How to Solve the Biggest Problems with Synergy in Online Marketing

I graduated High School as the class of 1990 and by the early 2000s the emergence of the internet as a business tool was imminent.  I am now employed and operate within the online marketing industry. Although I am relatively new to the industry, I have been surrounded by it for almost half of my working life as most of my roles were either directly managing businesses or consulting to business owners.

Over this time, let’s call it 15 years I have been preached to about the importance of SEO, Google AdWords, website optimisation, social media strategy, PR, email marketing, yada, yada, yada...

It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge some of the great results that I have achieved from some of these activities that I have utilised on an individual basis but often concurrently. For example, first hand, I have had great success implementing and executing email campaign strategies that actually delivered on the goal of generating sales leads.

Even before I officially entered the industry, I had noticed that there were many online marketing companies that didn’t seem to operate with goal oriented accountabilities – simply, their results weren’t great and I found it difficult to get straight answers as to what it would take to leverage improved results if analytics were trending south.

Online technology would have to be one of the fastest growing industries in the modern world today. I am astonished what we can do with a smart phone and the capabilities of what we almost take for granted. I remember researching for school assignments and encyclopedias and the local library were the ‘keepers of all the knowledge’.

Now that I am a parent of two beautiful young daughters that need help with their own school assignments I have to acknowledge the evolution of resources and establish a new library – obviously, the internet on everything.

Even though I have been using a PC much longer than my children they still teach me things on the PC that I can’t deny.

A major component of the online marketing industry that I really enjoy is that it is always evolving.  I remember the old adage that previous mentors hammered into me -

‘the only thing constant in life is change’.

I am discovering the importance in my time and set aside schedule time to learn. It is important to stay abreast of current technology to get the most out of it.

Because a strategy worked in the online marketing industry in 2008, doesn’t necessarily mean it will work in 2016……or does it?

I was watching a clip on YouTube recently and the word ‘Gestalt’ was used. I had heard it used before but I opened the dictionary to get an accurate definition.

Gestalt

1. a configuration, pattern, or organized field having specific properties that cannot be derived from the summation of its component parts; a unified whole.
2. a perceptual pattern or structure possessing qualities as a whole that cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts.

Boom……got it.  Now I understood. I could almost hear the penny drop.  A light bulb moment had just occurred.

It highlighted a concept that I was already aware of from my past in managing teams of people. When managing for improved team dynamics, I had learnt the importance of team synergy. In essence, when a team of people had great synergy that worked more productively as a team than the sum of their individual abilities combined. E.g. A team of 5 people with great synergy, achieved better results than 5 individuals working separately as a total.

Synergy also works with online marketing strategy. You can be proficient within many verticals such as SEO, website optimisation, AdWords, PPC, email etc but you truly get dizzying results when you are employing all activities together to complement each other.

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When buyers and users see and read your content on the web, whether it is clearly identifiable or subliminal, they will notice the overall cohesion in your message and positioning. The consequence of this is usually trust – a desirable outcome to say the least.

To be able to competently manage all of these activities in a measurable and cost effective fashion, online marketers utilise marketing automation platforms and software.

We have used many over the years but have settled on HubSpot that we believe delivers online marketing activities that embraces this holistic approach.