find your site through their preferred marketing channels.

What’s your ecosystem look like?

This graphic is just a quick peek into the complexity of a marketing ecosystem accessible by your clientele (check out the full version here). It’s difficult to capture the full complexity of this system so this sample is merely an example of what your ecosystem could look like. Most marketing ecosystems include a subset of these types of channels. Some could be even more complex, depending upon how many different audiences the business is targeting and how different each of these is. Looks pretty complex, right? It is. But fret not, you don’t have to address every channel in your own particular ecosystem and certainly don’t have to engage each potential opportunity at once.Trying to touch every entry point at once would be overwhelming for all but the most mature businesses and would result in an unsustainable distribution of resources.

This graphic is just a quick peek into the complexity of a marketing ecosystem accessible by your clientele (check out the full version here). It’s difficult to capture the full complexity of this system so this sample is merely an example of what your ecosystem could look like. Most marketing ecosystems include a subset of these types of channels. Some could be even more complex, depending upon how many different audiences the business is targeting and how different each of these is. Looks pretty complex, right? It is. But fret not, you don’t have to address every channel in your own particular ecosystem and certainly don’t have to engage each potential opportunity at once.Trying to touch every entry point at once would be overwhelming for all but the most mature businesses and would result in an unsustainable distribution of resources.

When developing your marketing ecosystem, the first step is to identify all the potential buying centric venues your target audience visits to seek information and solutions to their chief challenges. To accomplish this effectively, you should ask critical questions and dive deep into your customers’ preferences and where they are interacting with other businesses to identify where your marketing activities (and money) is best directed. Leverage the channels that your customers are using most to reach the right people at the right time with your message – offering solutions to their challenges. (Don’t know where your targets go to get information? We built a handy worksheet to help identify your target audience.)

Once you have established the right opportunities to start conversations with your potential clients, you have effectively crafted your own marketing ecosystem; one that takes into consideration the systems your customer base uses to seek information and one in which you can effectively engage with them.

Working the (eco)system

An interesting benefit to the complexity of the marketing ecosystem is the opportunity to leverage multiple channels to work with one another to build truly effective and engaging campaigns. Each component of your ecosystem has the ability to engage your audience in different, but coordinated ways. Allowing each channel to work effectively in its own particular way to engage your audience’s imagination – then building upon the emotional responses you have created – is key to moving your audience around your own micro-system with the ultimate goal of building relationships and closing sales.

You might engage in a Twitter campaign to tease your followers to view your Instagram account where you have posted a short animation or video that then drives people to your YouTube account where they can watch an extended video or webinar about your product or service. From here, they are encouraged to not only visit your website to join your email list but initiate a conversation or sale as well. You might even ask that they, themselves expand your reach through sharing opportunities on their own social channels, which would provide insights into other ecosystem-expansion opportunities to explore as you grow your influence.

Again, take a moment to look at the image above, what current methods are you using in your marketing ecosystem? Do you see other ways you can leverage different components to work together?

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As always, if you need assistance identifying and exploring your own, unique marketing ecosystem, we are here to help!