How to find the best marketing channel mix for your brand.

Print, radio and television were the stalwarts of the past, but two factors have changed the landscape. First, the digital transformation of the last two decades has produced dozens of new marketing channels every year, from apps and chatbots to social influencers, smart TV ads and voice search. Second, more people, especially younger generations, distrust traditional media and prefer hearing from brands via alternative methods like social, video or word of mouth.

The crowded field breaks into two divisions. Digital: website, content, social (organic and paid), email, SEO, PPC, online advertising. Offline: print collateral, events, PR, speaker engagements and print advertising. Within both, some channels are core to any business, while others are experimental and specific to your brand or industry.

We all know the essentials needed to perform basic blocking and tackling: website, social, email, SEO, advertising. But while those may be enough to function, we are not interested in helping brands merely get by.

When building a marketing mix we include the essentials, but also industry-specific and experimental channels. A chatbot or webinar may look less proven than a website, but these tactics often reap unexpected rewards.

One example: we helped a blockchain-based luxury goods client launch into market. The mix included the core consumer channels (site, Google PPC, display, blog, social) and, as part of the content strategy, a sequenced outbound programme aimed at non-profit and social responsibility audiences with a heavily vested advocate community of over 4,000 professionals. Featuring major non-profits exponentially increased organic reach, kick-started social and drove hundreds of LinkedIn connections.

Digital tends to take the spotlight, but it often works best in tandem with offline. Together they amplify effectiveness and create a simple, unified experience across touchpoints.

It is easy for the balance to slip. Perhaps you sink most of the budget into digital and leave little for events, PR or thought leadership. Or you hire one agency for digital and another for PR, branding, print or events. It can look intuitive, but a full-service marketing and tech partner tends to deliver more value than a stack of siloed suppliers.

We take a channel-agnostic approach: our team covers all areas of marketing, so we do not push a specific channel. Where a PR agency will sell you PR and a digital agency will sell you digital, we build a holistic, multi-touch strategy with the right channels for your business and goals.

There is an opposite danger to not trying anything new: spreading yourself too thin. If you use too many channels, or chase every latest trend, you cannot put enough budget behind any of them to be effective. That leads to a vicious cycle: your marketing is not working, so the budget is cut, so it works less.

Guidance from a senior marketing partner helps sift the crowded landscape to find the best mix for your business, and puts the systems and tools in place to measure each channel. Measurement is the key: it tells you what is working, what is not, and where results should truly be attributed. A refined channel strategy is what lets your team create meaningful interactions with your target audience.