There are currently over 330 million registered businesses on Earth. That number is growing daily, as new businesses and entrepreneurs enter an already crowded market.

With such a crowded marketplace, it’s imperative that business owners do everything in their power to stand out. It’s the difference between thriving with a dedicated base of loyal customers versus fading into obscurity. 

Which means one thing – marketing. 

Marketing is one of the most essential tools for helping your business to stand out, flourish, and grow. Creating a marketing plan is a delicate science, though. You could spend years focusing solely on business marketing and still have things to learn. 

When you’re creating your marketing plan, you want to make sure to make the most of your efforts. We’ve all already got far too much on our plates to waste precious time, money, energy, and resources. Which is where holistic marketing comes into play. 

To help you streamline your marketing efforts and think in terms of the big picture, we’ve put together a short guide to holistic marketing so you can make the most of your company marketing.

What Is Holistic Marketing?

Let’s start with the basics. What is holistic marketing?

A short definition of a holistic marketing approach is “moving beyond the traditional marketing department to an enterprise-wide approach.”

So what does that mean? And why is holistic marketing so important if you want your business to continue to grow?

Marketing has grown infinitely more complex in the 21st Century. We’ve moved so far beyond traditional marketing models like direct marketing or advertising on traditional media like print, television, or radio.

In today’s heavily digital world, there’s a dizzyingly complex array of different marketing disciplines. Today, there’s everything from inbound marketing to content marketing to influencer marketing. 

That’s not even mentioning things like reputation marketing or internal marketing. To make matters even more complex, you might have multiple departments working on a holistic marketing campaign.

Now let’s take a look at the individual components of a holistic marketing approach.

1. Internal Marketing Showcases Your Company Values

Internal marketing is how you pursue and promote your company’s values, culture, and goals. It’s how you show your customers what your company stands for. It also shows the importance of your employees in attaining these goals. 

Internal marketing is increasingly important in a world where customers value companies that match their morals. 

Internal marketing is also how you get your team working as a whole. This accomplishes everything from improving company morale to boosting productivity.

2. Relationship Marketing Builds Strong Customer Relations

Relationship marketing is how you relate to your customers. It constitutes everything from customer support to user experience. It’s how you turn. 

Relationship marketing is how you turn a casual visitor into a loyal customer. 

Relationship marketing is vital in a customer-centric world. So much relies on word-of-mouth advertising these days. It’s also far cheaper to retain a customer than it is to find a new one.

Relationship marketing is a reminder that sales aren’t everything. Every part of your organization is essential to run a successful business.

3. Social Responsibility Marketing Also Shows Your Values

As we said earlier, customers want to support businesses that match their values. In a world with so much competition, why would they want to give their money to someone harming the world?

Social responsibility marketing is how you show your customers what you stand for. This could be anything from supporting popular causes on social media to donating to charity. 

Social responsibility marketing offers the best of all worlds. You get to support causes you care about and get a bunch of attention at the same time. 

4. Integrated Marketing Helps You Work As A Team

Integrated marketing is one of the most important aspects of a holistic marketing approach in a digital world. It’s where you deliver a consistent experience across all aspects of your business. This means everything from your shopping cart to your social media marketing. 

Integrated marketing is also how you create a marketing strategy for implementation across your entire network.

An example of an integrated marketing strategy might be adding new products to your online catalog. First, you’ll need to create all the assets for the products. This could be anything from product photography to copywriting. 

Instead of leaving these assets stranded in a silo, you need to break these assets out and make them available to your entire organization. You might create a collaborative Kanban board, for instance, with a pool of all of the media for the marketing campaign. 

This way, you’re guaranteed to have a consistent tone and image across all of your marketing materials. It also saves a lot of work, as nothing gets lost in the mix, which reduces unnecessary communication and wasted time.

5. Performance Marketing Focuses Your Marketing Efforts

Performance marketing is where you start releasing your marketing materials into the world. This could be anything from PPC advertising to an influencer marketing campaign. Performance marketing is where you start leveraging your marketing materials to achieve your goals. 

Performance marketing is the closest to traditional digital marketing. You’ll need a solution in place to monitor performance. This could be anything from inbound clicks to actual sales.

Integrating performance marketing into your holistic marketing strategy lets you factor its insights into other aspects of your marketing strategy. You might notice one product photo in particular yielding excellent sales. You might prioritize that photo for your social media marketing campaigns as a result. 

Holistic marketing ensures that you make the most of all of your marketing efforts. You won’t waste any time or take on unnecessary tasks when you see the big picture of your marketing strategy. It also ensures your company works as a team rather than independent pieces.

Looking For Holistic Marketing?

There’s never been a more exciting time to be in business. There are so many exciting and powerful tools for cultivating our businesses and brands. It can also be a bit daunting to keep up with it all.

If you’re ready to find out how holistic marketing can take your business to the next level, contact us today to set up a consultation.