Always on marketing refers to marketing efforts that are ongoing, consistent, and integrated across multiple channels. Unlike traditional marketing campaigns that have a defined start and end date, always on marketing is a continuous approach.
The goal with this strategy is to create a constant brand presence and engagement with your target audience. The idea is that this helps nurture potential customers through the entire sales funnel, not just during a short-term campaign.
Some key elements of an always on marketing strategy include content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, email marketing, PR, and customer service. Using diverse tactics and touchpoints can help to build brand awareness and loyalty over time.
What’s the Difference Between Always-On Marketing and Traditional Marketing Campaigns?
Traditional marketing campaigns are time-bound initiatives that promote a specific product, service, or event. Examples include TV commercials for a new product launch, a holiday email promotion, or a trade show presence.
In contrast, always on marketing focuses on long-term brand building rather than short-term conversions. The messaging and visual identity remain consistent.
Campaign-based marketing tends to use fewer marketing channels than on marketing, which leverages every opportunity to stay top of mind. From social media to SEO to customer retention programs, the brand presence persists 24/7.
Ultimately, always on marketing aims to nurture relationships across the entire customer lifecycle. Campaigns focus solely on moving consumers within a limited timeframe, often just the awareness or consideration stage.
Read “The Online Presence Playbook: Mastering Digital Marketing Success”.
What Channels Can Be Used for Always on Marketing and How?
There are many channels businesses can leverage for on marketing. Some popular ones include:
- Social Media
Maintaining active social profiles, posting engaging content regularly, running contests, and monitoring conversations provide a constant brand presence.
- Content Marketing
This might include blogging, eBooks, infographics, videos, and other informative content that increases traffic over time.
- Email Marketing
Regular promotional emails, newsletters, and nurture campaigns keep the brand top of mind with subscribers. Automated email sends can help to maintain continuity.
- Paid Ads
Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn ads with always on budgets ensure the brand persists in paid search and social results.
The key is utilising these diverse digital and offline channels in a coordinated, ongoing way to engage customers continuously.
What are the Benefits of Always on Marketing?
Adopting always on marketing provides several important benefits.
To begin with, continually creating new general content and experiences increased brand awareness with target audiences. This also builds onto long-term SEO strategies which can compound over time and bring sustainable traffic to the site. These persistently built-on brand identities can also help set the business apart from competitors to rely on campaign-based marketing.
Long-term strategies like always on marketing are also often more efficient in terms of spend. This is because you can spend months or years refining your strategy and sales pipeline based on the data you get back, rather than only being able to take some learnings forward to a completely new campaign. This results in a slick, optimised user journey and sales pipeline.
Why Can Always on Marketing be Challenging?
Though impactful, achieving always on marketing presents some challenges:
- Effort
Always on marketing requires considerable time, organisation, and resources to coordinate diverse marketing tactics seamlessly. For example, fresh, frequent content creation is needed to make channels like social media and blogging effective. This can strain in-house resources.
- Ongoing Budget
Unlike limited-run campaigns, always on marketing means a consistent budget is necessary to fuel ongoing activities.
- Keeping Momentum
With no fixed end date, teams may lose motivation or purpose without the right focus and metrics around their always on marketing.
- Staying Current
Tactics and trends change rapidly, so brands must proactively update approaches regularly to stay relevant.
While the effort is substantial, the long-term gains of always on marketing warrant the investments for most brands. Proper planning and resource allocation are key to overcoming the roadblocks.
What are some examples of Always on Marketing?
Coca Cola
The drinks brand enjoys an active social media presence and sends an email newsletter, frequent TV ads, sponsorships, mobile ads, and more. This produces an “always on” effect. Their competitors RedBull focus on different always-on tactics targeting their target market, including athlete sponsorships and university campus marketing.
Salesforce
Salesforce has made themselves a voice of authority within their industry with a B2B content hub, podcast, annual conference, and Trailhead education platform to supplement their real-time CRM.
Amazon
Amazon’s strategy includes regular email promotions, personalised homepages for users, Alexa interactions, and various forms of advertising to reinforce the brand every day.
These brands combine digital and traditional marketing to engage audiences 365 days a year.
Tips to Get Started with Always on Marketing
If you want to transition from short-term campaigns to an always on marketing approach, here are some tips:
- Audit your current marketing and set some objectives for your new strategy
- Carry out a SWOT analysis to identify your previous successes, as well as any gaps and opportunities to improve continuity. Use this audit to define your brand positioning, target audience, and goals for always on marketing - make sure you’re using KPIs!
- Budget for continuity
- Plan budgets and resources to support ongoing activities long-term without interruption. This can also include a hiring strategy where you seek individuals with specialised skills in content production, analytics, and channel management.
- Create an editorial calendar
- Plot out important dates, themes, product launches, and other content anchors. Think about developing asset libraries which can be repurposed multiple times across different channels.
- Utilise automation
- Use tools to schedule social media, email sends, and advertising for consistent delivery, as well as workflows with personalisation to respond to user activity.
- Test and optimise
- Leverage data and insights to refine your channel mix, messaging, creatives, and strategy.
With careful planning and commitment to the always on mindset, you can break through the clutter and drive real business impact.
Conclusion
Always on marketing provides a major competitive advantage in today's fractured media landscape. By utilising diverse tactics to stay continuously engaged with target audiences, brands build meaningful relationships that translate to sales.
While achieving always on marketing presents some challenges, the long-term benefits make the investment well worth it. With strategic planning and resource allocation, businesses can overcome the hurdles.
At Spidergroup, our team of digital marketing experts can help implement and manage an always on marketing strategy tailored to your brand's needs. With capabilities in content creation, email marketing automation, and more, we drive real results - not just temporary awareness.
To learn more about how our data-driven approach can help your brand achieve always on marketing success, don't hesitate to get in touch. Consistent visibility and lead generation awaits.
