How To Maximize Your Traffic With A Balanced Marketing Mix [Actionable Guide]

In digital marketing, you cannot put all your eggs in one channel. Remember the frustration when Facebook reduced organic reach a few years ago? Instead, you need a balanced marketing mix that combines short-term and long-term tactics.

Long-Term vs. Short-Term Marketing Mix

In the past 30 days, how much effort and resources have I invested in short-term vs. long-term marketing efforts?

If you don’t know how to answer this question, there are two ways to estimate it.

First, look at your email sent folder and social media posts. Make a list of how many of those messages are designed to create short-term results vs. long-term marketing results.

Second, use a time-tracking tool like Toggl.com to track your time for a week.

This distribution is heavily weighted towards long-term tactics because I’m gearing up to launch a business book on Kindle in the fall.

Why You Need A Marketing Mix?

The appeal of short-term marketing tactics is obvious. These methods put cash in the bank right away! That’s fantastic. So, why bother doing anything else? The answer is that short-term marketing tactics have two significant shortcomings.

First, short term marketing tactics usually do not enhance your brand or reputation. That means that you are less likely to receive word-of-mouth referrals in the future. Further, your ability to charge higher prices and protect your margins will be threatened if you focus exclusively on short-term tactics.

Ultimately, long-term tactics make your business more profitable. Creating a brand and steadily increasing traffic through content will grow your business even if you pause advertising spending.

To combine short term and long term marketing tactics, we’ll borrow a concept from the investment industry: portfolio management.

Take your marketing resources (e.g., the hours you have available to spend on marketing activities, plus your budget) and allocate that budget between short-term tactics and long-term tactics.

If your business is just getting started, I recommend putting 80% of your effort into short term tactics and 20% into long term tactics. If you are more established, consider adopting a 50/50 allocation between short term and long term tactics.

Build Your Marketing Portfolio:  5 Long-Term Tactics

Two characteristics define long-term marketing tactics. They typically take six months or longer to show results. However, these tactics can pay off long after you stop implementing them.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is the foundation of every marketing mix I create. It relies on presenting original insights, data, and entertainment to help others.

Content marketing gives people a reason to keep visiting your website even if they are not ready to make a purchase right now. Without content, it is much more challenging to grow your long-term website traffic, social media following, or email list.

By the way, you don’t have to create content by yourself. You can enlist the help of experts. Find out more about this strategy in Daniel’s guide: Expert Roundup Creation Guide.

SEO

Closely aligned with content marketing, SEO is also a long-term tactic. There are a handful of cases obtaining fast results in SEO. However, I consider those success stories to be an outlier. Instead, SEO traffic is not permanent, but it can pay results for years after you put the initial effort in.

Your SEO efforts need to be grounded in research. To get started, I recommend using keyword research tools.

Build An Email List

Your business needs an email list. Even as TikTok and other platforms rise, email marketing remains the most robust marketing asset you can develop.

Yes, it takes more effort to create and promote lead magnets. However, it is well worth it. According to Campaign Monitor., “the ROI for email marketing can be as high as 4400%.”

Reviews and Social Proof

Want that “free” word of mouth traffic from other people? That’s a long-term marketing result. You can passively wait for this to happen by putting all of your efforts in creating a remarkable brand.

By the way, don’t be afraid to review products you like on your website. For example, I reviewed an excellent real estate sales book “Why Tech Marketers Should Read “Sell It Like Serhant” Even If You Have No Interest In Real Estate” and explained what it is helpful to marketers in the tech industry.

3.5. Grow A Social Media Following

Growing an audience of followers on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social platforms can be helpful. However, I consider this to be more of a “nice to have” tactic to pursue after you have fully implemented the first four tactics.

Build Your Marketing Portfolio: 4 Short-Term Tactics

These tactics can bring traffic to your offer within 24-48 hours. The first two tactics require a budget, while the following two require more personal effort.

Pay Per Click Advertising

You get traffic when you pay. When you stop paying, the traffic stops immediately. In addition to speed, PPC platforms also give you fantastic analytics. Focus on one of the two major platforms at first: Google Ads or Facebook Ads.

Display Advertising.

You pay to display your ad, and you can receive traffic while the ad is online. You can find these advertising opportunities through the Google Display Network and specialized websites like Buy Sell Ads.

Events (Virtual and Traditional)

Participating in trade shows, conferences, and industry events is one of the best ways to generate leads. If you are looking to develop highly targeted leads in B2B, events are tough to beat.

For example, I attended several dozen Tech Toronto events in 2019-2020 to grow my following and network. You can show up to an event and immediately spark three, five, or more conversations with potential leads.

Resource: Planning to attend virtual events? There is an art to making these events successful. Find out more in my recent article: New normal success strategy: build your connections through virtual events.

Networking

If you already have an extensive network of contacts, you can ask those people to promote your business. For more guidance on this strategy, check out my article Y.

However, networking is not like paying for ads. It would be best to be mindful about asking for too many favours from your contacts.

Bringing It All Together: Choose One Of These Plans

It is common practice in investing to have a variety of assets to meet one’s goals. A person retiring in the next two years might take a conservative approach (e.g., 75% bonds).

In contrast, a younger person might put 80% of their assets in stocks to maximize growth because they can tolerate a higher level of risk.

Building a marketing portfolio from scratch is tough.

So, I’ve simplified it for you by offering you two marketing plans.

Marketing Mix Plan 1: 80% Short Term Marketing Tactics, 20% Long Term Marketing

Marketing Mix Plan 2: 80% Long Term Marketing Tactics, 20% Short Term Marketing

Bonus: Professional Development Time

There’s one critical element to marketing success that we haven’t covered so far. It is your skill as a marketer! To improve your results, it is vital to spend time and resources on improving your skills regularly.

Here are two professional development resources that I recommend:

Develop your copywriting skills

Now, I’m a bit biased here because I came to online marketing from a background as a writer. However, copywriting skills are compelling!

For a basic introduction to copywriting fundamentals, read “How to Write Magnetic Headlines” from Copyblogger. If you’re ready for something more demanding, I recommend CopyHour. In CopyHour, you hand copy successful sales copy daily for 90 days (with a few breaks).

Boost your productivity with software

In August 2020, I started to use Frase for content creation. Earlier this year, I started to use SEMrush for client projects. Make it a goal to test one software product each month so that you can boost your productivity over time.

For content development, I also recommend Grammarly and Frase.