The common particular person sees over 4,000 advertisements every day, will get 121 emails, and is usually flooded with advertising and marketing and gross sales pitches. One-off campaigns and messages simply don’t work in 2024. To chop by way of the noise, you must market in a constant and memorable manner.
And what’s a easy, but neglected, method to attain this and get essentially the most out of your advertising and marketing efforts?
Thematic advertising and marketing.
Themes are precisely what they sound like. They focus your advertising and marketing throughout all channels round one idea, or theme. It may very well be a selected drawback, a characteristic, or an occasion. You may keep on with a theme all through your advertising and marketing actions for as lengthy or as quick as mandatory. It offers a cohesive framework that aligns together with your advertising and marketing technique.
In my profession of driving progress at fast-growing startups and main advertising and marketing groups of as much as 30 folks at Assist Scout and G2 — each acknowledged amongst America’s fastest-growing corporations, I’ve discovered a ton. I’ve discovered that themed campaigns are one of many few constant ways in which work throughout corporations no matter business or measurement.
On this article, we’ll delve into how you can undertake a thematic method to advertising and marketing and what it might unlock for you.
The chaos of promoting
Advertising and marketing groups are continually pulled in one million completely different instructions. At some point you are crafting an e-mail marketing campaign; the subsequent you are planning a webinar. By the top of the week, you are scrambling to place collectively social media posts.
It’s laborious to construct a cohesive model story once you’re leaping from one marketing campaign to the subsequent, every with its remoted focus. This fragmented method not solely drains your sources but additionally dilutes your message.
Add to this the truth of reduce budgets and restricted sources, and you have got a recipe for chaos.
The truth of reduce budgets and restricted sources
Advertising and marketing departments are sometimes the primary to really feel the pinch when budgets are tightened. The strain to do extra with much less can result in hasty selections, rushed campaigns, and a disjointed model message.
And let’s not overlook the inner silos. Even inside advertising and marketing groups, there’s usually a scarcity of cohesion. Content material groups, demand technology, and product entrepreneurs work of their bubbles, not often collaborating on a unified technique. This not solely wastes sources but additionally undermines the potential for impactful, built-in campaigns.
Why themes matter
In any given quarter, you in all probability have emails, advertisements, webinars, outbound campaigns, podcasts, and occasions taking place. These are often handled as one-off campaigns. One-off campaigns can create buzz, however they’re usually short-lived. As soon as the marketing campaign ends, the workforce goes again to brainstorming the subsequent attention-grabber, usually dropping the momentum you simply constructed.
As an alternative, take into account constructing a theme round a month or 1 / 4. It may very well be about maximizing productiveness, guaranteeing information safety, or facilitating distant work. Select a theme that aligns together with your product’s strengths and your viewers’s ache factors.
Get the most well liked advertising and marketing tea from G2.
Sustain with what’s actually taking place in advertising and marketing with the G2 Tea e-newsletter. Subscribe right here
The advantages of themed campaigns
Though themes might not assure success, you acquire effectivity in your advertising and marketing efforts. It ensures that each piece of content material, each marketing campaign, and each interplay contributes to a much bigger image. Right here’s why themes are the key sauce for environment friendly progress:
- Seamless storytelling: As an alternative of remoted campaigns, a themed marketing campaign affords a cohesive narrative. This consistency makes it simpler in your viewers to comply with and interact together with your story.
- Strengthened model positioning: Let’s be sincere: Most individuals received’t bear in mind a message they see as soon as. Within the crowded SaaS house, a constant theme helps reinforce your model, making you extra memorable.
- Optimized sources: Groups can produce content material, instruments, and sources extra effectively when specializing in a theme. You get extra ROI for every advertising and marketing effort as a result of every can construct off the opposite. Your social posts can level to your weblog posts, which provide a extra in-depth dive through a webinar, and so forth.
Methods to implement themes in your advertising and marketing
Implementing themes in your advertising and marketing might be executed in 4 steps.
Step 1: Select a related theme
First, choose a theme that aligns together with your product’s strengths and your viewers’s wants. For instance, in case your product is a venture administration software, you would possibly select themes that maximize productiveness, guarantee information safety, or facilitate distant work. The bottom line is to pick a theme that resonates together with your audience and addresses their ache factors.
Step 2: Plan throughout a number of channels
After getting your theme, plan how you can talk it throughout a number of channels. Create a content material calendar that outlines how the theme shall be expressed in webinars, weblog posts, social media snippets, e-mail campaigns, and different advertising and marketing actions. The aim is to make sure that every bit of content material reinforces the theme and contributes to a cohesive narrative.
Step 3: Create engagement loops
One of many important benefits of thematic advertising and marketing is the power to create engagement loops. For instance, a weblog submit can introduce the theme and supply a hyperlink to a associated webinar. The webinar, in flip, can promote a sequence of social media posts that delve deeper into particular points of the theme. This method retains the viewers engaged and encourages them to work together together with your model throughout completely different platforms.
Step 4: Monitor and modify
As with all advertising and marketing technique, it’s important to watch the efficiency of your thematic campaigns and modify as wanted. Use analytics instruments to trace engagement, conversion charges, and different key metrics. Take note of viewers suggestions and be able to tweak your content material and method primarily based on what works greatest.
Thematic advertising and marketing in motion
So how do you select the fitting theme in your advertising and marketing? There are many methods to go about it and no flawed approaches so long as it aligns together with your product’s strengths and your viewers’s ache factors.
Let’s discover how one can successfully implement thematic advertising and marketing by specializing in three frequent approaches: particular options, focusing on explicit verticals, and selling key advertising and marketing messages.
Give attention to a selected characteristic
Think about you are advertising and marketing a venture administration software with a brand new characteristic for real-time collaboration. For the quarter, you select the theme “Actual-Time Collaboration for Seamless Venture Administration.” Every bit of content material will now revolve round this theme within the following methods.
- Webinars: Host a sequence of webinars demonstrating how real-time collaboration enhances productiveness and streamlines venture workflows.
- Weblog posts: Write articles showcasing case research and success tales of groups which have benefited from the characteristic.
- Social media: Share ideas, infographics, and quick movies highlighting the advantages and greatest practices of real-time collaboration on social media.
- E-mail campaigns: Ship focused emails emphasizing the brand new characteristic to your customers and leads, inviting them to attend your webinars or learn your weblog posts.
Concentrating on a selected vertical
Suppose you need to increase into the healthcare business together with your information safety software program. You select the theme “Securing Affected person Information in Healthcare” for the quarter. Right here’s what you are able to do:
- Webinars: Set up webinars with business consultants discussing the significance of knowledge safety in healthcare and the way your software program may also help.
- Weblog posts: Publish articles on the most recent traits in healthcare information safety, regulatory necessities, and the way your product meets these wants.
- Social media: Share related information, ideas, and success tales from the healthcare business to have interaction together with your audience.
- E-mail campaigns: Craft emails tailor-made to healthcare professionals, highlighting how your information safety options defend affected person data and guarantee compliance.
Selling a selected advertising and marketing message
Let’s say you need to market your distant collaboration software with the message “Empowering Distant Work.” This turns into your theme for the quarter. You possibly can take the next steps in your advertising and marketing marketing campaign:
- Webinars: Host periods on distant work greatest practices, that includes visitor audio system who’re leaders in distant work.
- Weblog posts: Write in regards to the challenges of distant work and the way your software can resolve these points, offering real-life examples and ideas.
- Social media: Run a sequence of posts highlighting options that make distant work simpler and extra productive, together with person testimonials.
- E-mail campaigns: Ship out newsletters and promotional emails specializing in distant work options, providing free trials or reductions to draw new customers.
Select properly!
Thematic advertising and marketing is a robust but underutilized technique that may considerably improve your advertising and marketing efforts. By selecting a related theme and speaking it constantly throughout a number of channels, you possibly can create a cohesive narrative that engages your viewers, reinforces your model positioning, and optimizes your sources.
Earlier than leaping headfirst into one other standalone marketing campaign, take a step again. You possibly can and ought to be telling a extra compelling, longer-lasting story. Ask your self — What’s your theme going into the subsequent quarter?
Keep in mind, it isn’t about reinventing the wheel each single time. It is about driving it in a path that builds momentum, traction, and impression.
