Create a Content Garden: Cross-Pollination & Your Marketing Strategy
Like many who are stuck at home during quarantine, I’ve spent a lot of time getting my hands dirty in the garden. While I like to think a little garden therapy clears my mind as I’m watering and weed pulling, the reality is that my brain jumps from topic to topic, often landing on aspects of my 9-to-5 in marketing. Building a strong content marketing strategy is a lot like planning to grow the perfect tomato (bear with me here, this metaphor will be fruitful).
Cross-pollination is a gardening strategy in which you plant a variety of crops from the same species so that the resulting plants take on the positive qualities of each, resulting in newer, better varieties. You can cross-pollinate tomatoes to get different colors or fruits that bloom on a schedule that’s more convenient for your needs. Similar to a garden cross-pollination strategy, within marketing, you want to use multiple variations of promotion in order to produce the best result.
In the age of ad blockers, carefully curated social media pages, and “opt-in” email newsletter subscriptions, a marketer’s job has gotten tougher when it comes to reaching their audiences. Bothersome ads get swatted like flies in the summer. That’s why it has never been more important for content marketers to use multiple touchpoints to connect with their target audience and stay in the public consciousness. Here’s how you can effectively use your marketing toolkit to plant seeds in your prospect’s minds and maximize engagement.
Start with a Strong Foundation: Your Landing Page
A landing page is considered ‘low-hanging fruit’ in that it’s pretty easy to create and put into action. However, that doesn’t mean it is any less important than the more aggressive marketing strategies of direct advertising and email mailers. For this example, let’s say you’re working with a senior living community who is planning a Pinot and Picasso Night. A landing page is where you’ll place the bulk of the information about the event, including the guest artist, links to vendors, as well as the date, time, and location details. Be sure to also include contact or reservation info to make it easy to sign up. No matter if you’re spreading the word on social media or through Google Ads, everything you post will need to lead back to your foundational landing page.
Choosing a Variety of Marketing Crops
Just as different tomato varieties have different properties for taste, coloring, and bloom rate, each marketing strategy has something unique to bring to the table and get users to access your landing page. Blog posts will catch the eyes of seniors who are regularly visiting your website, while pay-per-click (or PPC) ads can be used to target art-loving seniors who may not be as familiar with your community. Below you’ll learn how each marketing “variety” can work together to produce the best result for your event.
Blog Posts
Sprinkle your senior living community website with blogs leading up to the event, including interviews with the lead artist or a piece about the positive effects of art therapy for seniors. This helps create a “story” of your event that can pique interest and encourage more reservations (be sure to lead back to the main event landing page at the bottom of each blog!)
Social Media
Crosspost these blogs to social media, where it’s easy for seniors to share articles with their friends with a click of a button. In addition, create an event page on Facebook. Add some reminder posts into your social media calendar (Paintbrushes at the ready? Can’t wait to see you next week at the Pinot and Picasso party!) so that your followers will get a refresher. It’s important to note that different social media platforms are more popular at certain times and on certain days of the week. So with a keen social media strategy in your back pocket, you can ensure that your posts go live at a time when they will get the most eyes.
PPC Ads
Creating a blog and social media campaign provide the bulk of the information for your event, but pay-per-click (PPC), email newsletters, and mailers offer additional support. Creating a PPC campaign with Google Ads will allow you to send targeted ads to those who are likely to be interested. Ads can be served directly to certain age groups, genders, and special interests, so when art and wine-loving seniors are online, your advertisement is likely to show up and grab their interest.
Email Newsletters & Mailers
A similar goal can be accomplished with email newsletters or direct mailers. Work with a marketing company that can provide you with an email or mailer list of those who fit the demographics for your senior living community. Once you have this information, you can plan to send a couple of email newsletters about the event, your event-related blogs, or something else entirely (with a handy call-out to the event at the bottom).
A similar strategy can be employed for postcard mailers, which are delivered straight to a prospect’s mailbox. These postcards work best as event invites as seniors can place them on their refrigerator, use them as bookmarks, or pass them amongst friends as reminders of what’s to come.
Reaping the Benefits of a Multi-tiered Marketing Strategy
With a dedicated landing page for your event, regular social media posts, and direct marketing campaigns via ads, newsletters, and postcards, you’ve exercised everything in your toolkit to plant your event in the public consciousness and entice those who may be interested in attending. The resulting seed is made stronger by the supporting elements that “cross-pollinate” your content.
Sound like a lot for just one business or one person to take on? Working with a content marketing company like EnVeritas Group (EVG) takes that cumbersome marketing weight off your shoulders so you can focus on the actual event details like vendors, supplies, and those oh-so-important snacks and refreshments. EVG has an experienced marketing team ready to help you cross-pollinate your business and events. Give us a call today to learn how we can help you develop a strategy.
Trina Dunn – Sr. Account Manager
